Towards integrating community-based governance of water resources with the statutory frameworks for IWRM : a review of community-based governance of freshwater resources in four southern African countries to inform governance arrangements of communal wetlands
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Date
2007
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Abstract
This research, funded through the Water Research Commission, seeks to address issues regarding natural resource governance arising from field work in communal wetlands in the Sand River Catchment of the north-eastern region of South Africa. Here the emerging confusion over changing roles and responsibilities for natural resources echoes wider concerns over land and natural resource tenure in communal areas. Despite the best intentions of policy reforms and democratization, there appeared to be a ‘muddying of the policy waters’, with various actors claiming authority over the control and management of natural resources. These actors derive their authority either from statutory legislation or from locally-derived rules and norms, a situation referred to as legal pluralism. In the case of ecosystems such as wetlands, which represent an intersection between land and water - each governed by different legislation - the confusion is exacerbated. Furthermore, these systems
occur in communal lands where, in South Africa, a range of controversial statutory reforms
are underway.
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Keywords
WETLANDS, DEMOCRATIZATION, RESOURCES MANAGEMENT, ECOSYSTEMS, FRESHWATER, LAND TENURE, WATER MANAGEMENT, SOUTH AFRICA, NATURAL RESOURCES, SAND RIVER CATCHMENT