Social management in Guardaña watershed A case study of a pilot pedagogical watershed in Bolivia
MSc thesis by Sonia Natalia Vásquez Díaz
October 2015
Soil Physics and
Land Management Group
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Social management in Guardaña watershed: a case study of a pilot pedagogical watershed in Bolivia
Master thesis Soil Physics and Land Management Group submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Science in International Land and Water Management at Wageningen University, the Netherlands
Study program: MSc International Land and Water Management
Student registration number: 851215852110
LDD 80336
Supervisors: WU Supervisor: Aad Kessler Montpellier SupAgro Supervisor: Thierry Ruf Agris Mundus Supervisor: Didier Pillot
Examinator: Coen Ritsema
Date: 30/10/2015
Soil Physics and Land Management Group, Wageningen University
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Abstract
The Bolivian Ministry of Environment and Water, concerned for soil and water problems in the country, created the National River Basin Plan (PNC in its Spanish acronym) as a tool to implement its own approach for water management, known as Social River Basin Management. As it considers river basin as the basic management level and local capacity building as a priority, the Pedagogical Watershed Program is being implemented through pilot projects. This study was carried out in Guardaña, one of the six Pedagogical Pilot Watersheds located in Oruro Department between 3810 and 4722 meters above sea level. A case study was conducted in a four-month field work in order to understand the natural and socioeconomic dynamics as well as how the PNC watershed approach has been implemented. These two elements are combined to propose a strategy for enhancing integrated management in Guardaña.
On the one hand, Guardaña has a context of strong differences in upper and lower zones; land degradation evidenced by erosion in the upper part and water pressure in the lower part led by agriculture. SWC practices have been implemented with different levels of success, being water harvesting the most recognized and adopted by farmers. On the other hand, Guardaña has developed a watershed concept with important specificities in three components discussed in river basin approach implementation: boundary definition, watershed management organization and scale issues. Based on the findings, a strategy for Guardaña watershed social management is proposed with the next components: 1) Promote motivation and capacity building for up- scaling; 2) Develop the Guardaña Watershed Management Plan, 3) Articulate PNC programs.
Resumen
El Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Agua del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, preocupado por los problemas del suelo y del agua en el país, creó el Plan Nacional de Cuencas (PNC) como una herramienta para aplicar su propio enfoque de gestión del agua, conocida como Gestión Social de Cuencas Hidrográficas. Considerando la cuenca hidrográfica como el nivel básico de gestión y la creación de capacidades locales como una prioridad, el Programa Intercultural de Cuencas Pedagógicas está siendo implementado a través de proyectos piloto. Este estudio se llevó a cabo en Guardaña, una de las seis cuencas pedagógicas piloto ubicada en el Departamento de Oruro entre los 3810 y 4722 metros sobre el nivel del mar. Un estudio de caso se llevó a cabo a través de trabajo de campo durante cuatro meses con el fin de entender por una parte, las dinámicas naturales y socioeconómicas en Guardaña, y por otra parte la implementación del enfoque de cuenca del PNC. Estos dos elementos se combinan para proponer una estrategia para el mejoramiento de la gestión integrada de la cuenca Guardaña.
Por un lado, Guardaña tiene un contexto de fuertes diferencias entre la zona alta y baja; se evidencia degradación de suelos por erosión en la parte alta y fuertes presiones en el manejo del agua en la parte baja debido a la agricultura. Se han implementado prácticas de conservación de suelo y agua con distintos niveles de éxito, siendo la cosecha de agua la más reconocida y adoptada por los agricultores. Por otro lado, Guardaña ha desarrollado un concepto de cuenca con importantes especificidades en tres componentes discutidos actualmente en la aplicación del enfoque de cuencas hidrográficas: delimitación, organismos de gestión de cuencas hidrográficas y aspectos de escala. Con base en los resultados, se propone una estrategia para la gestión social de la cuenca Guardaña con los siguientes componentes: 1) Promover la motivación y el desarrollo de capacidades para el escalamiento; 2) Desarrollar el Plan de Manejo de la Cuenca Guardaña, 3) Articular y ajustar los programas del PNC.
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Table of Content
Abstract ...... 3 Resumen ...... 3 Table of Content ...... 4 Glossary...... 7 Preface ...... 8 Chapter 1: Introduction and background ...... 9 Introduction ...... 9 Background ...... 9 Study area location ...... 9 Water resources management in Bolivia ...... 11 National River Basin Plan - PNC ...... 11 Guardaña Pedagogical Watershed ...... 12 Research questions ...... 13 Research Methodology ...... 13 Chapter 2: What is “Guardaña watershed”? ...... 15 Constructing the “watershed” concept ...... 15 MIC project (2008 - 2012) ...... 16 The Guardaña Pedagogical Watershed project (CPG in Spanish) (2014 – 2016) ...... 17 Differences between concepts ...... 18 Conclusions ...... 21 Chapter 3: Current soil and water management in Guardaña...... 22 Dynamics...... 22 Zoning ...... 22 Distribution dynamics ...... 23 Main problems associated to land and water management in Guardaña ...... 25 Implemented strategies: Soil and Water Conservation practices ...... 27 Water management: Atajados ...... 27 Cross slope barriers: slow-forming terraces ...... 28 Alluvial bank terraces ...... 29 River bank protection: Gabions and salicaceae plantation ...... 30 Forest management: Forestation ...... 30 Cropping management: Aynokas ...... 31 Grazing land management: mating pens (Ark’ana Cancha) ...... 31 Water Management: drinking water and irrigation ...... 32 Drinking water ...... 33 Watering livestock...... 33
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Water for Irrigation ...... 34 Integrated Farm Management ...... 36 Spiritual aspects and traditions in natural resources conservation ...... 36 Conclusions ...... 37 Chapter 4: Watershed Management Organization: Organismo de Gestión de Cuenca “OGC” Guardaña and its implication in watershed management ...... 39 Characterising Guardaña’s OGC ...... 39 Structure ...... 39 Operationalization of OGC structure ...... 41 OGC’ role in watershed management through CPG project ...... 43 Planning ...... 43 Projects formulation ...... 45 Integrated Watershed Management Practices ...... 45 Capacity building ...... 45 Research ...... 46 Inter-Institutional Cooperation and Recognition ...... 46 Systematization and dissemination ...... 47 What must be the role of OGC in watershed management? ...... 47 Conclusions ...... 48 Chapter 5: Designing a strategy for integrated and social land and water management in Guardaña ...... 50 1. Promote intrinsic motivation and capacity building ...... 52 2. Guardaña Watershed Management Plan ...... 54 Principles ...... 54 Components ...... 55 3. Adjustments and articulation of PNC programs ...... 57 Chapter 6: Conclusions ...... 58 Conclusions ...... 58 References ...... 60 Interviews ...... 63 ANNEXS...... 64 Annex 1. Municipality of Soracachi – Delimitation in cantons and communities ...... 64 Annex 2. Operationalization of IWRM concept in PNC approach ...... 65 Annex 3. Delimitation of Guardaña watershed according to Ministry of Environment and Water ...... 66 Annex 4. Composition of Centrals and Communities in Guardaña ...... 67 Annex 5. Atajados located in Mojon Pampa community...... 67 Annex 6. Stakeholders identification / Venn diagram ...... 68
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List of Figures Figure 1 Study area location...... 10 Figure 2 Differences between delimitation of Guardaña watershed ...... 19 Figure 3 Typical vegetation in the upper part of Guardaña. Forage production in pens ...... 22 Figure 4 Middle and lower zones in Guardaña ...... 23 Figure 5 Location of communities within the Guardaña watershed...... 24 Figure 6. Land Degradation ...... 25 Figure 7 Sedimentation and bankriver degradation. Soil compaction and salinization ...... 26 Figure 8 a) Atajado; b) Stone embankment; c) Stone barrier to prevent sediments...... 27 Figure 9 Slow-formation terraces in Molle Pongo ...... 29 Figure 10 Alluvial bank terraces conformed by sediments movement and complemented by hand work and machinery ...... 30 Figure 11 River bank protection with gabions and salicaceae plantation...... 30 Figure 12 Forestation experiences...... 31 Figure 13 Irrigation technique in “comb or plank” used in Guardaña ...... 35 Figure 14 Organizational Structure of Guardaña’s OGC ...... 39 Figure 15 Graphic representation of Guardaña and its dimensions and components for integrated management ...... 51
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Glossary
CEP (Constitución del Estado Plurinacional): Constitution of the Plurinational State
CPG (Cuenca Pedagógica Guardaña): Guardaña Pedagogical Watershed
GWP: Global Water Partnership
IRBM: Integrated River Basin Management
IWRM: Integrated Water Resources Management
MMAyA (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Agua)
MIC (Manejo Integral de Cuencas): Integrated River Basin Management
OGC (Organismo de Gestión de Cuenca): Watershed Management Organization
PNC (Plan Nacional de Cuencas): National River Basin Plan
S&C: Soil and Water Conservation
VRHR (Viceministerio de Recursos Hídricos y Riego)
Clarification: I decided to use the English terms from the definition given by Molle, 2009: river basins are the geographic area contained within the watershed limits of a system of streams and rivers converging toward the same terminus, generally the sea or sometimes an inland water body. Tributary sub-basins or basins more limited in size (typically from tens of square kilometers to 1000 square kilometers) are often called watersheds (in American English), while catchment is frequently used in British English as a synonym for river basins, watershed being more narrowly defined as the line separating two river basins. In order to be clear for Spanish translation, I take the term watershed when talking about Guardaña (less than 1000 km2) and the perception of “cuenca” concept, and also for referring to the line dividing a river basin (línea divisoria de aguas in Spanish). River basin and catchment are used for the geographic area contained within the watershed limits of a system of streams and rivers converging toward the same terminus (cuenca hidrográfica in Spanish).
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Preface
The Bolivian Ministry of Environment and Water through National River Basin Plan (PNC in its Spanish acronym) has been working in the implementation of its own approach for water management, known as Social Watershed Management. As it considers watershed as basic management level, pilot watersheds have been selected to apply different programs aiming PNC approach application and analysis of prospects and difficulties on the same issue. This research was carried out in Guardaña, one of the six pilot watersheds, aiming to identify which aspects are crucial at this moment of the process to address integrated land and water management at watershed level based on the PNC approach and the current dynamics and advances.
Therefore, the present document is organized through six chapters:
The first chapter introduces the reader to the topic of social and integrated watershed management (IWM) in Bolivia, as well as to the study area and the research itself. Hence, it presents an introduction, background, research questions and research methodology. It also shows the main characteristics of the PNC approach from the Ministry of Environment and Water of Bolivia.
The second chapter seeks to understand the watershed concept that exists in Guardaña; thus, an analysis on how the current watershed definition has taken shape over time is carried out also to study the factors involved on that construction process. Besides, the differences between social and hydrological watershed and political-administrative division are analysed in order to discuss about the watershed as the unit for planning and natural resources management. This chapter is needed to understand territorial boundaries for the biophysical description in Chapter 3.
To propose strategies for natural resources management at watershed level, it is required to understand the biophysical and socioeconomic characteristics and dynamics. That is why the third chapter describes the main aspects of soil and water resources and conservation practices. Based on the main components of the PNC, IWRM and Social Capital approaches, management mechanisms and practices used especially at community level are studied in order to see the current state and perspectives.
One of the main challenges for integrated river basin management is the institutional component: the creation of river basin management bodies (RBMB). The objective of chapter 4 is to analyse the watershed management organization created in Guardaña (OGC) on how it is composed, its performance, recognition and relationships at different scales and perspectives for the future; all this, based on the current situation and academic discussions on RBMB. Since OGC is in practice the one in charge of implementing the CPG activities, the next part of this chapter is going to describe the roles that OGC is taking through CPG project for watershed management. This section is based on literature review as well as participating in OGC meetings, having talks with members and interviews: that information was triangulated to obtain the following description.
Based on the previous chapters, the fifth one explores a set of alternatives in three aspects: promote motivation and capacity building within the grassroots, construction of Guardaña Watershed Management Plan and adjustments in PNC programs, all these aiming for integrated and social management of land and water resources in Guardaña. Finally, last chapter presents the main conclusions of this research.
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Chapter 1: Introduction and background This first chapter pretends to introduce the reader to the topic of social and integrated watershed management (IWM) in Bolivia, as well as to the study area. Hence, it presents an introduction, background, research questions and research methodology. It also shows the main characteristics of the PNC approach. Introduction According to the Constitution of the Plurinational State of Bolivia (CEP) and the Law of Mother Earth Rights, the Plurinational State of Bolivia has the obligation to develop public policies and actions to ensure the fundamental right to water and access under the principles of complementarity, equity, sustainability, among others. Consequently, river basin was adopted as the basic unit of water management and the National River Basin Plan (PNC) was created in 2007 aiming to promote social and community water management and generate capacities for management among stakeholders through participatory processes. These objectives are framed in PNC socio-technical approach to water management, which incorporates elements of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and Integrated Watershed Management (ICM) adapted in order to encourage a participatory model. PNC approach seeks to integrate natural, socio-economic, cultural and institutional relationships as well as harmonize them with traditional management mechanisms and local knowledge, as a constitutional mandate.
During the implementation of the PNC, projects on integrated river basin management have been developed with special focus in soil and water conservation. In that process, a need for training of different actors was identified as a priority to ensure their effective participation and integration. So, the Pedagogical Watershed Intercultural Program was conceived in 2010 and is being implemented in six pilot watersheds in the country. These "schools of social and community water management" seek to contribute to the development and strengthening of local capacities through the gathering of knowledge and practices both traditional and scientific; in turn, it aims to bring together stakeholders around the construction and implementation of mechanisms for watershed management under the principles of the CEP of Bolivia.
In the department of Oruro, Guardaña watershed is located within the limits of the municipality of Soracachi; it has been a scenario for implementation of the Integrated Watershed Management Project and Guardaña Pedagogical Watershed (CPG) Program. As the PNC indicates, these programs seek to create IWRM-IRBM plans at the basin level, which involves knowing the watershed vision that currently exists and its consolidation process, while required to understand the dynamics and mechanisms of natural resources management in Guardaña as a basis to build social alternatives Guardaña basin management.
In that context, this study was conducted at the Guardaña Pedagogical Watershed, with the aim of proposing a strategy that can lead to integrated watershed management, based on the implementation process of watershed approach and the dynamics from the communities. It is to say, it is a double direction analysis seeking for closing a gap. Background
Study area location This study was carried out in the western part of Bolivia in the department of Oruro, whose name derives from the Urus that is the oldest ancient civilization in the Bolivian Andes; and it is precisely Urus civilization an important object of study and anthropologic appreciation in the town of “Paria con su Capital Soracachi” where Guardaña watershed, our object of study, is located. Oruro department is divided in 16 provinces which are further subdivided into municipalities, cantons, centrals and communities: Soracachi is part of the Cercado province in the northeast of Oruro and the Poopó Lake. This young municipality of Soracachi was created in 2002 and it is composed by 7 cantons: Paria, Soracachi, Huayña Pasto Grande, Lequepalca, Iruma, 9 de Abril y Teniente Bullian (Soracachi, 2011) (Annex 1). Guardaña watershed is
9 located in the Paria canton. The issue of centrals and communities is going to be addressed in the next chapter.
In general terms, Oruro has natural and climatic limitations for agriculture development such as droughts, freezes and physical conditions like salinity; it is a region with strong ancestral cultural roots at risk of depopulation and faces a low level of human development with high incidence of poverty. Even though Oruro is recognized for mining industry, it has not achieved poverty alleviation; instead, there are various problems aggravated by human activities as pollution, erosion, salinization, deforestation, etc. (Gobernación de Oruro, 2008).
Soracachi is situated between 3710 and 4830 meters above sea level. Three zones are identified: the highest lands (mainly located at the northeast and south) are considered as cordillera with stony soils and native grasslands for camelid production; foothills (situated at the centre and southeast) has more fertile soils, water springs and rivers and therefore there is more agricultural and livestock activity and human settlements; the plain zone (west) receives the main rivers of this town, Paria and Soracachi, with stony and poorly drained soils which are dedicated mainly to livestock production and forages (Soracachi, 2011).
The Paria canton, where Guardaña is located, corresponds to the central and southeast part of Soracachi (limits with Cochabamba) and it mainly has characteristics of cordillera and foothills. Then, land use is mainly agriculture and livestock and consequently economic incomes come from horticulture (onions, carrots and fava bean), that are commercialized in Oruro, Cochabamba, La Paz, Santa Cruz, as well as lama and sheep production.
Figure 1 Study area location. Source: Soracachi, 2011
From the capital of the Oruro department, there is access to the study area through the road leading to Cochabamba, turning in the 11 km to the east, after Capachos road toll to take an unpaved path, known as “the road to Guardaña”. On this way, at a distance of 7 km is located the first community in the basin in the lower area, Ventillita, at coordinates 17°53'3.57"S y
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66°57'44.34"W; from that point, there is access to all the other communities in the basin to the upper area through the same route, which leads to the department of Cochabamba.
Although there is only one climatologic station in Soracachi, MMAyA (2014b) estimated an annual rainfall average of 350 – 430 mm from near stations; however, 87% of the rainfall is concentrated in the months of December to March, leading to a dry period from April to November. The temperature in this area is cold with sudden changes between day and night, with annual average of 12.7°C and minimum of -6.2°C in June - August period and maximum of 26°C during December - February. Solar radiation is high due to the location in the north of the Tropic of Capricorn and evapotranspiration rates are between 96 – 101 mm/year.
Other important characteristics are going to be described in the third chapter after understanding the definition of Guardaña watershed.
Water resources management in Bolivia Bolivia is the only Andean country that has no outlet to the sea; at the same time, this country has strong contrasts in terms of water resources distribution within Bolivia. While the lower basin of the Amazon has abundant rainfall and water discharges during most of the year, in the Altiplano and inter-Andean valleys there are large variations in water availability during the year, alternating situations of shortages and water excess (MMAyA, 2012). Similarly, the Andean and sub-Andean region present the most notorious land degradation processes: erosion of different types and grades particularly affect areas of mountain range, while drainage and flooding problems are present in the lowlands.
