The politics of negotiation and implementation: a reciprocal water access agreement in the Himalayan foothills, India

Ecology and Society

Chetan Agarwal¹  William M. Adams²  Eszter K. Kovacs²  Bhaskar Vira²  Chetan Kumar³  Robert A. Hope⁴ 

[1] Center for Ecology Development and Research,India;Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, UK;Global Forest and Climate Change Program, IUCN, Washington, D.C., USA;School of Geography and Environment and Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford University,UK;

关键词: India;    negotiations;    payments for ecosystem services;    water management;   

DOI  :  10.5751/ES-08462-210237

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In this paper, we examine the on-the-ground realities of upstream-downstream negotiations and transactions over ecosystem services. We explore the engagement, negotiation, implementation, and postimplementation phases of a "reciprocal water access" (RWA) agreement between village communities and municipal water users at Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India. We aim to highlight how external actors drove the payments for ecosystem services agenda through a series of facilitation and research engagements, which were pivotal to the RWA's adoption, and how the agreement fared once external agents withdrew. In the postimplementation period, the RWA agreement continues to be upheld by upstream communities amidst evolving, competing land-use changes and claims. The introduction of cash payments for environmental services for forest-water relationships has given rise to multifaceted difficulties for the upstream hamlets, which has impeded the functionality of their forest management committee. Upstream communities' formal rights and abilities to control and manage their resources are dynamic and need strengthening and assurance; these developments result in fluctuating transaction and opportunity costs not originally envisaged by the RWA agreement. The paper demonstrates the importance of an explicit understanding of the local politics of negotiation and implementation to determine the effectiveness of compensation-based mechanisms for the supply of ecosystem services.

【 授权许可】

Unknown