1. PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE WATERSHED MANAGEMENT

Transcription

1 1. PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE WATERSHED MANAGEMENT Ted C. Sheng Department of Natural Resource Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado U.S.A. FOREWORD The term "sustainable" has become an important buzzword today. It stems from the verb "sustain" which may simply means "to keep up". "Sustainable", being an adjective, is used by different people in different fields such as "sustainable yield"; "sustainable agriculture", and "sustainable natural resources". For "sustainable watershed management", we might give a definition as follows: "The flow of benefits from managing soil, water, and other natural resources in a watershed is sustained and shared by upstream and downstream people without degrading their environment and resource base." Or, it could simply be put: "a sustained program in watershed management". REASONS FOR NON-SUSTAINABILITY A general review of the reasons for non-sustainability in watershed management in the past will shed some light on future improvements. From reports of World Bank (1990), FAO (1991) and others (SWCS 1992 and Honadle & Van Sant 1985), and from the author's personal experience in working in developing countries, the major reasons can be summarized as follows: Inconsistent government policy; Poor institutional setup and coordination; Inadequate local organizations and support; Insufficient funding; and Inappropriate or unproven technology. For watershed management work to be sustainable, corrections or improvements should be made to the above mentioned problems. IMPROVEMENTS TOWARD SUSTAINABILITY Adopting a Sustainable Watershed Policy What is a sustainable policy in watershed management? The first important thing any government should do is to make a firm commitment and clearly state in its policy that watershed work is a long-term undertaking and needs long-term investment to obtain lasting

2 benefits. A "Program" approach is much better than a "Project" approach. The latter usually causes non-continuation of work when a project expires. This may actually result in more damage than good, simply because of inadequate maintenance for roads, plantations, and engineering structures. In addition, local people will lose faith in the government and it will be difficult to carry out such work in the future. Secondly, any sustainable watershed policy needs to consider and involve both the people in upstream and in downstream areas. Incentives may be needed to give to the upstream farmers to practice watershed conservation work to protect downstream areas from sediment, pollution, and flood damages. Although the types and criteria of incentives to be given are subject to government's careful study, the justifications are apparent. Farmers in the upstream watersheds are usually poor and they simply have no resources to undertake conservation practices. Also, watershed work may need a long time to produce benefits of which some may occur externally. In addition to incentives, a national policy on watershed management needs to strike a balance between production and protection for benefiting people in both downstream and upstream areas. Emphasizing one and neglecting the other is not a good policy for many developing countries to pursue. Since manpower and resources are usually limited in developing countries, governments, in the process of formulating national policy, need to comprehend the conditions and problems of all watersheds and set priorities for management. Using scientific methods to find conditions and problems of watersheds and incorporating people's needs, a policy based on these findings should withstand time and challenges. The most distracting thing in the past has been the frequent policy changes with the changing of administration, resulting in non-continuation of work. Developing a Capable Institution and Objective Coordination The resources and manpower of a watershed institution, whatever it is called, should be in proportion to its given task and responsibility. More often than not, the task assigned has been overwhelming, when compared to the capability of the responsible institution. Neither the number of staff nor their professional skills can effectively handle the job, causing poor performance. Therefore, a national program should grow as fast as trained people become available. A good example can be learned from Taiwan, where the institution grew from less than two dozen people in the 1950s, to a staff of 460 at present with proper training and the expansion of the watershed and conservation programs. A watershed institution should be a regular or permanent government branch. Any temporary setup in order to attract investment is bound to be short-lived. "Coordination" is a term everyone talks about but seldom acts upon seriously. Only when an agency can fulfil its own responsibility will it be capable of helping others. This is not uncommon in developing countries where resources and manpower are usually limited. Since watershed work is interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral, no single organization can do the work fully and effectively. Coordination becomes a must. In order to obtain effective coordination, special efforts should be made to promote mutual interests among agencies, to specify the details of coordination and responsibilities, to locate resources, and to set up proper mechanisms for working together (Sheng, 1992). In other words, coordination needs to be pursued with specific details and objectives among related agencies, not simply as a general agreement