Moreover, Bolivia is going through an alternative political process from 2006 with the government of Evo Morales towards socialism, the first indigenous president in Bolivia; as part of its proposal for transformation, this government offers opportunities for participation in decision-making, control and management of natural resources to indigenous and native communities (Ruiz & Gentes, 2008). Consequently, a new Constitution was approved in 2009 and Bolivia began to be called “the Plurinational State of Bolivia”.
The new Bolivian Constitution (Constitución del Estado Plurinacional – CEP) states that water is a fundamental right, access to water and sanitation are human rights and cannot be privatized or concessioned; it also defines the principles under which the use and access to water will be promoted: solidarity, complementarity, reciprocity, equity, diversity and sustainability. The CEP also establishes the priority use of water for life and the responsibility of the State to manage, regulate, protect and plan the appropriate and sustainable use of water resources, with social participation, recognition of uses and customs of the communities (CEP, 2009). In one of the articles, the CEP makes explicit the duty of the State to plan watersheds for irrigation, food security and basic services; this means that watershed is selected as the unit for planning within the national policy and therefore, a National River Basin Plan (PNC) was created as a policy instrument for water management.
National River Basin Plan - PNC The National River Basin Plan seeks to develop a new “water culture” to generate experiences, projects, instruments for water resources management in Bolivia and thereby to tackle the problems as soil degradation and erosion, flooding, pollution, drought in an integrated way. PNC aims to “propel IWRM and IWM in Bolivia under modalities of participation and self- management, from the perspective of cultures and systems of local life, as support of sustainable human and environmental development, in a context of vulnerability to natural disasters and climate change”1.
In order to achieve its objectives, the Vice-Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation through the National River Basin Plan has developed its own framework for water management, which
1 MMAyA, 2008
11 adjusted and adopted approaches on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) and other related concepts. More than a fixed plan, this approach is considered as a dynamic process and it is under construction from the validation of its application in the field.
The central point of PNC approach is of course, the river basin, which is described as the unit for planning and managing the natural and hydric resources by relating public and social management. It is also seen as a place for IWRM and IRBM development, prioritizing human use, agricultural production, flora and fauna needs and other social uses, productive and economic. From a social point of view, river basin is also described as the space for life and cultural expression of population, where water for the Mother Earth is taken into account (MMAyA, 2014).
As main concept, the PNC approach recognizes the international definition of IWRM as “a process which promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in order to maximise economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems”2. However, this concept brings other elements such as water markets and prices that are left out in PNC approach due to the current political context; in its place, it proposes water as a human right instead of water privatization and water management as the customs of the communities rather than the application of measures of economic efficiency (Quiroz, 2014). Thus, IWRM is seen as a way to achieve a balance between three important strategic objectives: efficiency, to ensure that water resources can cover most of the needs; equity in the allocation of water resources and services through different economic and social groups; and environmental sustainability to protect the basic water resources and associated ecosystems (MMAyA, 2014). IWRM in PNC approach is operationalized through the following central aspects and variables, which can be seen in the Annex 2.
As second concept, IRBM in PNC approach is seen as a set of actions towards the sustainable use of natural resources of a watershed. It is especially focused in the elements related to the water cycle such as: climate, geology, topography, soils, vegetation, and its conservation. Thus, PNC approach combines these two concepts considering IRBM as the technical practices for natural resources management in a watershed and IWRM as the social and institutional aspects of water management and administration. Like that, PNC is defined as a socio-technical approach.
PNC has defined a multiyear program through seven components to implement the integrated watershed management approach: (1) Promotion and development of River Basin Master Plans; (2) Implementation of IWRM-IRBM projects; (3) Hydrological risk management and climate change; (4) Management of water quality; (5) Implementation of Pedagogical Watersheds; (6) Management of knowledge and information about water resources and watersheds; (7) Institutional development and capacity building for IWRM and IRBM. This plan is addressed with a multi-scalar approach (MMAyA, 2014).
The second and fifth components of this PNC plan have been implemented in Guardaña watershed. On the one hand, the Integrated River Basin Management project was executed between 2008 and 2011 aiming primarily to implement soil conservation practices with participatory methodologies and started promoting watershed organization. On the other hand, the Guardaña Pedagogical Watershed project is currently working with the objective of developing capacities for social watershed management.
Guardaña Pedagogical Watershed The Pedagogical Watershed Intercultural Program is an innovative instrument created to build management capacities in IWRM and IRBM among communal and municipal authorities and
2 GWP, 2000
12 leaders, as well as professionals (public officials, academics, technicians, etc.) related to the management of watershed resources. By putting in place these “Schools for Social and Community Water Management” in different watersheds, teaching-learning and participatory action research are generated in order to integrate local and academic knowledge to develop strategies and techniques for integrated management of watersheds (MMAyA, 2013).
The Pedagogical Watershed Program is operationalized through specific projects in identified basins, which are executed by facilitating institutions. A Watershed Management Organism is created, as well as an Integrated Management Plan of the watershed. The current program considers a horizon of five years (2013-2017) divided into two phases, each of two and a half years. This is how Guardaña is one out of six pilot watersheds in the country from this program, which have been selected mostly due to the land degradation in the Andean region of Bolivia.
Since late 2013, the Technical University of Oruro has been working in Guardaña as facilitating institution for the Pedagogical Watershed project, which carries out a set of activities in different working lines aiming to implement the PNC approach for watershed management through Pedagogical Watershed program methods. In that context, PNC through its programs seeks to find models for social and integrated land and water management at watershed scale to be replicated in other watersheds. For this objective, the Vice-Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation has identified that Guardaña still has a gap between local and watershed level, therefore a research was demanded. Hence, I proposed a study based on two components: on one side, analyzing the process of watershed definition and implementation of PNC approach for social watershed management, and, on the other side, understanding the current dynamics in land and water management at community level. Both components combined are aiming to create a complete panorama of Guardaña with its main elements, actors, processes having impact in watershed management, in order to generate a strategy that can lead to social management of Guardaña. Research questions Which components, stakeholders and actions are crucial for designing a strategy to enhance integrated watershed management in Guardaña towards PNC principles?
This question is operationalized by means of three sub-questions, developed in the next chapters.
What is the current Guardaña watershed definition and what was the context and drivers that led its construction process? What are the main dynamics and mechanisms of current land and water management at local level? How is Guardaña’s watershed management organization (OGC) composed and working on watershed management? And what incidence Pedagogical Watershed Project has on it? Research Methodology
In order to understand in depth a complex sociotechnical issue such as land and water management at watershed level, and the incidence of the social approach given by PNC through projects, a descriptive research was done by means of a case study. It started with a literature review, followed by two meetings in La Paz (Bolivia) with the Vice-Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, from where I got more information. I lived in Guardaña during 14 weeks during which I spent time with different actors to understand the dynamics around that territory and process. Since I stayed at the NGO PDA Wiñaypaj facilities and I was the only person residing there, I could get access easily to different actors because that is a meeting point for most of the activities at wider scale than community, as well, I built confidence with people from the surroundings while sharing time with them during weekends or cooperating and participating in their activities.
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I used formal and informal interviews, two workshop with OGC Board members and authorities where participatory methods were used such as Venn diagram creation, trend line, talking maps and discussions. Field observations, interviews with authorities, NGO coordinator and informal talks with farmers from two communities were done to understand land and water management; support and accompaniment from the two CPG technicians was very helpful.
Another documents review was done during my staying in Guardaña, from the NGO PDA Wiñaypaj and the reports from the technicians considering that there is little systematized information regarding to the CPG project implementation. As part of the CPG project implementation, I participated in scale models and talking maps elaboration in two communities and I attended activities in the field like riverbank protection and other meetings. In order to understand how OGC works and what the dynamics between OGC, authorities and communities in practice are, I went to four monthly OGC meetings, eight community meetings as well as interviewed key informants and spent time with the OGC members in their activities.
Results and discussion are presented through the following four chapters and the last one contains conclusions, according to the next outline:
Watershed Current Land and OGC and Panorama and Water Pedagogical Designing a Conclusions Definition Management Watershed Project strategy
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Chapter 2: What is “Guardaña watershed”?
The second chapter aims to address the watershed concept that exists in Guardaña, where different projects on integrated river basin management have been implemented during the last years; thus, an analysis on how the current watershed definition has taken shape over time is carried out also to understand the factors involved on that construction process. Besides, the discrepancies between social and hydrological watershed and political-administrative division are analysed in order to discuss about the watershed as the unit for planning and natural resources management. This chapter is needed to understand territorial boundaries for the biophysical description in Chapter 3.
As Molle (2009) describes, the concept of river basin as a management unit is not a new trend and it has been going through several stages, used in different contexts and with varying intentions. A river basin is commonly defined as the land area contained within the watershed limits of a system of streams and rivers converging toward the same discharge point, generally the sea or sometimes an inland water body. As Cohen and Davidson (2011) state, river basin has changed from a technical tool to a policy framework; then, the concept of river basin nowadays has more dimensions than before, since it became the natural and geographic unit for management and governance considering water resources planning, allocation of rights, policy, regulations, etc. Thus, it is fundamental to understand what the people understand when they talk about “cuenca”.
After living for some weeks in Guardaña, it became very usual for me to hear the word “cuenca” coming from different people in the area sometimes in different ways. Therefore, I decided to focus on that aspect in informal talks and interviews, as well as to conduct a special workshop with OGC Board and authorities in order to explore that topic.
OGC and authorities have a concept of watershed related to two components: territory and organization. Guardaña watershed is the territory (land with its natural resources and people) and communal organization that brings together 3 centrales campesinas3 and 16 communities4 from the municipality of Soracachi with the aim of working jointly for the welfare of communities and natural resources conservation especially the water that flows in Guardaña and Cachicachi rivers. Such a definition gives to Guardaña a social character as well as a geographical delimitation, different from the natural river basin boundaries.
Besides, people (especially who are not authorities) tend to associate watershed also to the PNC projects, their activities and technicians. A literature review was done through the documents about Guardaña, but this concept and the physical delimitation are not clearly defined in any of them; then, to better understand this, an analysis of the evolution of what is known today as the Guardaña watershed is presented as follow. Constructing the “watershed” concept
In Guardaña, the watershed concept started to appear around 2001 when PDA Wiñaypaj, an NGO with social objectives5, promoted trips to exchange experiences in productive and environmental projects. An important event was the visit of leaders and promoters from Guardaña to see the work of PROMIC (Integrated Watershed Management Program) in Cochabamba on soil and water management; as there was a difficult situation of floods and productive soil loss in Guardaña, leaders saw an opportunity to create a project about watershed management and we asked support from PROMIC to formulate it (Soliz, 2015). Thus, the
3 Central Campesina is the union of various communities, it is recognized as another division between municipality and community (Soracachi, 2011). 4 Community is the smallest political division of territories in Bolivia. Centrals and Communities composing Guardaña watershed are shown in Annex 4. 5 PDA Wiñaypaj is an NGO for social purposes; it is described in chapter 4
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Integrated Watershed Management Project was created including five components: soil conservation, livestock and grassland management, extension, hydraulic control and biological control (PROMIC & Vision Mundial, 2001). This project used an upstream approach without considering the downstream part and therefore the communities located there; then, the identified area of Guardaña watershed for that project was 52.56 km2 that only includes the upstream part of Guardaña river catchment.
Nevertheless, at that time the watershed concept was still incipient and unfamiliar in the region and the project had little reception by both governmental institutions and communities themselves (Portillo, 2015a). In addition, the cost of the proposed project was very high to be financed by the NGO Wiñaypaj PDA, so it was given to the community leaders to lobby it with other institutions (Soliz, 2015). It was only until 2008 that the first project of watershed management for Guardaña started with effort from local leaders, support from the Ministry of Environment and participation of the municipality of Soracachi and the Government of Oruro Department as facilitating institution.
MIC project (2008 - 2012)
The Guardaña Integrated Watershed Management Project (I will call it MIC project) was focused on implementing soil conservation practices such as slow formation terraces, infiltration ditches, riverbank protection, afforestation and collection of seeds from native grasses (VCRH, 2011). From that project, people in Guardaña started listening and talking about “la cuenca” although it was not really clear what it was; some communities were actively involved but not all the activities were interesting for the people and we did not understand what watershed was (Ramos, 2015; Portillo, 2015a). Jorge Pava, authority of Cachicachi community describes, “It looked like a throwback to the 50’s by terracing again, and doing other activities that had no rapid effect and direct benefit, but demanded time and work of the community members; so, many people did not want to participate in that project and did not like the watershed” (Pava, 2015a).
At that point, watershed concept for people in Guardaña was related to the project as well as the presence of technicians promoting terraces and forestation; however, the project suffered a modification due to a request from the communities in order to build atajados6 as a mean to harvest water, since water scarcity had become a problem for agriculture. People did not want the project without water-related activities; they claimed solutions for water availability for irrigation, as Eufronio Pava7, the first President of Watershed Management Organization stated (VCRH, 2011).
To this respect, documents as well as interviewed people declare as very important the construction of atajados, both for environmental results and for people participation. Atajados have helped to recover water availability in dry season, also vegetation and animals are present again and agricultural lands have been rehabilitated (VCRH, 2011; MMAyA. 2014a; Blanco, 2015). Atajados were definitive for people to participate in the MIC project because they collect water in short time, people can see the water not only in the atajado but in the wells and river; moreover, as it was a demand from the communities, many people participated through their work and money to pay the fuel of machinery (Pava, 2015). Thus, there was a new element related to the watershed concept: atajado and communities were happier with the idea of watershed than before.
The MIC project was carried out in 14 communities, which are part of four peasants’ centrals (centrales campesinas) (VRHR, 2011) and surround the upstream part of Guardaña river;
6 Atajados are small water reservoirs for water harvesting. See Chapter 3 7 Eufronio Pava has received training from different institutions on leadership, and he is also an active member of the political party from the President.
16 though, a phenomenon of entry and exit of communities occurred during the whole implementation. Since some activities were not interesting for the people and were time consuming, couple communities wanted to “leave the watershed” (Portillo, 2015); then, the implementation of atajados started making it more attractive for them, so, those communities wanted to come back (Pava, 2015). This flexibility or “accordion characteristic” of Guardaña shows that the watershed was not directly related to a territory or natural resources.
On the organizational side, MIC project promoted the creation of watershed committees in each community, but they turned out to be not very operational. Then, as the PNC approach comprises, a Watershed Management Organism (OGC) was created on the 9th of April of 2011 composed by communal authorities and a Board of three people: Eufronio Pava (President), Gabino Medina (Secretary) and Ascencio Gutiérrez (Treasurer). The first two are recognized as a well prepared leader and an innovative farmer. People who have been present in all that process agree that Eufronio took his role with such commitment that he was fully dedicated to consolidate and strengthen the OGC and to look for opportunities for the welfare of communities. “The people participated actively, because we used to go together with local authorities, as OGC, to the Ministries, regional and local offices seeking for funding and projects; as a result, we achieved the construction of sports infrastructure, roads maintenance, final study for paving, atajados, a health centre and reparations for schools” (Pava, 2015).
In this sense, the OGC began to be the meeting place of all the communal authorities participating in the MIC project; they became used to discuss aspects of education, health, roads and the implementation of the MIC project in a meeting on the 9th of each month. Therefore, the leadership, lobbying skills and concrete results of the President made that belonging to this new organization (OGC) was an opportunity for communities to get benefits in many aspects (Pava, 2015). So, the motivation and acceptance of working in the “watershed” aroused between communities. A more in-depth analysis of the OGC as watershed management organization is done in the Chapter 4.
MIC project execution lasted until 2012 and left the doors open to continue with other initiatives in the watershed issue. Even after finishing MIC project, the communal organization OGC continued working and looking for support for next projects, what they found from the Vice- Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation. So, the Guardaña Pedagogical Watershed project was created in late 2013, with the Technical University of Oruro as facilitating institution due to its educative nature and community initiative to approach the academy (Pava, 2015). This was the beginning of the second working phase on watershed topics in Guardaña.
The Guardaña Pedagogical Watershed project (CPG in Spanish) (2014 – 2016)
This second project, part of PNC approach implementation, aims to build and strengthen capacities on sustainable management of Guardaña watershed in solidarity and equity, through pedagogical and intercultural interaction of local and academic knowledge. When the project started, there was a resetting of communities part of Guardaña in order to begin the activities by agreement between OGC, authorities and facilitating institution according to their participation in OGC activities. In consequence, 16 communities (from 3 centrals) currently are part of Guardaña watershed and they comprise the area belonging to the socially created concept of watershed.
The CPG project has been carried out during one and a half year by means of socialization, communal planning, implementing soil and water conservation practices and projects formulation. Such activities, together with the permanent presence of two technicians from the project in Guardaña and the close relationship with the OGC, have contributed to continue building the idea of watershed. In fact, the project is recognized as “the watershed project” and when people are going to CPG activities use expressions like “I am going to the watershed’s workshop”.
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Currently, while pedagogical watershed project implementation, the OGC is still working as at the beginning (during the first project) and doing a meeting every 9th to address the same topics; thus, authorities and other people talk about “the watershed” when referring to that monthly meeting. However, some people in Guardaña do not recognize what OGC is and means but they understand when somebody say “the watershed” or “the watershed meeting of the 9th” or “Don Anacleto”, who is the current OGC President and recognized as the “watershed President”.
The above description illustrates that the concept of watershed in Guardaña has emerged from a combined process between the approaches provided by the National Government through the National River Basin Plan projects (top-down), together with the basic own dynamics that have emerged product of leadership, community level organization, and the need to resolve environmental and socio-economic problems of communities (bottom-up). This has led to consolidate an organizational basis with the Watershed Management Organism (OGC), a structure that does not interfere with other forms of community organization but rather integrates them, and which is responsible for not only environmental but also social, economic, political and organizational matters of the 3 centrals and 16 communities.
