jp8589 WRI.qxd - World Resources Institute

Namibian conservancies, for example, revenues from tourist
access, campgrounds, and the sale of game hunting licenses to
foreigners generate income that in some instances has been
turned into a cash payout to each conservancy household—an
easy way to assure equal treatment (US AID 2004:13).
But in other instances, easy division may be impossible. For
example, in many restored watersheds the increase in water will
not result in accumulation of surface water in ponds where shares
can be calculated. Instead, extra water may manifest as more
groundwater, which is legally the property of the land owner from
whose well it is pumped to the surface. This makes the community
benefit difficult to calculate and hard to tap by poor families
without land or wells. Addressing this would require an arrangement
where groundwater is considered community property no
matter where it is pumped, with users paying a fee to the community
to tap it (Kerr 2002a:1391-1392, 1399).
Another approach to community equity is to grant special
arrangements just to the lowest income families. For example,
one Indian village in Maharashtra state granted to the village’s
landless residents exclusive fishing rights in a run-off pond that
the community had built (Kerr 2002a:1391-1392, 1399).
Likewise, low-income families could be allowed special areas to
fish, extra harvest or grazing periods, or an extra share of the
resource being managed. In all cases, this requires a progressive
view of benefits and a careful definition of user rights that is
formalized and accepted by the community.
Acknowledging the Limits of Participation
There is a growing consensus that communities can establish
functioning institutions capable of managing local resources,
and that these institutions—from village councils to user
groups—can function through community participation, making
real the promise of local devolution. But there is also the realization
that community processes are rarely egalitarian. Except in
rare instances, communities are not homogeneous, and naturally
break into various interest groups, making equity a challenge.
Often, these are based along class, ethnic, and gender lines, with
women and the poor usually being the least powerful of these
groups (Kellert et al. 2000:705; Shyamsundar et al. 2004:16-17,
19; Kerr 2002a:1388-1389; Kumar 2002:765-766).
A scene several years ago from a village meeting about a
new watershed restoration project in the Indian state of
Karnataka illustrates the problem. At the front of the room sat
the wealthiest landholders, who owned fertile, irrigated land in
the valley bottom. Behind them sat middle-income farmers with
less-desirable but still good land. In the back stood poor families
with the least fertile land at the top of the watershed. The
landless hung around the periphery; no women were present
(Fernandez 2003:6-7).
In situations such as these, assuring true participation for
the poor requires considerable institution-building so that
mechanisms of inclusion can gradually work against ingrained
social patterns. For example, one NGO in Maharashtra state
that helps villages undertake watershed restoration programs
insists on a consensus-based approach to all decisions about the
watershed and spends a good deal of time facilitating such
decisions and building the social basis necessary to foster them
(Kerr et al. 2002:16, 34). Although it is more unwieldy than a
majority vote, this approach offers an organic way to make sure
the interests of the landless minority are not simply swept aside.
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