3 Establishing Local Organizations and Support Except for public lands, much of the watershed work is carried out by farmers and watershed inhabitants on their own plots. For planning, as well as for implementation, local people and the community should be involved. It needs to be very clear at the planning stage that the watershed work is needed by the local communities and that they will be benefited from the program. If the local people believe that they are only doing the work for the government and the benefits are for other people, the program will not be sustained. Establishing local organizations is an essential step towards local participation. The ultimate goal is to transfer managerial activities into the hands of local people. The real challenge facing watershed managers is to establish a local organization, which involves both upstream and downstream people. In developing countries, these two groups may be quite different in education, perception, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The upstream people may emphasize income generation and production functions of a watershed program, while the downstream people may stress environmental protection and disaster prevention. These differences and conflicts need to be strategically resolved. Several countries in Asia, however, have already demonstrated how this can be done and established many local organizations. For instance, India's "Panchayats" and watershed associations have been organized quite successfully (Rao, 1986; and Singh, 1990). Thailand's "Forest Villages" and the "Tree Farmers' Associations" of the Philippines are involved in active watershed management work. Many NGOs have also been involved and helped to organize local communities. Providing Sufficient and Continued Funding Funding is one of the constraints of any sustainable watershed program. As stated previously, upstream farmers have limited resources to carry out conservation and protection work, from which the majority of benefits may occur to the next generation or to downstream areas. Incentives or compensation may be necessary, yet the government's regular budget is often limited. On the other hand, large sums of government direct investments are also needed to protect forest, stream, roads, and severely eroded areas on national or public lands. Initial funding can often be obtained from international donor organizations, foundations, and other sources. After that, situations of reduced funding or even "no funding" are not uncommon in many instances. As previously mentioned, watershed programs are long-term in nature because new developments, problems, and disasters may occur from time to time which need to be addressed or managed. Even the maintenance of roads, forest plantations, and soil conservation structures needs an assurance of substantial and continued funding. Obtaining sufficient and continuous flows offunds is crucial to any watershed program. How this can be solved is a "Six Million Dollar Question". Over the years, the author has tried hard to make the following recommendations to many countries where he has worked: Allocate a percentage of the funds of the major construction projects - such as highways, reservoirs, diversion dams, and housing development - in watersheds, for slope stabilization and watershed protection purposes. The justification is that whenever and wherever a natural balance is upset, action for recovery is necessary. A small cess can be collected from export crops, which are grown or produced from watershed slopes and the money so collected can be used for erosion control

4 and soil conservation purposes. The justification is that countries should not export precious topsoil with crops. A fee can be added to the utility bills of the downstream area where domestic water, irrigation water, or electric power is produced or provided by the watershed above. The justification is that the downstream beneficiaries should assume a portion of the watershed protection cost. Voluntary contributions from the downstream community and membership fees of local organizations can also be helpful in sustaining funding. Many of these recommendations require formal government policy support and legislation. Planning for Sustainable Land Use From the technological side, planning for "sustainable land use" is probably the first important step to be taken. People have used the term "proper land use" which implies both physical and economical aspects and sometimes cause confusion. "Sustainable land use" seems to narrow down the meaning to: "use of the land and management of the soils in such a way that quality and productivity will not be impaired or degraded". Each piece of land has its capability or suitability and during the early planning stage, managers should pursue an overall classification work in the watershed. Use of land beyond its capability, which would cause rapid destruction, should be discouraged; while use of land according to or within its capability should be encouraged. Therefore, land capability classification or land suitability classification is a basic task for sustainable watershed management. It is not uncommon that much of the watershed work carried out in the field is irrespective ofland capabilities, or using criteria unfit for the local environment and national conditions. An example of the former is applying soil conservation practices on very steep slopes, which should only be suited for growing trees, yet such practices would not stop the on-going severe erosion. Examples of the latter are: Taiwan, Jamaica, and St. Lucia, classified almost all their hill slopes into "Class 7" many years ago under USDA criteria. As we know "Class 7" land should be prohibited from cultivation, however, people were making a living on it. With proper treatment, such as bench terracing and hillside ditching, many of these slopes can be used to produce food crops and fruits in a sustainable manner. Such dilemmas can be avoided by using practical classification criteria or schemes. For hilly and heavily populated watersheds, there is a pressing need for a simple and practical classification scheme. Taiwan has used new criteria for reclassifying its sloping lands since the 1960s. This criteria has been further modified and quantified by the author and been introduced and tried in hilly watersheds of many countries (Sheng, 1972; and FAO, 1990). Now, a computerized expert system has also been developed (Sheng, 1997). After obtaining a land capability map and a present land use map, a "land misuse" map or land use adjustment map can be produced using simple GIS techniques. This map can serve as a guide for the sustainable use of all lands in a watershed. Applying Proper Watershed Management Techniques Improper watershed work will not be sustainable. Yet, the question is what does proper mean? People tend to think that simple techniques and/or low cost practices are proper for farmers to adopt and therefore they are sustainable. They emphasize too much on these