In turn, the watershed approach that has been introduced through project implementation had two central achievements that were fundamental for continuity: atajados and OGC. The first, it is a soil and water conservation practice (SWC) practice that was proposed by the farmers and had short-term impact and success; that fact has been previously considered as a key factor to motivate farmers for adoption of SWC practices (Kessler, 2006; Kessler, 2007) as well as to replicate them. The second achievement is the creation of a watershed management organization that brings together authorities and work in solving problems; as a product of the OGC creation, a geographical dimension was given by the boundaries of the 3 peasants’ centrals that joined it (Jachuyo, Guardaña and Cachicachi plus the community of Umitiri, which is an exceptional case8). Differences between concepts The delimitation according to the 3 joint centrals does not coincide with the traditional definition of river basin, with a main river and bounded by the watershed; in fact, there are two rivers crossing by the area, Guardaña and Cachicachi which flow to the Paria River. That is why, a map of the currently recognized Guardaña watershed was created with participation of local authorities in order to make a comparison with the natural river basin demarcation; then, both of the watersheds were delimited using the watershed processing toolbox of ArcGIS 10, on a digital elevation model of the area. The GIS department of MMAyA (2014b) has also done this delimitation just for Guardaña watershed by using GIS methods and Pfafstetter approach, where only geographical characteristics are taken into account to identify the Guardaña watershed boundaries (See Annex 3).
The figure 2 shows three different delimitations. In the background, the ones made by natural river basin boundaries of two rivers: Guardaña (green) and Cachicachi (light gray), that are illustrated with their rivers and tributary streams. In the front, the grilled shape represents the area delimited by the three centrals which is the one recognized by the communities (I called it social watershed). As it is evident, the social watershed does not fit with the others; however, it comprises 90% of Guardaña river watershed and 58% of Cachicachi river watershed, covering almost the entire upstream area of both of them but also it goes further to other river basin. At the same time, political division of Soracachi has cantones, which also do not fit with any of the three delimitations (Anex 3) but at lower level there is the central and community level, which was used by the grassroots to delimitate the Guardaña watershed.
8 Umitiri belongs officially to another central (Iruma) but the community decided to be part of Guardaña watershed because they are close to the Guardaña river, use the water and wanted to participate in its conservation (Portillo, 2015). It means that, even though Guardaña watershed is not completely conformed through the river basin traditional concept, water is an element that links the communities.
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Figure 2 Differences between delimitation of Guardaña watershed. Source: own elaboration
This fact also means a mismatch between information on the area. Firstly, all the documents of Guardaña watershed projects refer to 52.56 km2 (MMAyA, 2012; VCRH, 2011; MMAyA, 2014a and other projects), that was taken from the first project made in 2001 and considering only upstream Guardaña watershed (it is not included in the Figure 2); that number has been copied and reproduced without attention but that represents nothing special at this moment. Secondly, the social watershed delimited by three centrals comprises an area of 294 km2 that has not been recognized in any of the projects; finally, the area corresponding to the two watersheds as geographical (Pfafstetter) boundaries is 115.3 km2 for Guardaña river (that was obtained by the author and PNC, 2014) and 224 km2 for Cachicachi river.
Only looking at this mismatch in area, there are some contradictions within the PNC about Guardaña. On the one hand, it is seen from the traditional watershed concept of Pfafstetter that do not consider any other aspect more than biophysical characteristics for defining a river basin, which does not recognize how people construct their idea of watershed as it is promoted by the PNC policy and its instruments. However, that traditional approach was used to model and estimate hydro-climatic data that could be useful at any of the delimitations. On the other hand, PNC approach defines micro-watersheds as <100 km2; there are different versions in Guardaña
19 delimitation, but most of the documents talk about 52.5 km2 and it is considered as micro- watershed, however, there are three other delimitations that configure more than 100 km2. Taking into account the multi-scale approach adopted by PNC (MMAyA, 2014), this fact influences decision making on soil and water conservation practices due to its efficiency according to the scale. At the same time, PNC promotes creation of watershed management plans, which should be arranged with municipal and regional government, but it is going to be difficult when the watershed does not have clear boundaries or different versions without coincidence.
In practical terms, there are discrepancies between watershed delimitations based on the natural river basin boundaries, social definition from the 16 communities and political boundaries, which have implications at different levels, mainly because a unique Guardaña watershed definition has not been set up yet. Consequently, for different institutions is not clear what the limits are, then, natural delimitation is often taken by default, affecting project formulation, investments in S&W conservation practices and information management in the field. However, that is a challenge when trying to integrate natural, socioeconomic, cultural and institutional systems for natural resources management and development at watershed level.
The issue of boundary definition has been discussed as one of the challenges when using watershed as a framework and unit for water governance. Although there is a clear concept on watershed boundaries from hydrologic perspective, sometimes watershed delimitation is incongruent with other natural system boundaries like ecosystems, airsheds or even groundwater flow (Griffin, 1999; Omernik and Bailey, 1997; Mollinga et al., 2007; Paerl et al., 2002; Winter et al., 2003 all cited by Cohen, A. and Davidson, S. 2011). From another perspective, Ruf (2011; 2012) defines watershed management as a paradox when trying to manage the water demand from water supply units; he states that if we want to understand social organization in water resources management, it is fundamental to identify and involve the demanding territory where are located the actors that use and concern about water, then, these hydropolitic unites have discrepancies and juxtapositions that must be taken into account. And there is another consideration close to that, when Delgadillo and Durán (2012) discuss that natural watersheds have been modified to take water from one to another basin through transfers, which changes the real limits where water management occurs. In Guardaña case, none of these aspects are being taken into account either for the communities or the Ministry when delimiting Guardaña; though, the social watershed defined by the 16 communities conforms a new hydropolitic territory since it is composed by centrals and communities (political units) that consider water sources in their territories in order to manage them for the social welfare.
Besides, Molle (2009) argues that yet, political or administrative boundaries seldom correspond to watershed boundaries, as well as the socioeconomic and power forces and processes that influence water management also do not coincide with natural limits. So, all the above aspects make difficult the watershed delimitation process and therefore it is considered as a political decision (Blomquist ans Schlager, 2005) and a social construction (Sze et al., 2009; van Lieshout et al., 2012) because at the end, boundaries definition is a subject of choice and it matters who decides, how and with what interests and effects.
For this case, it is evident that watershed delimitation responds to a social construction based on the interests of communities to have an upper-level social organism, based on previous experiences and bonds of trust, more than based on natural resources management. That was identified by OGC during the workshop with the following arguments. The union of three centrals has worked mainly led by two drivers: history and education. The first, after agrarian reform in 1952 land redistribution took place to give the haciendas previously owned by the patrón to the peasants and then, cooperatives and peasants centrals were created; the three centrals belonging currently to Guardaña watershed used to be part of only one central, so, most of the people living in the 16 communities know each other from old times, have bonds of trust and even familiar linkages. The second is the School Eduardo Avaroa of Guardaña, which group
20 community schools and offers education to students from the three centrals since 19899; it is a space where children, youth and their parents meet creating a trust and familiar environment that solved differences and conflicts from before (Soracachi, 2011; Ramos, 2015). Indeed, there is an education authority, who is responsible for ensuring quality of education for all students of the three centrals; this person participates in the monthly meeting of OGC to report on the situations and problems at the schools.
We can also compare this case with the reflection about watershed approach implementation in France done by Ghiotti (2006), when refers that river basin approach for water management, land planning and territorial development contributes to legitimate other territorial constructions, whose logic derives more from the strategic opportunism of inter-communal logics than from the geographical and environmental dimensions of water. Guardaña is nowadays a new territorial construction which has an organization leading different kind of activities but not necessarily related to natural resources management. Conclusions The main factors driving the construction and perception of watershed concept have been the effective results in solving water scarcity of PNC projects (through atajados) with community participation and the creation of a new watershed management organization that joins communities and works for solving their problems. The current watershed concept is a social construction associated to the articulation of communities that gives a delimitation of Guardaña responding to historical and organizational aspects, that does not fit with the natural watershed boundaries but creates a new hydro-political unit. This fact has implications for external recognition of this watershed and multi-versions on Guardaña area and characterization. Guardaña watershed is defined as the territory (land with its natural resources and people) and communal organization that brings together 3 centrales campesinas and 16 communities from the municipality of Soracachi with the aim of working jointly for the welfare of communities and natural resources conservation especially the water that flows by Guardaña and Cachicachi rivers. The Bolivian Government is promoting the development of new watershed concepts with social and cultural elements, but it is still using a traditional method as Pfafstetter to delimitate river basins and watersheds.
9 Before, it was only possible to study in the institution established to each community
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Chapter 3: Current soil and water management in Guardaña In the previous chapter, an analysis of how watershed concept is defined in Guardaña was done. Although the concept is mainly associated to PNC projects and the new scheme of organization (OGC) more than natural resources management, it does not mean that communities are not related to land and water management. Therefore, this chapter analyses the other way around: how Guardaña uses and manages its natural resources. Dynamics Taking into consideration that Guardaña watershed is self-defined from a community perspective as the union of 16 communities (294 km2), the analysis of land and water management and dynamics is mainly based on those communities and area; nevertheless, some analysis are going to extend at wider scale.
Zoning The altitudinal difference in Guardaña territory is between 3810 and 4722 meters. Consequently, there are different dynamics in both the upper as the lower areas and between them, regarding the availability, use, management, and conservation of resources by the communities. In that context, the upper part is situated at the southeast in limits with Cochabamba department (in fact, there is a little area of the natural watershed delimitation belonging to Cochabamba) around the San Pablo hill. From this area water starts flowing towards the northwest through two rivers that end at the Paria river. Figure 5 shows an altitude map created from the DEM in order to illustrate the distribution of communities in the area, looking at the upper and lower parts.
The upper area is defined between 4200 and 4722 meters above sea level, where most of the water springs for both rivers are located and it is considered as cordillera; soils are shallow and have low fertility and organic matter. There are steep slope areas with rocky outcrops and more flat areas with bofedales (or high wetlands, usually waters springs are in), which are the main source of water for llamas. The most representative vegetation if the upper part of Guardaña corresponds to scrublands (paja brava and paja amarilla) for llamas feed, which offer very low soil cover; dense soil cover is provided by bofedales vegetation that is aquatic and semi-aquatic (chiji, berros, hinojas, chilliguas, yareta), besides, shrubs (th’olas and k’allas) also consumed by llamas, as well as grasses (paku) only in rainy season. Where bushes presence, llamas tend to arrive for eating and deposit their manure. As it is a dry zone, there is often cactus in rocky parts (Figure 3).
Figure 3 Typical vegetation in the upper part of Guardaña. Forage production in pens. Source: author
Wild birds, reptiles, rodents, amphibians compose the wild fauna. The main activity in this zone is camelid rearing; llamas herd (thama) are big (could reach 400 llamas) because sometimes they join each other conforming communal herds. Main breeds are k’ara and th’ampulli, which are supossed to eat fibrous species, but bigger llamas are always concentrated in bofedales and leafy plants are eaten, which impacts the ecosystem, since there are no boundaries for llamas and they go free. However, there are stony bounds made to create small areas for subsistence crops or forage. For a time, the animals are enclosed in pens where subsistence agriculture is later done.
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The communities identified from the upper part are Cañawiri, Yunguma, Pariapampita and Wichokollo because their houses are located there; however, other communities also have lands in the upper zone. The inhabitants in the upper area mostly do not live in the area. Rearing llamas does not necessarily require daily care; moreover, the living conditions are not suitable to live there, so, families prefer to move to Oruro city, especially because of children and young people for education and job opportunities. Llama breeding is the main source of income, which is very low due to the few animals sold per year and low prices. So, around Bs 4640 (€610) /year/family is the gross income earned from llama meat and leather sales10. That is an important reason for migrations to the city.
There is a middle part between 4050 and 4200 meters above sea level, that corresponds to foothill though it is not very distinct in practical terms. This area has erosion processes due to the steep slope that connect with the plain, therefore it has been also place for SLM practices. Although it used to be an area for rainfed agriculture, nowadays it is not cultivated, except for some crops as potato and quinoa that do not require irrigation. Agriculture is complemented with llama and sheep breeding.
The low part of Guardaña is located between 3810 and 4050 meters above sea level; it has erosive processes in the slopes and river bank degradation. Soils are young with shallow bedrock; textures clay loam and with poorly drained areas. This area is mainly covered by scrublands and some weeds as well as crops such as carrot, onion, fava bean, quinoa, lettuce, turnip. Some families have sheep and llamas for consumption, and some cattle for plowing and animal traction. Horticulture is the source of income in the low zone of Guardaña; the twelve communities located in the green area in the Figure 5 produce mainly onions, carrots, lettuce and fava bean to be sold. The average gross income is Bs 20620 /year/family (€ 2710)11 higher than livestock production.
Figure 4 Middle and lower zones in Guardaña. Source: The author and Mamani, G. CPG project
Distribution dynamics As Guardaña has a special delimitation, not based on a typical natural watershed, it is embedded partially within two micro-watersheds: Guardaña and Cachicachi; it means that there are two rivers involved in its management. Both of the rivers flow into the Paria river, being two out of three main streams of this river, which in turn goes to Oruro city and Poopó Lake. Although there is not much information on Paria watershed, an anthropological study describes it due to its importance for understanding Urus civilization’s origin and settlement (Condarco et al., 2002). The study mentions that Paria watershed is comprised of three rivers: Jachuma, Iruma
10 An average family who sells around 8 llamas/year with 38 kg/animal and a price of 15 Bs/kg; that means Bs 4560 from meat selling, which is complemented with 80 Bs for subproducts selling (as leather); in total Bs 4640 (€610). (Arce, 2015/Deti projects). 11 Considering an average family that cultivates 1.5 hectares with a distribution of 0.5 ha of carrots, 0.5 ha onions and 0.5 ha in lettuce and other crops; with an average gross income of Bs 14600/ha for carrots, Bs 25400 /ha onions and Bs 1240 lettuce, we have a total of Bs 20620 (€ 2710) / year / family. (Arce, 2015/Deti projects).
23 and Obrajes; the last two rivers are the same that we are studying as Cachicachi and Guardaña, however they receive those names because of the last two communities located at the mouth of each river, which are actually out of the socially-delimited Guardaña watershed.
Moreover, it is important to see how different the distribution of people and resources in the area is. Since there are two watersheds, Cachicachi drainage area has double size than Guardaña one; however, most of the communities (70%) are settled in the small, in Guardaña, especially in the lower part (Figure 5), as well, these are the most numerous communities (Annex 4). More presence of people in the lower zone means more water demand for domestic use and for irrigation. Instead, the upper part is considerably much larger and there are less communities with few members due to the migration phenomenon, which implies also less water demand from humans and livestock.
Figure 5 Location of communities within the Guardaña watershed. Source: own elaboration
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The above description has implications not only in environmental aspects but in the level of investments. This is explained by the fact that people from the lower part have higher incomes, access to education, to the city and its socioeconomic and political activities; so, they are more able to lobby and manage projects at different institutions. Besides, number of people belonging to a community influences public investments, since the budget of Soracachi is distributed according to the number of individuals per community. Then, the upper part of Guardaña and Cachicachi micro-watershed have less opportunity to get money from the public sector, which is evidenced in the distribution of S&W conservation measures such as atajados. Thanks to that, more investments are done in Guardaña (river) watershed area specifically in the lower- agricultural zone.
Main problems associated to land and water management in Guardaña Most of the texts about Guardaña have coincidence on describing the problems affecting that area, expressed also by communities as well as observed in field trips. A practical way to describe these problems is based on the zoning. As Ramos et al., 2015 identified in a participatory workshop done as part of the Pedagogical Watershed, the higher part of Guardaña has weaknesses in terms of soils since erosion, poor physical and chemical soil properties and lack of S&W conservation practices are the main problems. Furthermore, the upper zone has weak animal management that derives in overgrazing, loss of soil cover and animal access to water sources; then, bare soils are easily eroded by wind and water (Figure 6). Rainfall distribution and strength have changed and it also promotes soil loss. Farmers also identify deficiency in water infrastructure for access for both humans and animals. In sum, problems in the upper part are associated to the natural soil conditions and lack of management as well as the livestock performance.
Figure 6. Gully erosion. Loss of soil cover for overgrazing. Presence of animals in water springs. Source: author
Additionally, the lower zone faces problems more related to water but soil still has strong pressures. Since the main activity is agriculture, farmers lead with water scarcity during dry periods and riverbank degradation and cropping soil dragging in rainy season. These agricultural activities are mainly on the riverbanks, led by water availability, which is used for irrigation by means of wells and pumps from aquifers and from the river. Besides, as consequence of soil loss, sediments are deposited in the rivers. Physical and chemical soil quality is also being a problem due to lack of rotation during many years since horticulture started its rise, with ploughing by tractor (occasionally animal traction), fertilization, herbicides use and flood irrigation. Salinity is a natural condition (in fact cachi is a Quechua word that means salt). This overuse of lands for agriculture is identified as consequence of lack of irrigation infrastructure to habilitate more soils for horticulture (Figure 7). Finally, lower lands have more human settlements, which imply more trash and sewage production (no toilets, latrines or septic tanks) that go to the water and soils.
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Figure 7 Sedimentation and bankriver degradation. Soil compaction and salinization. Source: author and CPG
According to degradation types defined in DESIRE project (Schwilch et al., 2012), Guardaña presents the 6 types of degradation:
Soil erosion by water: sheet erosion, gully erosion, mass movements, flooding and siltation. Water degradation: water unbalances, with scarcity and flash floods are experimented in the lowlands; overexploitation of aquifers for irrigation activities. Apparent water quality deficiency due to mining, animal manure in water sources and sewage and rubbish. Biological degradation: reduction of vegetation cover, especially in highlands due to livestock management as well as in foothills because of abandonment of cropping and rotation systems. Soil erosion by wind: bare soils due to natural conditions, plus absence of trees and weak livestock management combined with windy seasons. Chemical soil deterioration: soil fertility decline in agricultural lands (lowlands) led by soil overexploitation in current cropping systems; and salinization in some areas due to natural conditions and irrigation. Physical soil deterioration: compaction mainly led by llama breeding; in the lower area crusting for overusing soils for irrigated agriculture
The above was a general description based mainly on secondary information sources; this could be a topic to develop in further experimental quantitative research to go more in depth about land degradation processes stressing in spatial and temporal variation. This is because a baseline of information is needed for decision making of SWC practices along the Guardaña territory.
