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Owners Escape Unharmed: Activation of Institutional Rules in Rivalries between Heterogeneous Water Users
(2004) Aubin, David
"The provision of different goods and services from the same natural common-pool resource increases scarcity and threatens renewability. The behaviour of resource users is regulated by various institutional rules, mainly property rights and public policies. These rules are activated in order to defend their own use against others. How do heterogeneous water users solve their rivalries? Our theoretical framework suggests that a resolution of rivalries comesout of a process of activation and confrontation of rules between competing users. We postulate that an owner activates property rights and a non-owner public policies that point him out as a final beneficiary. We retain here two ideal-typical user confrontations: property rights against property rights and property rights against public policies. We advocate that success in the resolution of the rivalry is subject to a specific kind of local arrangement in each case. If two owners confront, then the rivalry is solved through a bilateral agreement, and if an owner confronts with a final beneficiary, then the State compensates the owner for his loss. We test these two hypotheses on four empirical cases in Belgium and Switzerland. What emerges from the analysis is that an owner never loses in a resolution of a rivalry, or not much at all."
Environmental Cultures of Development and Indigenous Knowledge: The Erosion of Traditional Boundaries in Conserving Wetlands in Rural Zimbabwe
(2004) Sithole, Pinimidzai
"This paper is situated in the intersections between environmental cultures, indigenous knowledge, and development in the conservation of wetlands. One case will be explored to illustrate the continuing importance of complexity, context and contingency in our understanding of the intersections between development and indigeneity in local conservation practices in contemporary Zimbabwe. Indigenous knowledge literature emphasizes how small-scale societies and cultures have lived in harmony with nature and practiced sustainable development. In the process, these societies often have constructed profound knowledge of their environment, which is in danger of being lost and/or appropriated. The assertion of the importance of indigenous knowledge and practices is used in Africa to counter the notions that only the western type of development can bring progress. The focus of this paper is on how and in what ways local populations have articulated their knowledge and perspectives in complex settings in Zimbabwes communal lands in light of the water sector reforms. In addition the paper focuses on how indigenous knowledge has been (and is being used by local communities in Bangira, Murombedzi and Kaondera villages (in their own specific ways) to counter (and/or embrace misplaced ideas and practices in the use and conservation of seasonal wetlands to alter and or adjust their situations in the shadow of the water reform process in Zimbabwe. Finding the complex balances between local knowledge and practices with national, ecological and scientific concerns in an ever- changing hydro-ecological environment will continue to be one of the challenges in sustaining wetlands conservation efforts."
Governing New Mexico's Water: Lessons from the Commons
(2004) Brown, John R.
"New Mexico's diverse Native American and Hispano acequia traditions both inform and complicate the process of crafting institutions for governing the water resources of the state. Before the 20th century, both these cultures (to oversimplify a complex reality) treated their water sources and supplies as commons, governed them at the community level, and made collective decisions about access, uses, and responsibilities of individual users. Near the beginning of the 20th century, the power to decide who had access to a source of water moved to the State Engineer, while determining how water would be used became the province of the individual water right holder, 'hollowing out' the authority of the community to make collective decisions. "In the 21st century, as population pressures collide with physical constraints and management regimes that often fail to protect the rights of senior appropriators, officials are trying to balance conflicting values while introducing greater flexibility and efficiency into procedures to move water from historical to new uses. Water planning processes with strong public participation have raised awareness of issues of institutional design concerning 'active water resource management' -- how much 'market' and how much 'regulation'? "Both collective and autonomous market choices have roles in institutional arrangements that reflect the multiple values of New Mexicans, but in a situation of growing scarcity, collective choices will predominate. Protecting and strengthening mechanisms for collective choice, particularly at the local level, responds to peoples core values, while appropriately structured and regulated markets may allow willing buyers and sellers to transact productive agreements. Negotiation has an important place in a framework for market regulation that accounts for negative externalities of proposed transfers."
Water Management and the Poor: Organizing to (Re)Gain Access to Water in the Nicaraguan Hillsides
(2004) Munk Ravnborg, Helle
"Many rural areas increasingly constitute the arena for increased competition for water, not only between different users within the locality, but also between internal versus external users. In hillside areas, water is important not only for household consumption but also for productive purposes. Even where formal irrigation systems do not exist, the ability to water crops significantly improves peoples livelihoods. Evidence from many parts of the world, however, suggests that the poor are gradually losing their access to water. Based on research conducted in the Nicaraguan hillsides, this paper illustrates the processes through which access to water is lost by some while gained by others as well as some of the issues involved in water management. The paper shows how everyday water management takes place in the context of complex and often conflictive social relations at multiple and often overlapping levels. Combined, these two features make it hard to imagine that efforts to design a single river basin or watershed institution charged with representing and negotiating different interests relating to water management can succeed and become effective. The examples from the Nicaraguan hillsides, however, elude us to a possible alternative. In their attempts to gain and secure access to water, new organizational practices are emerging which transcend the local as well as the static, and increasingly seek to involve and engage district and national authorities in supporting their claims and adopting a stronger, but negotiated, role in regulation and arbitration. Therefore, instead of focusing on the crafting of neatly nested water management institutions, this paper argues in favour of supporting the development of an enabling institutional environment which focuses upon making relevant hydrological assessments widely available; broad-based and inclusive public hearing processes; enhancing the legal capacity, particularly among the poor; and last, but not least upon making dispute resolution mechanisms, such as a water ombudsman, widely available and accessible, also to the poor, to provide help in settling conflicts caused by competing water management claims as well as by conflicting claims of users and water management institutions."
