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Chapter 5: Access to Basic Water Services
Communally managed wetlands for water security
For the past six years, the Ha-Makuya community in rural north-east Limpopo
Province has worked closely with government and NGOs to manage their wetland
better, so that they can use it for water and to support their livelihoods.
Community members use the wetland as a source of water for their domestic needs,
as well as for watering their crops and livestock, but degradation of the wetland
was threatening its capacity to continue providing these ecosystem services and
community access to water.
A community-based project, in partnership with a development NGO, called
AWARD, the Working for Wetlands Programme, WWF and WESSA, has developed
a stronger custodial relationship between local villages, wetland users and the
wetland. Ha-Makuya community members mapped and monitored wetland and
catchment land uses and impacts and undertook their own ‘wise-use’ research. This
represents a fundamental shift for such processes in the South African context,
which are conventionally led by ‘experts’ who ‘know’. The wetland is now used more
wisely by community members who have deepened their understanding of wetland
management, and have assumed the responsibility of securing their wetland and
waters resources for their future.
LOOKING AHEAD: FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO SAFE WATER FOR ALL
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70 | Water Facts & Futures: Rethinking South Africa’s Water Future