Land property is another aspect to consider. The territory of the three Guardaña’s centrals corresponds to three former haciendas that were redistributed in the land reform, without property titles. That situation has led to conflicts between communities for limits. Currently, ownership is recognized as both individual and communal: the community lands are especially those located in the foothills and hills, dedicated for llama rearing and any member of the community can use them; individual plots are mainly the ones in lowlands and close to the rivers; those have cultivation areas well defined by agreements (verbal). Although no visible divisions exist, families clearly recognize and respect the boundaries especially croplands preventing the entry of animals. The family plots are very small, rarely exceeding one hectare and eventually more reduced because each community member's terrain is divided by the number of sons (only men) to bequeath, and the areas are decreasing in size and come to be called even "surcofundio" (surco = furrow). This was also influenced by the ancient tradition of crop rotation or aynokas (also called sayañas), where the community divided into sectors throughout its territory for rotation between different crops and soils rest; so, it is common for a family to have several very small plots in different sectors of the community.
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Implemented strategies: Soil and Water Conservation practices Looking at the fields as well as the documents of previous projects and experiences from farmers, we can find that there has been implementation of diverse measures for recovering and conserve soil and water resources. Thus, the main practices are atajados, forestation, bank river protection, slow formation terraces and bank terraces. Another two practices to consider are aynokas, in agriculture and Ark’ana Cancha for livestock, which were applied in former times by communities but they are not currently used. Following the framework proposed by WOCAT (World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies) to classify SLM technologies, we can divide them in water management, cross slope barriers, forest management, cropping management and grazing land management (Schwilch et al., 2012).
Water management: Atajados This is a method for water harvesting. As Goetter & Joachim (2011) mention, this a common practice in the Andean region of Bolivia, that started in the 60s as very small places (300 m3) to collect water for watering livestock and to store water from a familiar irrigation turn; afterwards, farmers started using machinery to build bigger ones in the 70s. Nowadays, projects for rural development and government promote and fund atajados construction as well as other works to prevent sedimentation; farmers use atajados mainly for irrigation (Heiland, 2013).
Atajar in Spanish is a verb commonly used in cattle management for stopping animals that are running away. These atajados have this name because they stop the water that is running off by the slopes; thus, farmers can store it and use it afterwards, preventing surface run-off, erosion, and further sedimentation. Most of atajados in Guardaña have been built since 2005 when PDA Wiñaypaj financed the first one (Soliz, 2015).
The topography and rocky condition influence the construction of atajados; they are built in slopes between 4% and 15% and mainly in natural depressions to facilitate rainfall collection. Communities propose the place and the MIC technician makes a technical revision to decide the exact site and dimensions; then, an embankment is built by using machinery and handwork from communities, mostly with soil mixed with clay as binder material and sometimes rocks (Figure 8). After that, other complementary works such as catchment canals, spillway, sedimenters, and canals are made (Arce, 2015).
a) b)
c)
Figure 8 a) Atajado; b) Stone embankment; c) Stone barrier to prevent sediments. Source: Arce, W. CPG project 2014.
An example of dimensions of an atajado is Lequelequeni: its area is 3130 m2, with a perimeter of 7970 m and maximum volume of 15660 m3; this is located in a riverbed, which flows into Guardaña River in front of Lequelequeni community (Arce, 2015). As some of atajados are located in riverbeds (mostly intermittent or former streams) and were constructed during the last
27 ten years, it could be causing alterations in the whole hydrological system that is not being studied. An interesting example is the community of Mojon Pampa that is the smallest in Guardaña but they have eight atajados in 1,2 km2 (40% of atajados located in 0.4% of Guardaña area) and plan to build more. Annex 5 shows that distribution in Mojon Pampa through a satellite image. This case is also an evidence of what was mentioned before, this kind of investments are mainly led by authorities’ relationships and management at governments or other institutions.
Even though there is no a record or inventory of atajados and their dimensions, from field trips and asking the people I could identify at least 20 atajados in the whole area of Guardaña; however, most of the atajados are smaller than Lequelequeni one. CPG project with international cooperation have supported the construction of three atajados (Lequelequeni, Mollepongo and Mojon Pampa), other 14 have been financed by the municipality of Soracachi and PDA Wiñaypaj, followed by Oruro Department who made two and others from communities and particulars. Thus, individuals can also build their own atajados without any consultation, technical advice or permission since there is no regulation to that respect. Furthermore, there is also place for replication of this technique without external investments as Molle Pongo case, where people decided to build their own atajado by their means.
In Guardaña, most of the farmers do not use atajados directly to irrigate their lands since they have realized that water goes through the subsoil and recharge aquifers; then, people can extract more water for irrigation in the lowlands (Medina, 2015). That is also because atajados mostly are communal works that belong to the communities thanks to their work and money invested in them; however, they were not built for irrigation systems and there is no infrastructure to it, nor rules or water rights which means that only the lands close to the atajado could benefice of water. Therefore, farmers prefer to leave water to infiltrate to the lowlands and for livestock consumption, except for the some cases when there are excesses and water is used downstream atajados (like in Figure 7a), or when there are agreements between beneficiaries.
Most of the people refer in positive way to atajados’ impacts. They have helped to recover ecosystems because wild animals came back and more vegetation appeared (Blanco, 2015; Portillo, 2015). In addition, they have been a way to promote understanding on the water cycle and aquifer recharge (Mamani, 2015). Moreover, community cohesion was been promoted and strengthened, which is evidenced in maintenance works, for example when an atajado in Molle Pongo broke down and the community organized itself to repair it (Arce, 2015), between other testimonies, which are also observable in the field.
This practice can be compared with others also used in dry areas like Yemen and Tunisia. Baquhaizel & Saeed (2011) described a water harvesting technique called kaarfan (Arabic plural of kareef) that is a natural basin or a wide hole where rainwater gathers from surrounding slopes or water courses; a clay barrier is built to prevent rainwater to seeping out and it is further used for watering livestock and domestic needs. Water channels sometimes complement this method by conducting water from different directions to kaarfan. As well, jessour (plural of jessr) is a similar technique practiced from ancient times in arid highlands of Tunisia; it is the hydraulic unit comprising a dyke, spillway, terrace (fruit trees and annual crops), and a runoff catchment area. The terrace accumulates runoff water and infiltrate into the soil to sustain trees and crops; the spillway ensures delivering the runoff water to downstream users and discharge of excess (Schwilch et al., 2012).
Cross slope barriers: slow-forming terraces As some communal leaders mention, farmers use to crop in terraces long time ago but not anymore (MMAyA, 2014a); thus, it is possible to see antique terraces in the foothills along Guardaña. Besides, slow-forming terraces were promoted by the MIC project; communities participated by investing time and local materials to build terraces in their lands. Those slow- forming terraces receive that name because they are constructed progressively by soil accumulation in strips that are separated by a combination of infiltration ditches, hedgerows and
28 stone walls. They are made to control water runoff and soil erosion and further use the terraces for agriculture, and they can take from three to ten years to be completely conformed.
When MIC project developed this practice, Molle Pongo community was very active on that activity and they built terraces as complement of the former ones (Figure 9). Nevertheless, most of the people cultivate in the other side of the community, where water is available from the river. Like those, most of the terraces are not being used and maintained (the antique and new ones); as Pava (2015a) said, people do not like to invest time and work in some activities that do not offer a rapid result or visible benefit; as well, Van Kessel (1999) cited by Mamani et al. (2008) indicates that modern agriculture and economic competence for national and international markets do not leave time enough to communities for “andinizing” their daily practices and that has led to an “erosion” of antique paradigms about life, water, land and humans.
Figure 9 Slow-formation terraces in Molle Pongo. Source: Google Maps and author
This technique is commonly used in the Andes region of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Considering the time they take to be formed, they should receive monitoring and maintenance to get the expected results. However, terraces in Guardaña are not being used yet and there have not been conducted any research or monitoring activities to assess their advances and/or impact, which is highly recommended and done by Kagabo et al., 2013 and Dercon et al., 2003, who evaluated impacts, spatial variability and other characteristics of this practice in Ecuador and Rwanda.
Alluvial bank terraces Since sedimentation and riverbank degradation are problems in Guardaña, sediments are accumulated in the riverbed alluvial terraces are conformed. Farmers modify them by building banks and moving soil using machinery as well as manual work, to make them stable and flat enough to cultivate on them (Figure 10). This practice is mainly done in Guardaña River in all the communities where it passes by in order to habilitate lands for agriculture. For farmer, alluvial bank terraces are considered as important practice due to the relation with agricultural production and economic incomes, so, people dedicate time and look for funding to pay machinery to build on maintain them; it is also a mechanism to prevent soil dragging. These terraces are mainly individual (familiar) since plots close to the river have defined owners an each person intervenes his/her lands without any regulation about riverbeds use (Portillo, 2015). A complementary practice to this one is salicaceae (especially Salix) plantation as riverbank protection.
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Figure 10 Alluvial bank terraces conformed by sediments movement and complemented by hand work and machinery
River bank protection: Gabions and salicaceae plantation River bank protection has been a priority since MIC project for Guardaña, due to the need to prevent losing more soils from the riverbanks. Therefore, two main measures have been implemented: structural and natural. The first one corresponds to gabions’ construction in different places along the rivers (mostly in Guardaña River); these structures made with stones have been successful in the transect Payapayani – Jachuyo where gabions are working well preventing riverbank dragging. However, from Guardaña community to Paria River there are other gabions displaced by the water flow but also destroyed by people in protests (Arce, 2015). Municipality with participation of communities mainly finances gabions’ construction.
The second measure is plantation of salicaceae species mainly willows. Those plants are easily reproduced and therefore the MIC and CPG projects have promoted to plant them and promoted its propagation (Figure 11). This practice was introduced by the projects and has been funded by them with participation of the farmers by collecting and planting willow. As gabions, this practice also has success and failure examples but the lesson is that river bank protection has to be very well planned according to the specific place where is going to be implemented. Salicaceae plantation as river bank protection practice has been replicated in different communities as Ventillita, without funding or implication of projects or external institutions.
Figure 11 River bank protection with gabions and salicaceae plantation. Source: author
Forest management: Forestation Forestation has been one of the activities implemented by the MIC project by participatory approach; plants were given by the project and farmers contributed with work for plantation. However, most of the plants did not survive due to the altitude, dry conditions and lack of maintenance. MMAyA (2014a) mentions this component of the project had different levels of success, that was high in Mojon Pampa community, where the plants are still alive and communal work is dedicated to irrigate and weeding them. An important reason for that is the person in charge of this activity at Mojon Pampa, who was a woman, María Blanco (recognized leader); she argued that she assumed that commitment and motivated everyone to take care of
30 some plants (Blanco, 2015). The small plants are protected with stones and other elements to prevent the cattle to eat them; other communities also implement different strategies to protect them, as covering with local elements like Molle Pongo community do it. That community has been persistent in forestation activity, implementing strategies to promote plants protection such as the adoption of a tree in the school (Figure 12) and community work for irrigation.
Forestation in Mojon Pampa close to atajados Plants protection in Molle Pongo
Plants protection with stones in Molle Pongo Plants adoption at Molle Pongo School
Figure 12 Forestation experiences. Source: author
In general terms, people in Guardaña talk about forestation as a good activity for the environment, but demotivating because it is very difficult to get success on it due to the natural conditions of the area. Another aspect is about the species, since native trees (e.g. kisuara and keñua) have more percentage of surviving than other like pines, which were introduced with low success. Nevertheless, there is an individual experience from Gabino Medina, who has large and leafy trees in Guardaña community.
Cropping management: Aynokas Before, peasants in Guardaña used to practice a communal rotation system called aynokas o sayañas where community divided the foothills’ lands in smaller zones and defined each area for a different crop (potato, barley, quinoa, wheat) and fallow lands for 3 years and then rotated. That system allowed to have lands without cropping for until 10 years (VCRH, 2011). That practice was common because those crops were seasonal and grown up with rainfall water; however, farmers changed the land use and they abandoned that practice and agriculture in foothills in general (Choque, 2015). This land use change was done because rainfall decreased and agriculture became a very sacrificial work for low production and incomes; besides, a general tendency for commercial horticulture started around 30 years ago and farmers grow mainly close to the river, which allows production during the whole year (Pava, 2015a).
Grazing land management: mating pens (Ark’ana Cancha) Llama rearing used to be more organized. Llama breeders used to be more careful in reproduction management to avoid genetic degeneration by using mating pens; therefore, they
31 managed the rutting seasons. Additionally, other practices were used such as cropping forage species to diversify the food and reduce impact in hills vegetation, as well as use of barns for reducing overgrazing (Arce, 2015). Nowadays, less people live in the highlands because of migration and do not dedicated much time to this activity, then, llamas reproduce with little control and breeds are getting degenerate, which leads to less quality, low prices and incomes; besides, animals are running free in the mountains and there is little additional forage production that promotes overgrazing.
Wrapping up SWC practices implementation, there are some points to highlight:
Most of the SWC practices have been co-funded by communities and projects or external institutions like municipal and departmental governments and NGO, where communities mainly contribute with handwork, local materials and seldom with money. Once the SWC practices are implemented, some of them are used and maintained, at the community and individual level, according to the level of investment required, the need and the benefits that entails. Atajados and river bank terraces have a direct benefit for farmers that impact their economic activity; other mechanisms such as slow-formation terraces and forestation take more effort and time to implement and do not have rapid and direct effect. Progressive farmers are key actors in the process of SWC practices promoting, seen in two cases, Maria Blanco and Gabino Medina; both of them have shown how forestation can be a success practice. There is a need to work in the watershed vision, since SWC practices have impact in the whole watershed system and dynamics; thus, they should be planned, executed and assessed in that context. From lessons learnt of Mamani et al. (2008) implementers of SWC practices should be careful of possible land tenure conflicts in the places where practices are established, because that is a cause of abandonment. Moreover, since SWC practices are often promoted by using contests, those competitions should include use and maintenance. Technical and scientific support are needed to designs and start SWC practices as well as to monitor and investigate about positive and negative impacts, improvement possibilities and other topics.
Water Management: drinking water and irrigation Currently, natural resources in Guardaña are managed at local (community) level in aspects like rights allocation, use, control, maintenance, control, infrastructure works. There are some cases where conflicts arise between communities mainly for limits, then, they go to the next level, the Central. Since there is a new tier, the OGC, some aspects are going to there to be solved, especially when is about a new project implementation that involves more than one community, as it was the case of Junt’uta microdam that is going to be built between Cachicachi and Mojon Pampa communities where there are problems for delimitation. This is to say that each community has its particularities in natural resources availability, use and management; and there is no a higher authority (private or public, formal or informal) monitoring or controlling water use. Water management is done by local agreements and traditions, and it is based on communal organizations, which implies that there are no other institutions like water user associations.
To talk about water in Guardaña, we must start remembering that there are two rivers, Guardaña and Cachicachi. Water resources are located in the rivers, water springs, subsoil and water storage infrastructures as atajados; it is mainly used for domestic use, irrigation and watering livestock. It is important to mention that there is no habit or infrastructure for measure and monitoring water resources quantity, quality and extraction; none public, private, academic or community institution monitoring. Thus, water balance is unknown since there is no information of flows, then, it is not possible to know whether ecological flow is kept.
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Drinking water Understanding drinking water as the water used for domestic purposes, drinking, cooking and personal hygiene, 15 out of the 16 communities in Guardaña have access to it; only Cañawiri (located in the upper part) does not have a system to catch water since it is the unique community where the houses are disperse. That has been the advantage for the others, which have drinking water systems for the group of houses and school; 80% of communities have a tap in each household and 20% have communal taps (CPG project). Each community has an independent drinking water system; 11 drinking water systems are located in the Guardaña river watershed and 4 in Cachicachi watershed.
All those systems have a water spring as source, that each community has identified, selected and provided a counterpart to build infrastructure. Most of the systems consist of intake, leading to storage tanks and distribution to each house, where generally there is only one exit point at the entrance of each house. None of the communities uses purification processes and there is no monitoring of water quality, but authorities state it is “clean water”. According to the authorities, houses in the whole area do not have toilets, shower, hand wash or dishwasher.
The laundry is mainly done in the river, especially in the lower-part communities; in the upper zone, people do not wash clothes in the river because that will pollute the water. Ramos (2015) explained that it depends on how big is the river; “our parents taught us not to wash clothes in small rivers because that affects water for livestock”.
Depending on the availability of water in the water source, some communities have permanent water supply, but others have a service delivery schedule, then, families store water in plastic barrels. The water right is tied to the affiliation to the community; when a new family arrives, it has to ask for registration and its water right. Payment for water services is done monthly in some communities where each family pays between 1 Bs and 5 Bs (€ 0.13 - € 0.64) and others is gratuitous; it mainly depends of the type of system because some of them use a pump. For example, Ventillita community has a tariff of 5 Bs per month because it uses electric pump and they manage daily schedules; Molle Pongo community has enough water to keep permanent distribution and it is for free.
There are no formal water user associations. Some communities create a water committee within the communal organization, choose a water judge or just the authority is in charge; these have the role of controlling water distribution (managing gates or pumps), being aware of failures and asking for the money when there is a payment. In the cases where there is a water judge, it is part of the community service that each member has to do per year. Although it varies between communities, the generality is that drinking water management is done by the community and the communal meeting solves conflicts if there would be. Since there are not many users per community, it is not difficult to manage this topic, and there is no need for a new organism because people are used to this mechanism (Belzu, 2015).
The NGO PDA Wiñaypaj co-financed the construction of twelve systems in the last 15 years with participation of communities and sometimes municipality. Mollepongo, Mojon Pampa, Wichokollo, Paria Pampita, Yunguma, Cachicachi, Huayllumita that work by gravity; Umitiri, Ventillita, Caracollito, Pucara and Lequelequeni using pump.