5 aspects and neglect the "effectiveness" of these practices. Are low cost or simple practices always effective (i.e. for erosion control)? Low cost yet ineffective work can still be a big waste. The author has seen grass barriers planted on slopes in a small watershed under humid climate conditions, yet the erosion was still rampant. People's efforts in a decade and thousand kilometers of barriers were genuinely wasted. Watershed techniques involve planting trees and grasses, building terraces and checkdams, improving soils and productivity, and harnessing runoff and/or harvesting water, among others. In addition to techniques of education and extension, the above mentioned land treatments will have to be properly planned, designed, and introduced to the local communities with an optimal mix for them to choose. It is a real challenge to all of us, as watershed managers, to be open-minded in selecting, between cost and effectiveness, the appropriate techniques. Usually a series of such technology needs to be introduced to farmers for them to adopt according to their interests and resources. Applied research or adoption experiments are often needed to refine and improve various techniques. Small demonstrations or pilot plots on public and private lands are also needed for training, for data collection and for testing the response of the local community. PLANNING MECHANISMS AND APPROACHES Last, but not least important, is to set up appropriate mechanisms for planning sustainable watershed management. At the national level, a ministry responsible for economic planning or a technical ministry (agriculture, forestry, or environment) should be the leading agency. This ministry should organize a permanent planning committee for watershed management involving other related ministries and interest groups. Their main duties should be formulating policy, setting guidelines, seeking funding, and supervising progress of work. At the provincial level, a similar committee should be organized with appropriate duties. Its main function is to coordinate the planning work between the local and central government. For each watershed or a group of watersheds, a local planning committee needs to be established involving government agencies, local organizations, NGOs, and women and youth groups for planning and for future implementation. Such a committee could be organized progressively in a nation when watersheds are selected for management. For these committees to be effective, only essential agencies/groups should be included. Involving too many participants in a committee will create difficulties, even to call a meeting. Under the local committee, survey and planning teams composed of various agencies/groups should be organized to do the work and report the progress and results to the committee. Experience shows that joint planning and decentralized implementations is an appropriate principle to observe for managing watersheds in developing countries (Sheng, 1986; F AO, 1990). For planning, manpower and resources need to be pooled together, while for implementation, each party or agency should carry out its own assigned duty. The key consideration is to respect each party's right, jurisdiction, and responsibility and not to overstep the other's. Only when each of them realizes there is a role to play under an overall watershed plan, will the work be carried out more coordinately, efficiently, and sustainably

6 CONCLUSIONS For watershed work to be sustainable, the government needs a firm policy commitment, a proper setup of institution and coordination, and continuous funding sources. At the local level, community support is a must. To obtain proper support, people in the upstream and downstream watershed areas need to be well organized and involved in planning and future implementation. Incentives are usually needed for the less privileged to adopt conservation measures. Joint planning and decentralized implementation is a sound principle to observe. Land capability and land use planning is the first step towards the sustainable use of watershed resources. Any watershed treatment introduced should be cost effective and proven through demonstration or research. REFERENCES F AO, Watershed Survey and Planning, Conservation Guide 13/6, Rome , A Study of the Reasons for Success or Failure of Soil Conservation Projects, FAO Soils Bulletin 64, Rome. Honadle, G., and J. VanSant, Implementation for Sustainability: Lessons from Integrated Rural Development, Kumarian Press, Connecticut. Rao, Y. S., Some Socio-Economic and Institutional Aspects of Forestland Use, in Land Use, Watersheds, and Planning in the Asia-Pacific Region, F AO PARA Report 1986/3, Bangkok. Sheng, Ted C., "A Treatment-Oriented Land Capability Classification Scheme: For Hilly Marginal Lands in the Humid Tropics", paper presented to the Latin American Watershed Management Seminar, FAO TA 3112 Report, Rome , "Watershed Management Planning: Practical Approaches", in FAO Conservation Guide 14: Strategies, Approaches, and Systems in Integrated Watershed Management, Rome , "Interagency Coordination in Watershed Conservation", in Arsyad et.al. (ed.) Conservation Policies for Sustainable Hills/ope Farming, SWCS, Ankeny, Iowa , "Terrace Systems Design and Application Using Computers", paper presented to the International Symposium on Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming, Xi'an, China, September. Singh, A, "Enlisting People's Participation in Soil and Water Conservation Programs: Lessons oflndia's Experience", in proceedings oflntemational Symposium on Water Erosion, Sedimentation and Resource Conservation, 9-13 October, Dehradun, India

7 SWCS, Conservation Polices for Sustainable Hills/ope Farming, Arsyad, et.al., ed., Ankeny, Iowa. World Bank, Watershed Development in Asia, Doolete and Magrath ed., Washington, D.C