Irrigation and Collective Action: A Study in Method with Reference to the Shiwalik Hills, Haryana
(2004) Kurian, Mathew
"In recent years decentralized development approaches have gained prominence in the agricultural sector. A host of community based watershed management projects have been implemented that encourage community organizations to undertake management of previously government controlled irrigation systems and forests. Community organizations have been given the responsibility of managing water distribution, collection of irrigation service fees and undertaking routine maintenance of irrigation infrastructure. In this context analysis of irrigation management has argued that groups that a rerelatively homogeneous may fare better than heterogeneous groups in facilitating collective action. However, this paper argues that analysis of the influence of group heterogeneity on collective action is complicated because of its multi-dimensional nature and the presence on non-monotonic effects in mechanisms linking heterogeneity and collective outcomes. We emphasize therefore, the importance of context specification in analysis of group heterogeneity through a discussion of elements of a joint management contract in Haryana, identification of key variables with a potential to explain collective action in irrigation management and construction of household endowment and water interest scores to account for the influence of group heterogeneity in facilitating collective action. In the process of applying household endowment and water interest scores we highlight the role of local ecological variation and non- farm employment in influencing collective action. Proper specification of local contextenables us to rely on household endowment and water interest scores to predict conflicts and potential for irrigation service provision and compliance with irrigation service rules."
'Marketing' Environmental Services: Lessons Learned in German Development Cooperation
(2004) Hartmann, Jörg; Petersen, Lorenz
"Along with disenchantment over lacking effectiveness and efficiency of traditional policy instruments in natural resources management comes growing interest in alternative approaches. One of these is Payments for Environmental Services (PES): Economic incentives instead of command and control. The concept is intuitively appealing: by offering payments to private land owners as compensation for providing positive externalities like clean water, the public can change the financial rationale behind land use decisions that would otherwise be based only on private costs and benefits. "The logic behind payments for environmental services is not new. For decades farm subsidies have been justified by real or perceived environmental benefits from agriculture. Development agencies have provided subsidies to farmers for afforestation or similar projects. What is new is the explicit use of the concept of payments for environmental services (PES) in developing countries, particularly in Latin America. The increasing recognition of the environmental functions of forests, and the services their owners provide to the public at the local, national and global level, has led to great expectations. At the same time scarce resources have increased pressure to fine-tune PES for improved efficiency and effectiveness. "In German Development Co-operation, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ) and implemented by both the German Development Bank KfW and GTZ, the German Agency for Technical Co-operation, a number of such programs have been operational in Latin America since the mid-1990s. In this paper, we will be looking at experiences with this programme portfolio in the forest and water sectors and will be discussing a set of issues that seem to be determining success and/or failure in this kind of programme. "Based on our analysis creating win-win situations is not as straightforward as the appealing World Bank definition suggests '...that those who provide environmental services should be compensated for doing so and that those who receive the services should pay for their provision.' (Pagiola and Platais, 2002) 'Double dividends' in terms of environmental benefits combined with poverty reduction as a result of payments for environmental services are not easily achieved. Trade-offs exist and ask for maximum clarity in the hierarchy of objectives. Aiming to further improve the effectiveness of PES and based on the results of our assessment, we will be intensifying the dialogue with partner countries targeting its use more clearly and defining more specifically the role development co- operation should play."
Tenure and Access Rights as Constraints to Community Watershed Development in Orissa, India
(2004) Kumar, Kundan; Kerr, John; Choudhury, Pranab
From introduction: "This paper examines the performance of watershed projects in hilly areas of Orissa, India, characterized by conflicts over land rights primarily between the Forest Department and local tribal communities. The study area is notable for the governments attempted use of mechanisms to reward land users in upper watersheds for adopting perennial vegetation that would provide various environmental services; this approach is virtually unknown in the rest of India. However, the approach has met limited success due to conflicts surrounding the status of Forest Department land and failure to appreciate existing systems of customary land tenure. The paper demonstrates the perverse outcomes that result when project interventions fail to appreciate these issues and discusses some approaches to resolve the problem."