Watering livestock Water is also used for watering animals especially in the upper area, where the wetlands or “bofedales” are located; those are the favorite places of llamas for watering. Communities define “aguadas” or places where animals of the whole community and even neighboring communities drink together as a traditional communal agreement. In addition, animals use water stored in atajados freely.
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Water for Irrigation In the lower zone, agriculture is the main activity and therefore irrigation corresponds to the largest water demand. Farmers take and conduct the water for irrigation by two ways: community irrigation systems and pumping from deep wells. Although there are nine communal irrigation systems working, water supply is not enough ant farmers need to complement with pumping (Soliz, 2015; Belzu, 2015; Portillo, 2015).
Community irrigation systems
Governmental program “Mi Riego” and PDA Wiñaypaj have co-financed irrigation systems construction with community participation in Mollepongo, Huayllumita, Payapayani, Jachuyo, which have systems working by gravity while Umitiri, Guardaña by pumps. There are three cases of irrigation systems built but not working: Mojon Pampa, Guardaña and Ventillita; those systems have been constructed in the last years with the governmental program for irrigation infrastructure but there are failures in design and implements (pumps) that do not allow systems to work.
As communities do not exceed 55 families, communal irrigation systems are very small (even call micro-irrigation); for example, Huayllumita system benefits 30 families and 16 hectares; Cachicahi is the biggest community and it has an irrigation system for 56 families and 36 hectares. Somehow, each community has its own dynamics according to water availability and traditions.
Some of these systems were built 30 years ago, like Molle Pongo, and others are recently made as Payapayani. To illustrate some differences, these systems are described: Molle Pongo irrigation system has the river as water source; it takes the water through an infiltration gallery and it is conducted for to a tank. From the tank, water distribution is done by means of canals; two main canals lined with concrete and secondary uncoated canals distribute the water to benefit 26 families. Maintenance of this system is done as community work defined at the monthly communal meeting. There are turns of 24 hours which means that each farmer have water once per 26 days; however, there is always possibility to exchange the turn or cooperate between farmers, it is not rigid, we help each other (Lozano, 2015). Water rights depend on the participation in works for building the system, as well, it is discussed in community meetings in case of changes or new demands.
Payapayani irrigation system was recently built and it takes the water from a micro-dam (big atajado) that collects water from a temporary stream and rainwater. From there, water conduction is done through pipes directly to the fields by 3-inch pipeline; each field has a water faucet. In this case, turns and all the management is arranged between the farmers; there are no strict turns or regulations. This is because Payapayani community is located in the upper zone and there are few people (4 o 5) permanently using the system, then, they consider do not need a water judge and manage the water by verbal agreements depending on the situation.
Pumping from deep wells
Around 18 years ago, digging wells started to be a common practice to get water for irrigation with gasoline pumps; afterwards, electricity arrived to the zone as well as electric pumps. The first pumps were very small and inefficient but there are people still using them. Water extraction from deep wells with pumps is taking more importance especially in the micro- watershed of Guardaña river, from Jachuyo until Ventillita. Some communities as Mojon Pampa have an old irrigation system with canals that complement with pumping from wells.
At the riversides farmers dig wells to find water that is extracted by electric and gasoline pumps, depending on the location for electricity availability. Some of the wells are for one family and other are multifamily; that depends sometimes on the economic capacity for digging the well and builds the internal rings. When sharing a deep well, each farmer has its own pump and they
34 monitor electricity consumption to pay; in that case, there is a way to control since electricity is provided by a cooperative and there are gauges. These deep wells are made in each family plot, thus, farmers say that they open a well and use the water from their lands; there is no control.
In general, almost each family has one deep well in their plots located close to the river, which means that most of the river in perforated. Some people prefer to use pumps since they have control and autonomy to irrigate when they wish, instead waiting for turns in communal system; however, the costs of electricity sometimes lead to use less time the pumps.
As this is an individual way to use the water, there is no organization, person in charge or rules at community level. Only people complain about electricity because there are outages very often; that could be caused by the installation of many pumps.
Irrigation techniques
As it was above described, water arrives to the fields by canals; then, it is applied to the soil by flooding. In order to do irrigation activity more efficient, farmers use a traditional (from Incas time) soil management called comb or plank because plots are ploughed in such a way that conform ridges and furrows looking like a comb (Figure 13). That technique allows controlling water flow within the plot: the farmer opens an edge to let water come in and flood the “plank”; once it is flooded, the edge is closed and another plank is open and so on. That dynamic is time consuming since one person has to be in the plot the whole journey doing that activity; however, this is a familiar task that any member of the family can do; men, women, children.
Most of the agriculture in Guardaña is dedicated to cultivate onions, carrots, lettuce and turnips; farmers irrigate during the whole crop cycle. Since Guardaña has high solar radiation and temperatures during the day, farmers prefer to irrigate at night and early morning. Irrigation is done once or twice per week for periods of around 12 hours.
Figure 13 Irrigation technique in “comb or plank” used in Guardaña. Source: CPG Project, 2015.
Another important use of water in Guardaña is for washing the carrots; it is a common practice to add value to the product. Most of the farmers have a single and mobile machine to do this practice, which is placed in the riverbed to wash carrots. The water is taken from the river and immediately returned to the river, without altering its conditions more than adding some soil. Nevertheless, there is a big carrot washer located in Ventillita that offer a service mainly for external clients. This is located in a big building close to the Guardaña river and it works like the small ones. About this carrot washer, there is a negative experience, since many people state that it was built for the watershed, for all the 16 communities but at the end Ventillita took it only for that community. Farmers from different communities told that they invest work and time in that project because it is an economic income for the watershed, but it is only for one
35 community now. As a comment, this case was mentioned some times when I asked in one community if they would work for other community, they remember that experience.
So, people in Guardaña manage their lands and water resources by themselves, at community level. That is probably an example of what many countries wanted to do by proposing participation, democratization, self-regulation and decentralisation of decision making in water management (Hoogesteger, 2012); the main difference is that there was no previous institution or centralized management from the government before in this case. As Bustamante (2002) mentioned, a particular characteristic of water management in Bolivia is the very weak or even absent intervention of the State. As a result, water management especially in rural areas has been independent and autonomous without external interventions which have led to developing local water management mechanisms based on cultural values and principles, recognized as “usos, costumbres y servidumbres”. As well, Armijos and Walnycki (2014), argument that the absence of state support has resulted in the emergence of a complex system of water rights and a strong sense that water should be managed locally to the extent that water user associations members see their participation in service provision as a right, that might even regret the acceptance of formal water governance models that could take away decision making power from local associations.
Then, at this moment there is community water management with definition of common rules when collectively used, but individual extractions are leading to an overexploitation of the water resources without any monitoring or control. Integrated Farm Management In order to give an insight on the agricultural systems in Guardaña, a cropping cycle is described. The two most important crops are carrots and onions; onion crop requires seedbed that is settled at the end of July by each farmer at their lands. Soil preparation for sowing is done in early August when farmers plough, irrigate, and fertilize. Ploughing practice is mainly done with tractor and disc plough and complemented manually to create the furrows and “planks”; before, they used to use animal traction but now it is not often due to availability of tractors in the zone (which come from Chile usually illegal and cheap). Farmers only fertilize once per cycle (sometimes once per two cycles) using sheep manure bought in other region; they prefer to apply sheep manure because it is “warm” and not llama manure because it is “cold”. Onion transplanting starts from 15th August onwards while carrot and fava bean are planted directly during the whole month; it depends on water availability, time and money. After planting, the main labour is irrigation which is required twice per week until December when rainfall starts and less water is applied. Some farmers apply herbicides once or twice during the whole cycle, but they try to avoid any external agricultural inputs to reduce costs; however, irrigation, seeds and manure are the highest costs. The harvest season begins in February until April for onions and May for carrots.
These agricultural activities have place at the riverbanks in both Guardaña and Cachicachi rivers. If we compare the SWC practices implemented so far, atajados are directly integrated to the farming systems since they allow make more lands available and recharge aquifers for irrigation; as well, riverbanks conformation is another practice that has effect in the economic activity of farmers. Thus, these two SWC measures are the most accepted, implemented and replicated because they have impact in agriculture. Moreover, terraces are not being used for agriculture due to water unavailability, because it requires more handwork and now farmers are concentrated in the riverside not in foothills; as well, aynokas is considered as a soil conservation practice since it consists in crop rotation, but people do not implement them anymore. Spiritual aspects and traditions in natural resources conservation Although it has been said that antique traditions are not preserved (as aynokas and Ark’ana Cancha), farmers in Guardaña conserve traditions from their indigenous culture. The fact that
36 indigenous authorities are still present as leadership figure ensures that many rituals and traditions are kept. The Alcalde of each community is in charge of management, solve problems, external representation and coordinate internal issues, but one of the most important functions is to keep the community safe by means of the Andean mysticism. Therefore, they are always in couples (husband and wife or son and mother) because they must be chacha-warmi (man-woman) who will ask for protection and benefits to the community.
Clement Portillo, a recognized leader from Mojon Pampa (previous Alcalde) described how authorities work, their functions and traditions. The couple of authorities wear special clothing; both of them have a special red poncho that makes them visible for everyone to recognize them as authorities; the man (Tata) has a chicote (kind of scepter) to “lead his people” and the ch’uspa (small bag) to keep coca leaves and the woman (Mama) has an “aguayo (from awayu)” which is a colorful woven blanket to carry bread and coca leaves as a sign for abundance of food within the community. Then, these authorities take with them all the time a special alcohol, coca leaves and other elements to “ch’allar” which is an Andean ritual to give thanks and ask the Pachamama for something special. Their duty is to ask the Pachamama for community welfare and good cultivation; moreover, when a new work is going to start the authorities (mainly Tata mayor) does the ch’alla ritual in signal of respect to the Pachamama as it was done in my presence to begin a micro-dam construction.
However, Portillo (2015) stated that nowadays some communities do not take seriously the traditions and indigenous authorities are selected because they want to be leaders but not always to keep the customs; some of them do not know that they should do ch’allas for agriculture productivity. These mystics are done in 15 of the 16 communities since Ventillita already decided to do not have an indigenous authority, but most of the people still do ch’alla since it is a common tradition even in the urban zones of Bolivia.
Mojon Pampa, Mollepongo and Lequelequeni communities keep an antique tradition of Llallawa, when farmers choose the best plants from their croplands and put them in a special place at the peak of a mountain. This is to ask for better crops and give thanks to the Pachamama for the harvest that will start (Belzu, 2015). Most of the communities used to do it before but they abandoned this practice during the last years; some factors influence it, people are very close and connected to the city, agriculture is more commercial and there are several churches and religions in the area, which could be influencing to change this spirituality. Conclusions
Guardaña territory has a context of strong differences in upper and lower zones: the upper part faces land degradation processes led by llama breeding and natural conditions, it has very low population due to difficult living conditions; instead, the lower part has soil and water pressure due to more human settlement dedicated to horticulture. As well, communities’ presence in the lower zone has meant more investments and SWC practices implementation due to their capacities and policy approach by number of citizens for investments.
There is a need to work in the watershed vision since efforts on land and water conservation are done at community level according to each one’s capacities; as well, building relations of trust is required due to negative previous experiences when working at wider scale. Besides, there are specificities that must be considered for Guardaña management such as the presence of two rivers (micro- watersheds) and all dynamics and pressures on each of them.
Guardaña has been place for implementing PNC projects focused in SWC practices that have had different levels of success, being water harvesting the most recognized and adopted by farmers. However, other practices are very low adopted
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and maintained especially those that are not integrated to the economic activity of farmers and do not provide a visible and economic benefit in the short time.
A change in land use towards horticulture, climate change and social dynamics as migration and better access to the city have led to abandonment of traditional land management practices and spirituality. Besides, the farmer’s motivation for land and water use and management is more economic and therefore related to agricultural productivity. This is leading to focus actions in water supply through atajados; so, it is necessary to address water management from an integrated perspective considering demand, but also social and economic aspects.
Guardaña has community-managed water systems for drinking and irrigation water use; these systems present differences between communities according to water availability, number of affiliates and traditions. Drinking water systems and irrigation systems have different water sources, infrastructure and management, but communities are in charge. Depending on the community, a delegated person or a committee manages basic water issues but not by formal water user associations; aspects related to water rights, rules and conflicts are discussed and decided at the communal meetings with all the members. Water management at community level has no formal (written) settlements but they have practical and clear tasks such as operation of drinking water and irrigation systems by controlling water gates and pumps, collecting money, being aware of flaws.
Currently, there is community water management with definition of common rules, norms and roles when collectively used through communal water systems, but individual extractions are leading to an overexploitation of the water resources without any monitoring or control.
Guardaña lacks of a system (or initiatives) for monitoring climatologic and water parameters, which should be a priority when developing a Pedagogical Watershed to promote gathering of scientific and local knowledge.
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Chapter 4: Watershed Management Organization: Organismo de Gestión de Cuenca “OGC” Guardaña and its implication in watershed management
As it was identified in the previous chapter, OGC creation has been a fundamental element within the process of implementing watershed approach in Guardaña. That is why this organization is going to be studied in the present chapter in order to discuss its conformation, role in natural resources management and other functions that these kinds of organisms should have according to the current academic discussions and lessons learnt from previous experiences. Characterising Guardaña’s OGC
Structure As it was already described in the Chapter 2, the OGC was born due to the project on Integrated Watershed Management carried out during 2008-2011; however, it continued working after the project finished thanks to the President’s leadership that achieved unity, recognition and backing from the communal authorities. In fact, PNC approach promotes OGC creation through projects with the idea of projecting them as spaces for consultation, planning and management of human and natural resources beyond the projects (MMAyA, 2014).
Although Guardaña’s OGC has no legal recognition or defined statutes, it is considered as an inter-communal organization recognized by the grassroots. This organism has internal documents of creation and has been working steadily for more than 4 years with an operative structure, working dynamics and identity.
The Watershed Management Organism of Guardaña is an inter-communal organization composed by all the local authorities from the 3 centrals and the 16 communities; an OGC Board is elected from them for a 2-years period in a general assembly and the other authorities are grouped in 4 commissions to tackle different issues (Figure 14). As each central and community has more than one local authority, Guardaña OGC has theoretically 59 members who meet every month; however, there are different levels of commitment and not everyone attend it but there is always participation from most of the communities with at least one or two authorities (Portillo, 2015).
Figure 14 Organizational Structure of Guardaña’s OGC
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As Blomquist and Schlager (2005) mention, it is currently seen in water resources literature that watershed organizations should be created since political boundaries almost never correspond with watersheds. Thus, watershed-scale decision making structures would bring together all the stakeholders for managing resources; however, there is usually a gap on its implementation. Guardaña case, with its specificities, is defined by political boundaries (centrals and communities) which made easier the creation of an OGC based on only community authorities. Moreover, Guardaña has no water user associations, no other kind of organizations or structures related to water management, except for some committees within the communal organization; so, when talking about water management, everything is managed at community level and all the communal authorities belong currently to the OGC. Nevertheless, a stakeholders’ identification was carried out and it is described in Annex 6 together with a Venn diagram.
PNC approach sees OGC as a space to achieve integration, cooperation and consultation between users, communities and municipalities looking for IWRM implementation; it is also described as the intercommunal entity that involves different actors in the watershed (MMAyA, 2014). However, it is important to review who the stakeholders are in watershed management, because it is also an issue of scale, as most of the subjects on river basin management. Bolivian approach seeks to promote OGC creation at micro-watershed level while other kind of platforms at wider level (MMAyA, 2014). So, the actors belonging to this organism would change according to the scale. As well, PNC sees OGCs at micro-watershed level as spaces to develop capacities for local and community management; then, OGC’s participants, functions, responsibilities and resources mobilization are object of a process of self-determination promoted and supported by VHRH and other allied instances (MMAyA, 2014).
All this allows to analyse that PNC policy admit stakeholders’ participation as important, but it also promotes autonomy in OGC definition according to the local conditions. Moreover, Guardaña watershed has few stakeholders that are not part of the OGC but participate without decision power. As Guardaña OGC is based on communal organization, it might be kept by including only internal stakeholders and look for strategies for involving and relate to the other actors. Nevertheless, we should remember that Guardaña OGC has neither legal personality nor statutes, but current pedagogical project has as objective to support their creation. So, that is an opportunity to redefine the OGC structure, as well as the objectives, roles, functions and scope of OGC as Watershed Management Organism.
An inconvenient for creating the legality of OGC corresponds to the absence of a legal figure in the Bolivian legislation for these kind of watershed structures; Guardaña has an advantage to be conformed as a community organism (only local authorities) and does not need to have a new legal figure but it could affect the roles it will have. Most of those aspects are being tackled currently in the country by creating a new Water Law.
Anyway, most of the academic discussions on this issue are focussed on promoting participation of the grassroots since generally decision making in water management happen in centralised or neoliberal environments with marginalized groups (Cohen, 2012). Guardaña case has a different situation since there has not been a higher authority (governmental, private or communal) before leading and/or managing the resources of the area. This does not exclude this micro-watershed to have interests leading the organization; within local authorities, there can also be situations where individuals want to use the organization for other objectives. Thus, a clear definition of stakeholders, objectives and rules is needed for the OGC.
A last reflection about the conformation and legality of Guardaña refers to other definition made by MMAyA (2014) about OGC’s role as interlocutor with the investment institutions to seek for sustainability of investments in the watersheds; so, OGCs are thought to be the direct link after projects and therefore they need a legal recognition, legal figure, and statutes. Dourojeanni (2011) recognizes that watershed management organizations need clearly defined roles and to
40 have the necessary attributes to fulfil them. To this respect, the NGO PDA Wiñaypaj offers a special opportunity for strengthening the OGC through agreements for mutual work.
Operationalization of OGC structure As it was seen in the Figure 14, Guardaña OGC has a structure composed by a general assembly that corresponds to the grassroots from 16 communities represented by their authorities in a monthly meeting led by the Board, which is elected each two years. So, OGC is seen as the group of authorities and the Board, but some of them do not even recognize themselves as such, because OGC tends to be confused with the Board. The monthly meeting is the most important and recognized space and moment for communication and decision making in Guardaña watershed; therefore, it shows representative dynamics and relationships going on. That is why, the OGC meeting and communication issues are going to be analysed as a way to observe potential aspects to be strengthen at each level of internal stakeholders in the process.
Monthly meeting: These meetings have their own dynamic, where only the OGC’s Board sits at the head table and leads the meeting. Each month, depending on the topics to be discussed there are different guests such as the NGO’s manager, officials from the municipality, from the School and the technicians from CPG project who are always present. During the meeting, most of the themes about natural resources are addressed in the President’s report, when he gives the floor to the CPG technicians to inform about project’s issues; sometimes the President has to beg for commitment and participation in SWC activities because there is low motivation and initiative for doing it themselves, and it is always related to the CPG project. After that, commissions also update the meeting about their activities. Roads, education and health commissions have normally priority while agriculture, which is divided in horticulture (downstream) and livestock (upstream), has the last place most of the times. Road paving topic gets people very motivated, they even contribute with money to lobby paving investments. Issues on agriculture are sometimes explained by the associations conformed for both activities; however, people from the upstream part where lama production is located have less participation and less attention. An extra topic discussed in the meetings is about politics, because OGC saw as a good strategy to have a representative person from Guardaña in the municipal council.
From this first description of what a monthly meeting is, it is possible to extract that OGC addresses natural resources topics through the CPG project and its technicians, thus there is no a commission for natural resources itself or even for the CPG project, but those topics are always addressed; it implies a kind of dependence on the project, that should be solved. Other issues such as politics and specially roads receive more attention; road paving is considered as a common issue because it is the only way to access to the last community upstream and to transport their products to market and it is of course impossible to manage at community level. Finally, OGC meetings are also open to receive different kind of people, as they did it with the researcher and other external actors, which is positive for interaction with other scales.
OGC Board: Besides, the OGC Board has its own dynamics, where the President (currently Anacleto Ramos) is in charge of leading most of the activities, internal and external; it means that being the OGC president is a very time-consuming activity (Ramos, 2015; Pava, 2015). As well, the OGC has financial resources mobilization through contributions from each community for the basic working of the organization; it signifies administrative management as well as accountability aspects (role of treasurer). Nevertheless, projects are managed by other institutions since OGC does not have legal recognition. Additionally, OGC has become a central component of watershed approach implementation which implies its participation in contests, meetings, other projects that combined with the internal activities at community and municipal level, requires time and documents management skills. However, nobody in OGC structure receives any payment or financial compensation for their labour but there are often misunderstandings and suspicions on them, which demotivate them. These issues of roles, scope and accountability must be tackled by clear rules definition through statutes creation from a
41 participatory process; moreover, capacity building and management skills need to be developed in this structure.
Authorities: From OGC meetings, communication should go to the grassroots, so, communal authorities have a very important role since they participate in the OGC and the community meetings in both directions. At the same time, authorities have the responsibility for leading and coordinating all the local activities as well as doing external relationships and lobbying. Then, the vision, attitude and enrolment that each authority has towards the watershed process is a fundamental aspect for connecting community to watershed scale. And it is not easy because an authority represents one of the centrals or communities and tends to think in particular interests but being part of this new higher level organization forces them to broad their thinking (Portillo, 2015); eventually, they also lack of competences for getting all the information and communicate it (because either they partially understand and participate in the meeting, or they lack the ability to take notes and listen to the long meeting since there is not written report). Additionally, authorities are committed and responsible people by tradition and coherence; however, the level of participation and commitment varies according to the person and experience. To this respect, there is another particular condition in these communities: all the community members have the obligation of being an authority to offer a communal service, so, they turn each year to be an authority. This could be considered as a disadvantage sometimes because there is not continuity, but it might be positive since everybody gets experience and leadership. In conclusion, communal authorities must be prioritized actors in the process of strengthening watershed vision in Guardaña; although the CPG Project has contributed to his training and authorities already use a more technical and rich vocabulary and understand better about watershed and water management, they still must have special attention in capacity building process.
Communities: Going to the next level of organization towards the bottom, we find the communities, who use the natural resources and actually execute all the activities in the field. They also have a monthly meeting, led by the local authorities in each community, where all the members (1 person/family) have to participate and make decisions together. “When we decide something in the community meeting, that is what we do” (Belzu, 2015). As people participate in decision making, they are committed to actively fulfil with all the activities, otherwise, they must send someone else on their behalf or pay a fine; at the same time, participating in activities gives a right for next benefits and also to complain or have the floor for other discussions. It implies that, when a community decides to participate in watershed activities, they mostly do it.
Another point is how the grassroots get the information and decide their participation in watershed activities. I attended four community meetings where watershed topics were discussed and I observed that, on the one hand it depends on the authority and his/her capacity and leadership to inform and to move the people for participating: as only authorities go to the OGC meetings, they have the responsibility to share the information, however, they are not always able to explain everything to their grassroots but the presence of CPG technicians helps the authorities to explain and motivate people to attend the activities. On the other hand, the grassroots also have interests and previous experiences from CPG and MIC activities that influence the decisions: each person has different motivations and opinions, for example, people who have been authorities the last years and have had more involvement in watershed projects have more understanding on watershed issues. This specific topic might be studied by using Kessler (2006) methodology to evaluate factors affecting people participation at household level. Finally, there are no clear rules or sanctions if they do not participate in watershed activities, which create an image of more flexibility and no need to attend.
From this subchapter there are some remarks about the need for support in logistics during the OGC meetings focus in training for authorities and create tools to communicate more effectively the information in such a way that the grassroots can get it. However, the low autonomy that the process has from projects must be also addressed; then, capacity building at each level must be a priority. As well, there is another remark for the statutes creation, since
42 there are no clear rules about participation in watershed activities, which must be useful, but also promoting intrinsic motivation to complement the interest of participation with the rules. OGC’ role in watershed management through CPG project While it is true, PNC considers the OGC as an organized space for dialogue and the creation of integrated watershed management agreements (VCRH, 2008) and as an organizational basis for sustainable natural resources management and enhance productivity capacities (MMAyA, 2014), the structure of Guardaña OGC does not seem to be addressed yet towards that objective at first sight. The four commissions do not consider soil, water, or natural resources. However, as it was already seen, those topics are always in the OGC agenda by means of Pedagogical Watershed Project. So, an analysis of the current role that OGC is having on watershed management is done through reviewing CPG project activities.
Guardaña is one of six pedagogical watersheds that are being implemented in Bolivia, as part of the National River Basin Plan. With the Technical University of Oruro as facilitating organization, the project has been developed over 14 months, with the permanent presence of two technicians in the field: a MIC technical and a IWRM facilitator. This program is carried out under five lines of action: 1) Capacity building and organizational strengthening, 2) Participatory action research, 3) Design and implementation of IWRM-IRBM plans and measures, 4) Cooperation and inter-institutional strengthening 5) Systematization and dissemination. However, CPG project had a very low percentage of execution (<40% of the first phase) by the time of carrying out this research. Thus, participating in all the activities of CPG project and observing the daily work of OGC Board, I could identify the main aspects that OGC works on:
Planning Planning is one of the most highlighted components that are being developed in Guardaña through the CPG project. By means of making scale models, each community identifies and illustrates its characteristics, problems and ideas for the future, based on talking maps where they draw biophysical and historical aspects of their territories; it is called community planning. CPG project supported community planning through providing some materials and accompanying the process, which started very enthusiastically. The creation of these scale models was promoted by means of an inter-communal contest, which was postponed due to delays in awards acquisition from UTO and after that, some people were demotivated to participate. At the end, 75% of the communities participated in the competition the 9th July 2015, where children, men, women, elder and young, attended and share their scale models; besides, there was presence of municipal and departmental representatives as well as from the University, which was a reached goal for inter-institutional component.
However, there were some negative points in the scale models contest because this mechanism declared winners and unfortunately, due to that, some of the participants ended up upset although prizes were given to everyone. It also has as cause unclear rules, conditions and assessment criteria on the contest. Besides, the prizes were tools for promoting land management practices and future works, such as picks, shovels and wheelbarrows; but some people were not agreed with them because farmers preferred something more modern or projects funding. Indeed, I observed communities selling prizes gotten from previous activities from municipality and they argued that it creates conflicts within the community to use tools or machines and they better sell them. Those situations can have counterproductive effects for cohesion between communities and for future participation.
This methodology of contests is very used in Bolivia and Peru for projects in development; in this case, watershed project is trying to create a wider vision on natural resources management where contests is a useful tool but it must be implemented carefully. Competitions promote motivation for social participation either for the prizes or for the recognition and proudness of participating and wining (Cox, 1996). However, there are some elements that were missing in
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Guardaña competition that are mentioned by some authors as key aspects for success; preparing, designing and defining the contest and prizes with communities is a way how the people can evaluate if they want to participate (van Immerzeel, 2002) as well, establishing all the conditions from the beginning and fulfilling commitments and organization is fundamental (Cox, 1996).
Nevertheless, this mechanism was done at community scale with different levels of involvement of the grassroots. For example, Ventillita community decided to make obligatory everyone’s participation, then, it was very rich activity in ideas, materials and contributions. That scale model contains how Ventillita’s territory is currently and how they dream it. Thus, a new dam construction, bank protection, forestation were represented as ideas for improving the Mother Earth conditions; as well, social proposals were illustrated as better houses, toilets, transformation of agricultural products. Although it is difficult to represent intangible aspects like education, and there are no time, resources and responsible identified, these scale models were a product of grassroots work and ideas, which is already an important advance. Anyhow, the point afterwards is whether communities appropriate the scale models as planning tools, or they just made them for the contest or because it was an obligation.
Pachamama Raymi is a recognized system that works in Bolivia and Peru with contests in order to promote adoption of new agricultural, sanitation and economic initiatives. Families that voluntarily participate have an agreed period of time to do improvements in their houses, family hygiene and agricultural systems; they are evaluated with previously known criteria and get cash prices (Davis, 2013). The main difference with this contest in Guardaña is the fact that farmers are not yet changing their reality, they only imagine and draw their future; instead, Pachamama Raymi method is more concrete to the actions and give prizes to the most significant changes. It shows how important is to define the topic to be tackled in the competition as well as the way of implementing the activity.
OGC Board has not been very involved in this activity since it was time demanding to go to each community but the contest was led by the President; besides, communal authorities developed the activity at their places, so, they play an important role for the next step in implementation.
There is a representative advance at watershed level, which is the Guardaña general scale model that includes the 16 communities. From the previous projects, there was already a scale model that illustrates Guardaña definition as it was described in chapter 2. It has been used for different purposes: to choose the projects that will be presented in contests, to show the watershed to guests who come for visiting, to present the watershed and its planning to external institutions. It demonstrates that it is useful but it is being used mainly for external activities, not in the OGC meetings (for example); then, it is underused since it could be a tool to reach the individuals from all the communities and share the idea of watershed as well as the projects, but only few people (including CPG technicians and Board) are aware of that scale model and understand it completely. Additionally, there is a lack of information management since scale models are not systematized in written documents yet, and OGC does not have an archive with all Guardaña products from the first projects and others that exist so far.
In general, scale models done so far have important information about each community’s present and ideas for the future, but they can be more ambitious and require innovations since most of the communities propose the same practices such as atajados and forestations. Then, Pachamama Raymi could be implemented to trigger innovations therefore farmers and communities will make efforts to find something new and develop it.
Going further than the contests, planning could be better addressed specially in the upper zone, for example to create protection areas where lands are intended for resting or for grass growing or grazing. Those kinds of options require complete participation and commitment of the farmers as well as a technical accompaniment.
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Projects formulation From all the scale models at community level, the pedagogical watershed project aims to create projects in order to make them available for lobbying at different levels. So, one of the technicians is in charge of writing proposals from communities’ ideas; it is the next step after planning and it is being carried out by the project. Although there is no a defined procedure on when, how, who decides on the prioritization, there is an experience of a project formulated for a national contest (from Swiss Cooperation) which was based on the scale model. That project was selected in the contest and it is going to be executed by the NGO PDA Wiñaypaj. Other two projects were formulated and presented to a governmental/Danish cooperation program and those are going to be executed from the two farmers associations.
It is an important step that CPG is giving towards looking for resources while developing communities’ plans. OGC participated actively in the Swiss contest since it was created to strengthen OGCs at national level, but for the other projects, it had a passive role and it was even confusing whether projects formulation was part of the watershed or not. This illustrates that OGC has not total clarity of its roles and CPG technicians are carrying most of the work and information management. Over all, scale model creation as planning tool has been helpful when defining projects so far.
Integrated Watershed Management Practices This component corresponds to the technical component, as it is identified in PNC approach. Although CPG project does not have as objective implementing physical works but building capacities (MMAyA, 2013), there are some technical activities that are implemented with CGP project. The most representatives are the construction of atajados and river bank protection; those activities are led by the CPG technicians but OGC Board also participates and they together promote authorities involvement through the monthly meeting. So, the OGC Board’s role is not coordinating but it has participation on it. Since the project in Swiss cooperation contest was approved, physical works are currently being developed. While I was present in Guardaña, OGC was having a coordinator role besides CPG technicians for organizing those activities and administrative issues to start.
Capacity building CPG has a clear objective to develop and strengthen capacities for watershed management. Pava (2015) states “watershed management is infinite, it is dynamic”; that is a sign of appropriation not only of the process but of vocabulary. There are people who already talk more about watershed and use more technical vocabulary, especially after the trip for experiences exchange to other pedagogical watersheds. That was a very important experience for most of the participants, including OGC, technicians, coordinator, authorities, researcher; looking at similar experiences led to recognize weaknesses and strengthens in Guardaña and helped to understand better the differences between watersheds.
Another important objective of CPG project is to promote and accompany the process of legalization of Guardaña OGC by creating statutes and legal status; however, while I was there, a lawyer was hired to do that task and she delivered a first draft of statutes for a farmers’ association without any participatory method. Although I do not know the conditions of the contract, that is the process of constructing the identity and navigation chart of OGC and it have to be built with their participation; that must be an issue for participatory research more than a consultancy.
Other activities such as workshops and meetings have been carried out at community level, where rarely the OGC Board participates; but workshops for the whole watershed are always organized by the OGC Board and technicians. Nonetheless, promoters’ training is an important activity part of the CPG project that is not being developed yet, except for one meeting. Peasants promoters is one of the strategies that PNC has identified in order to create a critical
45 mass as well as human resources strengthening at different scales to support social water management (MMAyA. 2013).
OGC has participated actively by organizing and representing Guardaña in the exchange trip; besides, OGC Board and authorities are active in CPG activities for capacity building. However, capacity building is a process at all the levels and between them; institutional capacity must be developed as well as training and teaching when talking about IWRM (Zaag, 2005) as well, all the stakeholders should get training and be aware of that strengthening process. So, it is needed more interaction between OGC Board and the grassroots to get better communication and build bonds of trust.
Research One of the main purposes of pedagogical watershed initiative is integrating scientific with local knowledge as basis for decision making and watershed management. CPG has a University as facilitating institution for implementing the project, which has already defined budget for research in water resources inventory, hydro-geologic and aquifers study, local knowledge, soil characterization and mapping, and water balance. However, after more than 1 year UTO has not started developing any of them; the coordinator manifested the university has slow hiring processes and the project states those researches must be done through consultancy. OGC Board is aware of that, and the only action they can do is to talk to the UTO Directives, which they did before to finish this research.
Nonetheless, I carried out this research mainly supported by the OGC Board, authorities and CPG technicians for field trips, interviews and meetings; they all were aware of my work and willing to cooperate and participate, which we did in reciprocity because every time I helped with their activities. That shows a positive disposition for participatory research. Moreover, Guardaña is starting to get recognition as a place for visiting and carrying out experiments, for example a Mexican university went there to apply a participatory methodology.
Inter-Institutional Cooperation and Recognition In 2014, Guardaña watershed (through OGC) signed an agreement with Soracachi Municipality and PDA Wiñaypaj as part of the strategy for institutional cooperation. However, the OGC did not participate itself in the process for planning the municipal investments while it could have done it; instead, most of the authorities went to ask for their own projects and investments. That would be an opportunity to create more external visibility of OGC with the new government in Soracachi, since there is a new Major, who was not aware of the watershed presence and CPG project, as it was identified in an interview. Besides, PDA Wiñaypaj is currently a very important partner since it is executing one of the projects and it is going through a renovation process. OGC lacks of legal recognition which influences its participation in some activities, but Ministry of Environment and PNC are promoting programs to strengthen them, so, there is a high external recognition from them, but not from other organisms.
Pedagogical Guardaña Watershed has been implemented mainly at local level with some dialogues with municipality; then, there is no connection with the regional level. PNC is also applying other important river basin project at wider scale, the Poopó River Basin Master Plan which includes Soracachi within its area of influence; that would be an opportunity for PNC to link two scales. Therefore, there is an internal work in capacity building in Guardaña as pilot watershed, but there is still a weak involvement, capacities and relationships at next levels.
Regarding the internal recognition, OGC has become a very important social structure due to its capacity to unify all the communities through their authorities and the potential they have to lobby projects. Besides, OGC is a space that never existed before to bring the complaints that cannot be solved at community level or between two or more communities; that has been the main achievement of the watershed (Portillo, 2015). The OGC president has such a recognition and respect, that communities ask him to go when a new authority assumes his/her position.
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Systematization and dissemination It is a weak aspect in Guardaña project since most of the activities are not being written. The CPG project manages some information, OGC their internal data in minute books, and Ministry has more information; however, there is no central management of all what happens in Guardaña which implies there is no a clear general panorama. External communication is not strong, since the activities from Guardaña watershed are not socialized to the city of Oruro or on the Internet (Choque, 2015). So, there is a need to solve the weak systematization process and information management, which contributes to Guardaña benefit as well as for the national debate on watershed management since some authors have identified that there are no many successful and systematized experiences on IWRM in Bolivia (Ruiz & Gentes, 2008; Quiroz, F. 2012; Krug et al., 2011). This weakness causes misunderstanding when trying to find information about Guardaña, as it happened for this research; Guardaña is miswritten in documents and even in official websites from the government.