Challenges in Managing Fisheries in the Sao Francisco Watershed of Brazil
(2004) Gutberlet, Jutta; Seixas, Cristiana Simao; Glinfkoi Thé, Ana Paula
"Effective, sustainable governance and adequate management of socially valued, common-pool resource systems have been a major challenge to society on a global scale. With rapid population growth and intensification of resource extraction, the magnitude and number of resulting impacts and conflicts have significantly increased, particularly since the 1970s in developing countries. The present paper will discuss the multifarious situation of resource-user conflicts in the Sao Francisco watershed in central and northeastern Brazil. Here the situation is multi-leveled with this river crossing different ecosystems, various socio-economic systems and several state boundaries. Moreover, government agencies from different levels (federal, state and municipal) and sectors have a stake in this river management. A rapid assessment of main environmental and socio-economic problems related to common-pool resource use, particularly fisheries, has been carried out in June 2003. Through observations, interviews and focus group discussions with representatives from the local Government, NGOs and fishers' associations (Colonia de Pescadores, Associacao de Pescadores), major conflicts and tensions have been mapped out in various communities along the river. Professional, traditional fishers seem to be the most disadvantaged stakeholder group, in the given common-pool resource scenario, because their livelihood directly depends on resource abundance and diversity. With declining fish populations most of the traditional communities nowadays live in poverty and consequently are often in conflict with sport fishers, farmers, cattle ranchers and hydroelectric power plants. The paper analyses the role of major stakeholders and their concerns with respect to resource use. It discusses the possibility of co-management to overcome stakeholder conflicts in the watershed and searches for answers to questions such as: Can fishing accords as co-management arrangements, contribute to effective governance? What can local and regional governments do to promote co-management? What role may international bilateral agreements and international NGOs play in sustaining this resource system? The paper finally concludes with an evaluation of the potential and hindrances regarding co-management in the specific case of the Sao Francisco watershed."
Local Water Management Institutions and the Bulk Intersectoral Water Transfer: A Case Study of the Melamchi Water Transfer Project in Nepal
(2004) Bhattarai, Madhusudan; Pant, Dhruba
"To mitigate drinking water crisis in Kathmandu city, the Government of Nepal has recently initiated Melamchi water transfer project, which will divert water from the Melamchi River to Kathmandu city's water supply network. In the first phase, the project will divert 170,000 cubic meters of water per day (@ 1.97M3/sec), which will be to triple-using the same infrastructure- as city water demand increases in the future. This paper analyzes some of the major local water management related changes brought by the water transfer project, and the changes in local water governance and CPR institutions in the Melamchi basin. Our study showed that traditional informal water management institutions were effective in regulating present water use practices, but the situation will vastly change because of this scale of water transfer decisions, and inequity in bargaining power due to the involvement of organized public sector at one side and dispersed and unorganized marginal waters users and FMIS institutions at the other end. This has made it difficult for the local farmers (users) and institutions to collectively bargain and negotiate with the central water transfer authority for fair share of the project benefits, and/or, due compensation of the losses imposed to them. The process and scale of project compensation for economic losses and equity over resources uses are at the heart of concerns and debates about the Melamchi water transfer decision. The Melamchi project has plan for one time fixed type of compensation package and about one percent of revenue sharing package from the city collected water revenue with the basin of water origin. The main issues here are what forms of compensation packages and water rights structures would emerge in relation to the project activities that are socially acceptable and also ensure equitable distribution of the project benefits between the two water sharing basin-communities. This paper illustrates some of these issues exclusively in the case of Melamchi water transfer project in Nepal, but these issues are equally applicable to wider regions of other developing countries where such rural to urban water transfer decisions are in discussions."
Multi-Stakeholders' Dialogue as an Approach Towards Sustainable Use of Groundwater: Some Experiences in the Palar River Basin, South India
(2004) Janakarajan, Srinivasan
"Due to rapid urbanization and brisk industrialization, there has been growing competing demand for groundwater among various users and sectors. A disturbing feature of this 'developmental process' has been intense pollution and conflicts. In this paper it is argued that groundwater which is regarded as a common pool resource has been subject to over extraction and pollution due to unlimited and unregulated access enjoyed by individuals. This has implications for rural indebtedness, unemployment, poverty, social inequity and conflict in rural India. All available institutional mechanisms have failed to restore order in such stressed river basins. In such a critical situation, multi-stakeholders dialogue (MSD) is seemingly a logical solution to find ways forward. Thus, the MSD process was initiated in the Palar river basin (one of the heavily stressed river basins in southern India) in the year 2002 and the results of this initiative have been quite encouraging. The dialogue process is ongoing but its success very much depends upon the support that it gets from the government."

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