To conclude about the role that OGC currently has on watershed management through CPG project, it is working mainly in components of planning and capacity building, as well as coordinating activities related to the project itself, as a support. This is due to the nature of the project that aims to build capacities; however, the lack of a clear role, functions and scope of OGC does not allow to know if it is fulfilling its objectives. There are no even guidelines from PNC because the approach is open to enable each watershed to create their own structures. Thus, OGC has a weak influence on watershed resources management, since it works mainly for more social objectives.
In order to see at a glance which could/must be the roles of OGC in watershed resources management, the next apart is going to address roles of watershed management organizations. What must be the role of OGC in watershed management? Creation of a watershed management organization has been a point of discussions at different academic arenas; however, PNC gives autonomy to each watershed to develop their own OGC structure, functions, rules and roles. Because of that, Guardaña OGC was conformed and is working without having decided its characteristics and identity. So, even though the role of an organization depends on its objective and that in turn depends on the desire of Guardaña people and on national regulations about authorities’ scope (being currently written), this subchapter provides a basis on OGCs’ roles.
According to the Global Water Partnership (2009), watershed management organisms have as mandate to “take a big picture” perspective and be the leading voice on watershed issues by informing and involving all the sectors at all the levels. Although watershed management organizations have many functions, GWP identifies that they are more related to three aspects: 1) monitoring, investigating, coordinating and regulating; 2) planning and financing; and 3) developing and managing. The next are components proposed by GWP and adjusted with aspects from PNC approach (*):
1. Monitoring, investigating, coordinating and regulating Collecting data: Collecting, managing and communicating data regarding water availability, water demand (including environmental requirements), and water quality to support different basin functions. Prevention, monitoring and promoting social control*: Monitoring water pollution, salinity levels and ground water extraction – ensuring that they remain within accepted limits; and define community rules to prevent degradation/overexploitation and to restore ecosystems. Coordinating: Harmonising policies and actions undertaken in the basin by state and nonstate actors relevant to land and water management. Resolving conflicts: Providing mechanisms for negotiation and litigation. * Social participation, including the active involvement of the most disadvantaged in decision-making groups, and considering current forms of social organization
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*Integrated management includes cooperation and dialogue between users, communities, municipalities by means of Watershed Management Organizations (OGCs). *Integration of local knowledge, traditions and cultural practices
2. Planning and financing Allocating water: Defining mechanisms and criteria by which water is apportioned among user sectors, including the environment. Planning: Formulating medium- to long-term plans for developing and managing water resources in the basin. Mobilising resources: Ensuring financing, for example, by collecting water user fees or water taxes
3. Developing and managing Constructing facilities: Designing and constructing water infrastructure. Maintaining facilities: Maintaining water infrastructure. Operation and management: Ensuring that dams, navigation and water distribution infrastructure, and wastewater treatment plants are properly operated; that allocated water reaches its point of use; and that surface and ground water are conjunctively managed. Preparing against water disasters: Protecting from floods and developing emergency works, flood/drought preparedness plans, and coping mechanisms. Protecting and conserving ecosystems: Defining priorities and implementing actions to protect ecosystems, including awareness campaigns.
There is an important point to consider in Guardaña case, when talking about regulatory attributions. As Dourojeanni et al. (2002) state, it is not often that substantive functions (such as giving water concessions, permissions, defining limits of pollution discharge and relevant decision making on water management) are taken by river basin management organizations. To do so, they should have very well defined functions, special legal status, own assets and manage public budgets or have capacity for tax collection. Instead of enforcing and defining strict regulations, these micro-watershed management experiences could promote social control, by fostering conscientization and intrinsic motivation combined with common agreements; especially with Pedagogical Watersheds that have the support from facilitating institutions to build those community capacities. Anyhow, those aspects should be defined from participatory processes. Conclusions
PNC approach gives autonomy to each watershed to develop an own OGC structure, functions, rules and roles; it does not even enforce that OGCs must have a role of integrated watershed management. Guardaña OGC was created and has been working without defining formally its own characteristics and identity. Despite this, in practical terms Guardaña OGC is a social-based organization that brings together all the local authorities from 16 communities and 3 centrals. It has a clear structure and internal recognition but is not legally constituted; it has no statutes, role, scope nor rules. However, at this moment OGC is going through a key process as it is creating a legal personality, which is highly recommended to accompany. Although not all the stakeholders are included in OGC structure, it involves most of them as being composed by local authorities since Guardaña has no other organizations or structures to manage water resources.
Within the OGC structure there are three clear levels: grassroots, authorities and OGC. There are weaknesses that affect communication and understanding between them; then, each of them requires different focus for capacity building. At the community level there is a lack of intrinsic motivation to participate and weak understanding of
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watershed scale issues. The authorities have a key role since they are located at the middle between the other two levels; they must be a focus group for capacity building in communication, and management. OGC lacks of capacities in logistics for meetings and activities, administration, and information management. It is also needed to develop activities to improve other relationships between levels and among them to get close to each other.
Although OGC has a good internal recognition due to its social management and presence of local authorities, its external recognition is weak. It has no practical relationship with other levels in public management as municipality and regional, as well as with Poopó Master Plan that involves Soracachi for a wider river basin plan.
The absence of a formal definition of objectives and functions of OGC has led it to be more focus in social issues than environmental ones due to its basis of creation; thus, OGC does not have a clear role in land and water management in the watershed. However, it is accompanying activities related to capacity building and natural resources conservation through CPG project.
It would be helpful if PNC provided a general guideline for Watershed Management Organizations under its approach, so they can have a basis to make decisions as well as technicians and other individuals acting as facilitators in that important definition process. In fact that could be a topic for research.
The Pedagogical Watershed Project has effective incidence in most of the activities of OGC especially the ones related to land and water management. At the same time, that ties OGC to an external help for some activities and therefore the need for capacity building. Moreover, since CPG is an innovative project concentrated in capacity building and participatory elements, it requires thorough understanding and institutional and individual capabilities for execution, coordination and accompaniment
A strategic ally for Guardaña is the NGO PDA Wiñaypaj, which is currently in a transition process in order to make sustainable its efforts in development for a long time in the zone.
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Chapter 5: Designing a strategy for integrated and social land and water management in Guardaña Guardaña has been a place for implementing the National River Basin Plan approach that together with its specific characteristics and dynamics have led to develop a social watershed construction as well as a new organization and implementation of SWC practices. However, there are still several aspects to strengthen at different scales as well as in various components of management. Based on the previous chapters, the last one explores a set of alternatives in three aspects: promote motivation and capacity building within the grassroots, construction of Guardaña Watershed Management Plan and adjustments in PNC programs, all these aiming for integrated and social management of land and water resources in Guardaña.
While it is true PNC is looking to create watershed management models to replicate from these pedagogical (pilot) watersheds in others, it is also true that land and water management is considered a complex issue and the idea of combining natural and social dimensions in a space for water management can be so specific that it does not allow to generalize, as Ghiotti considered (Le Lay, 2007). As well, there is place to cite Jaubert de Passa, who highlighted in 1846 the importance of the specificities in local and community management (Ruf, 2011).
Through the whole analysis of Guardaña watershed illustrated in this document, it have been evident the specificities in its construction process as watershed, as well as in their biophysical, socioeconomic and management dynamics. I consider that Guardaña is definitely a space for life with such specificities that makes it unique in watershed approach implementation as product of a social construction which is not natural-resources oriented. Besides, Pedagogical Pilot Watershed project is conceived to lead a set of activities that must conduce to create integrated watershed management models and mechanisms product of capacity building, research, IWRM and IRBM practices implementation, inter-institutional articulation, systematization and a wide participatory involvement and consultation. Considering that Pedagogical Guardaña Watershed project has been executed in a very low percentage where this is the first research carried out and there is little documentation, it is difficult to elaborate a complete model on how watershed management could/should be.
This is why this study provides a wide insight on Guardaña as a process of watershed concept construction where not only physical but social and institutional aspects are included; at the same time it tries to go in depth into specificities and identify the crucial elements and components that play special roles towards watershed management under PNC approach and principles. In consequence, a graphic representation of Guardaña is presented from the previous analysis and background, which offers an insight of the elements, stakeholders and processes to take into account in a strategy for social and integrated land and water management in Guardaña (Figure 15).
First of all, there are two different dimensions making part of this watershed system: social and natural. The first one is composed by three levels: communities, authorities and OGC; the second one has two scales: community and watershed (Figure 15).
Social dimension includes the social structures that exist and are involved in land and water management in Guardaña, beginning from the families that are grouped in a community, where there are specific authorities representing the grassroots in the next level that corresponds to the OGC. Weaknesses, strengthens, perspectives, dynamics within and among those scales have an impact in watershed management. However, the bottom of this social structure is composed by individuals who are the ones that make possible or not any action with their participation.
Regarding to the natural dimension, those are the scales at which land and water resources management can be seen and done. It mainly refers to the idea of “watershed” scale in terms of understanding and recognizing the existence of upstream and downstream parts in Guardaña
50 territory, where natural resources have specific problems and dynamics led by natural or anthropic processes. In Guardaña case, this component considers the current definition of watershed including the territory and two rivers part of it.
Both of the dimensions, with their components, are having place at the same time in daily life of Guardaña and everything what happens in each of them have impacts in watershed management. Moreover, this structure is bounded by the Guardaña definition and takes into account only internal actors; however, as it was previously identified, PNC through pedagogical watershed program has much influence on Guardaña process therefore it is included as facilitator in the process of capacity building and common vision construction. UTO is also included as the current facilitator for CPG project but it could play an important role in the future after projects end. As PNC is a participatory approach with social focus, the foundation of Guardaña watershed management is composed by the CEP principles as well as an intrinsic motivation, understanding and awareness from individuals that move them to take action for their resources.
To finish with the description, there are also identified two other external actors having relation with Guardaña, the NGO PDA Wiñaypaj and Soracachi municipality since these have been strategic allies for projects funding and implementation; besides, the Poopó Basin Master Plan is included due to its potential for supporting Guardaña from its wider scale approach, as part of the PNC strategy.
Figure 15 Graphic representation of Guardaña and its dimensions and components for integrated management
PNC approach for watershed management combines IWRM as social and institutional component of management, with IRBM as the technical tasks on watershed natural resources; thus, there is an integration of natural, socioeconomic and cultural systems within a watershed, which we can also see in the diagram. As fundamental elements, PNC considers the integration of scales, usages, and stakeholders; technical practices for S&W conservation; organizational strengthening, citizens’ participation and, of course, the CEP principles. The scheme in Figure 15 integrates those elements with the idea of visualize and identify the main components that will be part of the strategy for making work the whole system towards Guardaña watershed management.
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The strategy consists in three parts: 1) Promote motivation and capacity building, 2) Develop the Guardaña Watershed Management Plan, 3) Articulate PNC programs. 1. Promote intrinsic motivation and capacity building The process to build social watershed management requires individuals and communities participating and that is something clear for the PNC and its policies, when talking about capacity building, participative methodologies, and in general with the bottom-up perspective of PNC. Thus, bottom-up processes entail a strong foundation that leads individuals to act collectively towards common goals. It means that this watershed approach needs to be shaped and strengthen from the grassroots in order to have a solid basis. From Figure 15 we can see the basis that corresponds to the principles of the CEP, an intrinsic motivation and participation for a process of capacity building towards integrated watershed management.
Starting with the principles, the Constitution of the Plurinational State of Bolivia enshrines solidarity, complementarity, reciprocity, equity, diversity, sustainability and respect for the Mother Earth’s rights as basis to take decisions and management natural resources in the country. On the one hand, Guardaña has social and historical antecedents that have assembled a strong community cohesion and therefore significant solidarity and reciprocity within it; complementarity can be seen when drinking water and irrigation are managed at community scale without conflict. Nevertheless, these principles are not yet consolidated at watershed level due to the weak relationships between communities related to natural resources management.
On the other hand, when looking at this micro-watershed level the principles of equity, diversity and sustainability are mainly related to the distribution of water between groups and respecting at the same time Mother Earth’s rights as ecological flow; those can be also seen as principles to locate the SLM practices. However, there is no monitoring of water in Guardaña which does not let know whether ecological flow is respected; besides, it still lacks of watershed view for water and SLM practices distribution, thus, these principles should be applied when designing management strategies at watershed scale. All the above represents a necessity to continue working at community level but soon start scaling-up all the principles to watershed level through methodologies that promote a genuine (voluntary) participation.
Kessler (2007) proposed a strategy to promote active participation of Bolivian farmers in natural resources conservation, where the first phase is to lay a solid foundation based on motivated people. Burkey (1993; cited by Kessler, 2007) talks about self-reliant rural development, where farmers first should become self-confident, recognize their strengths and resources to afterwards take action and transform their reality. Also UNESCO in its guidelines for IWRM at river basin level recognizes that the first step for IWRM process is to identify and recognize the need for acting from the grassroots. Thereby, people would be aware of the context and their capacities to improve it.
According to the components for evaluating foundation for sustainable development (Kessler, 2007) Guardaña has already an organizational structure based on communities, that should concentrate efforts mainly in environmental awareness as well as in collaboration and mutual trust at the communities that are going towards individualism. In this case, we want to reach a wider level which is watershed; so, it is needed to work within the communities but also between them; that are what Bourdieu (1980) calls bonding and bridging when defining social capital.
Then, bonding processes within communities needs to be done for strengthening trust and relationships not only in a social perspective but focused in natural resources management and conservation. It implies that communities should start looking at how they use the soil and water resources, analyze whether solidarity, reciprocity and Mother Earth protection are really being fulfilled and create internal rules and agreements towards them. Bourdieu states that bonding processes are related to geographic and community proximity, which gives an advantage due to the pre-existing confidence and relationships as well as the small scale (community level in this
52 case). Moreover, bridging requests more efforts since it is related to organizational proximity that is in this case the OGC where the confidence needs to be created and the scale is wider. However, in Guardaña it is essential to see watershed approach as more than the OGC as an organization itself but promoting a common vision and objectives that can lead to collective action from individuals acting consciously.
These social work needs to be addressed in an innovative way; thus, I would propose to implement the PIP methodology (Kessler et al., 2015), which is a bottom-up approach that starts at family level and looks for scaling-up to wider levels. Then, PIP approach promotes the creation of a family vision to their future by defining an integrated farm plan that leads to up- scaling to integrated collective plans. PIP strategy seeks to change the farmers’ mindset by motivating them to plan, invest and conserve. So, a first phase is developed to promote awareness within the farmers and prepare the village. In the second phase, all the members of the family draw their future according to the needs in terms of housing, facilities, food security, etc., with goals and concrete activities with 3 or 4 years’ time horizon. In that way, farmers have a clear vision instead of living day by day and they are intrinsically motivated to take action. A third phase looks for scaling-up at village level by means of competitions to spread the PIP vision and to collectively discuss and share visions. Fourth phase goes to the up-scaling to other villages and build integrated collective plans.
As we can notice, an important aspect of this approach is the scale because it starts at household level; while it is true Guardaña is promoting community planning, the families and individuals are not integrated in a concrete way at their farm level. As well, implementation of those planned activities is going to have more impact when each person contributed and get an effect, which means that people will have a real motivation to participate in the farming planning process as well as in the communal. So, we could develop the first, second and third phases only to build capacity at household and community level in each community of Guardaña. This creates an opportunity to combine the PIP strategy with the current community planning; then, household plans should consider soil and water use and conservation and therefore be aligned with the collective (community) plans that are already advanced. Then, it is also important to consider that Guardaña has big communal areas specially foothills that must be subject of collective planning. The fourth phase, for up-scaling to watershed level in this case, requires participation and facilitation from certified PIP-trainers that could be farmers and their labor should be recognized. In this last stage, the Guardaña integrated plan should be developed.
This represents a proposition in order to see in a different way the watershed vision construction. It has been done mainly from a top-down strategy going from the OGC to the grassroots, going from the watershed scale model to the community level, but participation has been a weak point. So, PIP as a bottom-up methodology can take more time, but it will create a solid foundation for Guardaña watershed management as well as the social participation and integrated management that PNC seeks in its objectives.
However, Guardaña already has an advanced process of planning and watershed development which cannot be underestimated; the main advances identified are the OGC creation and its capacity for bringing together all the authorities for social management as well as soil and water conservation practices implemented and people being in a process of understanding a concept of watershed management. As it was identified in chapter 4, OGC is not yet working in a natural resources-oriented way and it is not yet established as an organism for integrated watershed management. Consequently, that process of OGC’s consolidation must continue and be strengthen considering as well the presence and cooperation of PNC programs.
Therefore, the construction of the Guardaña watershed management plan is proposed to be done through a double way process: from farmers’ level to the community scale to reconstruct the current scale models (plans) with genuine participation and it will be complemented with a process of consolidation of OGC (with all the communal authorities) as facilitator, coordinator and integrator of the 16 communities and their natural resources management with support from
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CPG project. It means that OGC and pedagogical project should slow down the objective of creating the watershed plan to start with working at both levels, from the households to consolidate community plans and from the OGC to create a real organization for integrated watershed management.
Then, the PIP methodology was already proposed for motivating farmers and communities and thereby creating a solid foundation; however, capacity building at OGC level is still lacking. Chapter 4 identified a necessity for strengthening to recognize its role and its place within the watershed management. As there is no mandate that it must be the watershed integrator organism, it was created without a clear role and it is still trying to define itself and to find its approach and scope. Then, this is the moment for OGC to stop and redesign itself regarding to its integrating function on natural resources management; at the same time, it is the opportunity to articulate its work with communities during the PIP method implementation for watershed.
In practical terms, OGC should be consolidated as the space where authorities develop capacities in communication, management, and also in PIP strategy; so, they can play an important role in the bottom-up component within each community. This responds to the need for improving leadership capacities between authorities, since they are elected each year to fulfill a community service, so they sometimes lack of skills that can be developed at the OGC. A process of capacity building, conscientization and training at the OGC should lead to the definition of its composition, role, objectives and other characteristics that are not yet set up.
Taking into account that CPG project is currently being carried out, and its main objective is capacity building and organizational strengthening, this proposition could have place. The other components of CPG project can be addressed to support this process; implementation of SWC practices is an opportunity for developing innovative contests that motivate farmers to find alternative solutions for land and water management. Besides, participative research is an important tool to accompany, support and discover potential solutions to many kinds of issues, from social to productive and organizational aspects can be tackled by research. The last component of Pedagogical Watershed Project is the creation of IWRM Plan, which was previously proposed to be done from a process of strengthening the grassroots and consolidating OGC; however, this watershed management plan will require a solid construction process with support and guidance therefore, a basis is provided in the following subchapter.
2. Guardaña Watershed Management Plan
PNC is planning to invest at watershed level in the framework of a management plan that is created from the Pedagogical Watershed Program. This Plan must be built based on a common vision of the whole watershed, and supported on participatory planning and research as the previous item described. The proposition is that Guardaña develops its own plan from the grassroots, communities and OGC strengthening process; nevertheless, it is also important to provide them a general structure and idea of an Integrated Management Plan for Guardaña Watershed. Since PNC does not have available a guideline for these plans, I tried to create a basic set of elements to support its formulation.
As any plan, it must have an objective as well as a desired state and time horizon. Those must be defined collectively; however, objective should go towards social and sustainable management of Guardaña watershed.
Principles As PNC approach seeks to build social management mechanisms for watershed resources, we can consider them as common resources at a watershed scale. Ostrom is recognized for her works to invalidate the tragedy of the commons from Hardin, which states that commonly owned resources are depleted by independently behavior of individuals that act contrary to the
54 best interests for the whole group. Ostrom defines some fundamentals that face Hardin’s idea, product of her studies with local communities. Although, Ostrom refers to irrigation systems, the territory of Guardaña with its natural resources, people, organization and dynamics could be based on, to go further towards a social management. Ostrom said the water system needs many rules to work and to apply these rules an organization is needed to implement them and enforce them. Rules must be applicable but modifiable (Ruf, 2011). According to this statement, Guardaña has already the OGC as organization, but it has not defined yet the rules.
However, that rules setting must be a very careful process to avoid individual interests and it should involves all the users. So, rules must be defined according to the specific context; since there is no recipe to conform an ideal water management organism, there are some principles than can make it more sustainable. Ostrom proposes eight principles for managing commons resources, which were complemented with CEP principles and local knowledge recognition component that PNC includes, to be the principles that could be proposed for Guardaña OGC watershed plan.
1. Clearly defined boundaries: Fundamental issue in Guardaña to take into account (Chapter 2) 2. Proportional equivalence between benefits and costs: match rules governing use of common goods to local needs and conditions 3. Collective-choice arrangements: ensure that those affected by the rules can participate in modifying the rules 4. Recognition from the State to the right of organization: make sure the rule-making rights of community members are respected by outside authorities 5. Monitoring: develop a system, carried out by community members, for monitoring members’ behavior, social control 6. Use graduated sanctions for rule violators 7. Conflict resolution mechanisms: provide accessible, low-cost means for dispute resolution 8. Nested enterprises: build responsibility for governing the common resource in nested tiers from the lowest level up to the entire interconnected system 9. Solidarity, equity, reciprocity and Mother Earth protection 10. Take into consideration the local rules, agreements, understandings, knowledge
Components According to the findings and developments made in previous chapters, these are basic components that could be considered for Guardaña plan, clarifying that it is a process of social construction, thus, all the actors must participate in this plan formulation:
Diagnosis
A diagnostic of natural resources in Guardaña is required specially referring to water availability, water demand, (including environmental requirements), and water quality
IWRM components (Social, institutional, administrative)
OGC consolidation as the Watershed Management Organization. Process of definition, recognition and strengthening by using a participatory approach to define roles, objectives, structure, functions, scope. Institutional Innovations: a strategy to get closer OGC and grassroots by moving the OGC meeting through all the communities, and other kind of activities. Make Guardaña a place for meeting around watershed topics for academic, economic and touristic sector. The NGO PDA Wiñaypaj could be a strategic ally for cooperation and develop social, productive, academic, touristic projects. Mobilizing resources: Ensuring financing, for example, by collecting water user fees or projects management.
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Develop tools, methods and activities to recover traditions and spirituality in land and water management. Information management: OGC collects and manages different sources of information and open it for public consultation. Municipal recognition: attract the attention of municipality of Soracachi to invest in Guardaña as a whole area not per community; negotiation of investments in the less- populated areas. Find a strategy to deal/alleviate conflicts for limits Start a forum (social meeting) as well as sports and cultural activities where traditions, experiences and ideas are shared between all the communities. External relationships: cooperation and dialogue with other communities (downstream out of Guardaña delimitation), municipalities and other external actors through OGC. Develop well planned and implemented contests with participation of farmers from the starting moment.
MIC components (Technical)
According to scale models: articulate all the community ideas represented in each scale model to be joint in the general one. Based on local knowledge, research and monitoring, define the most convenient location for SWC practices, focused in erosion and river bank degradation. Integrate SWC practices to the economic activities of farmers and recover traditions as crop rotation. Demand-oriented practices implementation: start looking at the demand, like irrigation efficiency. Improvement of irrigation infrastructure, trials with other types of irrigation. Create a mechanism for permanent social monitoring of climatic variables, soil degradation and water quantity and quality. Create a general program to evaluate all the water systems and make improvements in terms of constructing and maintaining water infrastructure for all the communities. Committee conformed by all the persons in charge of water in each community. Training in operation and management, with a partner in the OGC level. Preparation against water disasters: Protecting from floods and developing emergency works, flood/drought preparedness plans, and coping mechanisms. Creation of a Guardaña native plant nursery where students and people from all the communities can participate producing plants for forestation programs. Protect and conserve ecosystems: Define priorities and implement actions to protect ecosystems or strategic areas for natural resources restoration, including awareness campaigns.
Develop a trans-disciplinary research agenda
Research as support for decision making and integration of people. Participatory approaches Create and strengthen relationships with research institutions and be place for research, based on a trans-disciplinary agenda Potential topics: Evaluation of SWM practices impact, feasibility of alternative and complementary practices, river banks ecologic restoration, water modeling and predictions, GIS for planning and evaluation of land use changes, climate change, spatial and temporal variations, development of erosion measurement methods for communities; topics on livestock production, agriculture, products transformation, etc.
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3. Adjustments and articulation of PNC programs
PNC as the tool to promote social and participatory water management in the Plurinational State of Bolivia has a set of strategies, programs and developments that could be better articulated and used in order to strengthen the integrated management of Guardaña watershed.
One of the seven PNC components is developing Master River Basin Plans; those are identified as the next scale after micro-watersheds approached with Pedagogical Program. These Master Plans are operationalized through platforms that will have a role for planning, monitoring, prioritizing water use in the river basin. The Poopó Lake Master Plan is one of them and it Guardaña is part of Poopó river basin territory. However, the pedagogical watershed has not had contact with the other program. Therefore, it is an opportunity for PNC to do the link between two scales and it mainly could support Guardaña from a more robust project. Another component of PNC is Knowledge and Information Management with the objective of consolidating an information system to support integrated water management. This program might be closer to the Pedagogical Watersheds, since GIS is a very helpful tool for decision making but also for learning processes. PDA Wiñaypaj has infrastructure and equipment for this. The last component, institutional development and strengthening capacities for IWRM and IRBM looks for building capacities among all the actors at different levels; facilitating institutions as UTO in this case require this accompaniment
PNC created its own approach modified GWP approach for IWRM, but it has no defined indicators; then, it is difficult to assess and compare with other approaches. As well, PNC is promoting social construction of watershed with the Pedagogical Program, and at the same time it wants to replicate watershed management through models. In order to design potential models potentially replicable, PNC should define and provide a guideline to serve as basis for social construction. Moreover, as these are pilots, they might be analyzed individually and together in order to evaluate its performance, impact and see how feasible is to create models for replication. Finally, this phenomenon of social-constructed watershed can be very specific and dynamic, then, PNC could make efforts to review and incorporate how each of the watersheds are getting constructed, strengthened and managed.
Regarding to communication and information management, PNC programs have very useful advances (like pedagogic material, reports, experiences) that Guardaña Pedagogical Watershed does not know and is not using. As well, information about Guardaña is not compiled and easily accessible especially for Guardaña members; indeed, there are mistakes in its writing and that does not allow finding these pedagogical experiences that could be an international example in IWRM. Facilitating institution plays an important role at these issues.
Within the Pedagogical program there are adjustments that can be done further than the ones already explained; CPG has a high academic component that should not consider consultancies but research alliances; that would strengthen scientific capacities of the country. Besides, more than outputs or indicators CPG could take into account also how the activities are carried out, how communities perceive the project, who participates, to which extent and why; those are also potential topics for research.
Besides, all the Pedagogical Watersheds in the country must be more connected each other; all the pilots have different experiences that could be exchange more than in trips. Effective communication should be promoted as well as participative research at Pedagogical Program level to see all the pilots from a unique perspective.
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Chapter 6: Conclusions
Conclusions The idea of integrating land and water management with a social and participative approach is being tested by the national government of Bolivia and the communities in Guardaña. In order to take another step towards integrated management at watershed level, a strategy was proposed based in the following conclusions, which answer to the secondary research questions:
“Guardaña watershed” definition is related to (and originated from) projects implementation on soil and water conservation as well as to a new social structure product of the watershed management organization, which also defines territorial boundaries out of 16 communities and 3 centrals that have no concordance with natural watershed delimitation but conforms a hydro-political territory. Community participation, effective measures for water scarcity and actions for social welfare have been fundamental aspects for watershed process construction in Guardaña.
Guardaña territory has significant differences between upper and lower zones: the first one has very low population led by difficult living conditions, soils have more pressure due to livestock production and investments and SWC practices have been less developed than in the lower; the second zone is water-demanding due to irrigated agriculture and human settlement, which have also led to a more active project lobbying and investments in those areas where there are more SWC measures. Although there are problems related to water imbalances and land degradation at a wider scale, there is low understanding and willing for up-scaling management upper than community level. Besides, there is an assembly of practices, rules, traditions and dynamics on land and water management and planning at community level; however, agriculture for commercial objectives, social dynamics and climate change are leading to soil and water exploitation at individual level that results in overusing resources without control.
The Watershed Management Organization, OGC, is a space that brings together authorities from Guardaña's communities, who are the body of this structure and are key actors in communication and connection between OGC and their grassroots. Although OGC has its own structure and communal recognition, it is not legally established and has no clear role, rules and scope. While it works mainly for social well-being, natural resources issues are very lightly addressed by itself because of dependence from projects and external agents. Guardaña’s OGC needs a process of capacity building as well as self-recognition, definition and strengthening with support of CPG project and communities participation.
PNC projects have played (and currently play) a leading role in the watershed process in Guardaña by promoting variety of activities on soil and water conservation practices and the creation of OGC as watershed organization to implement its socio-technical approach. Although projects themselves are clearly-conceived implementation has difficulties; CPG project is an innovative proposal that requires thorough understanding and institutional and individual capacities for execution, coordination and accompaniment.
These conclusions led to the consolidation of a strategy for Guardaña to go towards integrated watershed management according to the PNC approach. The strategy is based on the statement that Guardaña is a “space for life” with such specificities that make it unique in watershed approach implementation as product of a social construction; it implies that Guardaña case at this stage is quite difficult to be seen from a model to replicate as PNC aims to do, due to its specificities. However, a complete panorama of its elements and interactions was illustrated, from where the main components, stakeholders and actions of the strategy were identified.
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Therefore, it starts by proposing a process of building intrinsic motivation for participation and capacity development in double way from the grassroots and from the OGC and authorities as main stakeholders. As product of capacity building, the second component of the strategy was the creation of a management plan for Guardaña watershed that is proposed to be done with effective participation of all the stakeholders and taking into consideration principles and other recommendations developed through the whole study and consolidated in a short guideline. The last element within the Guardaña strategy is a set of recommendations for PNC programs articulation and adaptation since it is an external stakeholder that has a fundamental role in watershed concept construction and therefore management.
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Interviews
Arce, W. 2015. Interview with Walter Arce, CPG technician. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez.
Blanco, M. Interview with Maria Blanco. Leader Batolinas Women Group. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez.
Choque, A. 2015. Anastasio Choque during a communal meeting to create model.
Lozano, L. 2015. Interview with Leoncio Lozano, authority of Molle Pongo community. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez.
Mamani, 2015. Interview with Gustavo Mamani, CPG technician. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez.
Medina, G. 2015. Interview with Gabino Medina, communal leader. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez
Pava, E. 2015. Interview with Eufronio Pava, ex-President of OGC. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez
Pava, J. 2015a. Interview with Jorge Pava, authority of Cachicachi community. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez
Portillo, A. 2015. Interview with Alejandro Portillo. Secretary of OGC. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez.
Portillo, C. 2015a. Interview with Clemente Portillo. Leader of Mojon Pampa Community, former authority. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez.
Ramos, A. 2015. Interview with Anacleto Ramos, President of OGC. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez.
Soliz, M. 2015. Interview with Miguel Soliz, PDA Wiñaypaj manager. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez.
Ticona, D. 2015. Interview with David Ticona, Director of Eduardo Avaroa Guardaña School. Conducted by Natalia Vásquez.
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ANNEXS
Annex 1. Municipality of Soracachi – Delimitation in cantons and communities
Source: Soracachi, 2012.
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Annex 2. Operationalization of IWRM concept in PNC approach Watershed as a management unit and the basis for development planning processes, around the human and natural associated resources. The multiple uses of water resources are interdependent, considering population needs (guaranteed access to drinking water), increase the standard of living (water for agriculture, industry, energy production, navigation) and preservation of the environment (ecological reserve flows, watershed protection), and others. Consideration of surface and groundwater generated in the basin as an interrelated whole, in quantitative and qualitative terms. Water availability and hydrological risks management. Because of their irregular spatial and temporal distribution, risks arising from the extremes: floods or droughts. Water quality management. Consideration of water and watershed governance aspects. Social participation, including the active involvement of the most disadvantaged in decision-making groups, and considering current forms of social organization Conflict management associated with the use and access to water. Management should be coordinated between national, departmental and local government through an inter-sectorial and inter-institutional articulation. Integrated management includes cooperation and dialogue between users, communities, municipalities by means of Watershed Management Organizations (OGCs). Integration of local knowledge, traditions and cultural practices Source: MMAyA, 2014b
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Annex 3. Delimitation of Guardaña watershed according to Ministry of Environment and Water
Source: MMAyA
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Annex 4. Composition of Centrals and Communities in Guardaña
Nro Central Comunidades Nro de familias
1 Paria pampita 12 2 Wichocollo 19 3 Jachuyo Payapayani 16 4 Jachuyo 51 5 Lequelequeni 37 6 Yunguma 15 7 Hayllumita 33 8 Cachi Cachi Cachi Cachi 55 9 Mojon pampa 16 10 Cañawiri 15 11 Pucara 35 12 Guardaña 12 13 Caracollito 37 Guardaña 14 Mollepongo 38 15 Ventillita 38 16 Umitiri 17
Total 466
Source: CPG project
Annex 5. Atajados located in Mojon Pampa community.
Source: Google Maps 2015
In the left side we can see the Guardaña river and agricultural activity around it and the right part corresponds to the lands of this community where atajados are located.
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Annex 6. Stakeholders identification / Venn diagram
The Venn diagram shows the institutions, groups and key individuals in the watershed, their position, power relations and decision making in management. The rectangle represents the area of Guardaña, the circles within it represent the internal actors, and circles on the edge of the rectangle are outside groups with a presence in through its activities. Finally, the circles outside the rectangle are outside groups with some influence but not activities in the basin. Similarly, circles and text size signify the importance in decision making about the management of the watershed.
A Venn diagram was drawn as participatory method identifying the actors in Guardaña watershed as well as their relationships (Annex 6). As product, external and internal stakeholders were identified. Within internal actors, more than OGC, authorities and grassroots, there are three other groups that remain out of the OGC structure: farmers associations, Bartolinas women group and the schools. First, the two farmers associations were created from the Guardaña watershed process (ADEPAE-CU mainly represents farmers from the lower part dedicated to agriculture and CAYUPACA involves camelid producers from the upper part), they have legal recognition and are considered as branches of the watershed although the Presidents sometimes do not recognize that (Belzu, 2015); although they are not officially considered within OGC structure, they participate occasionally in the meetings when agricultural issues are tackled, but they these associations do not have a place and vote in the OGC structure. Secondly, the Bartolinas group is not legally conformed, but nowadays they have representation in the OGC meetings as guest, due to the recommendation from CPG project to involve them. Finally, the schools are seldom invited unless there is a problem, but the level of involvement of schools with the watershed process and the CPG project is very low (Ticona, 2015).
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There is a special stakeholder, the NGO PDA Wiñaypaj which has been working in Guardaña for 16 years developing projects in the topics of welfare, health and education for rural families with emphasis on children, and in turn has other lines of action as productivity and sustainable economic development; it works in 36 communities within which are the 16 communities of Guardaña. Although it functions with international funding and have external workers, it is legally constituted as a community-based organization and peasants from communities are in the Board, but in practical terms people do not see it as own. This NGO has an important role because of various factors: antiquity, offered services and support, facilities located in Guardaña, communities trust its director and he has influence (at least act as counselor) in most of the activities and decisions. However, this NGO finishes its activities as part of the international projects in 2015, which means that the legal figure and buildings will remain but not funding. This organization is not part of OGC structure, but its director comes to almost all the meetings and advises them.
Among the external actors, the technicians from the project have an important identified role as support, logistics and permanent interaction with OGC. Other external stakeholders are University, municipality, departmental government, Ministry of Environment, international cooperation agencies, and mining companies. In general terms, they are not involved in OGC decisions and there is not strong articulation and communication with them. Most of the findings in Venn diagram coincide with the ones found by Matches with Ramos et al., 2015.
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