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Anthropology and the Environment
September 1999
Ed Liebow, Contributing Editor
After a scorching summer throughout the Northern Hemisphere, this month's column features a piece by John Donahue (Trinity U) that considers opportunities for anthropologists to contribute to policy and theory of water management. It is accompanied by a list of useful web sites focusing on water research.
Also, this month we would like to extend our collective thanks to Bret Diamond (U Georgia), who volunteered an enormous chunk of time over the past year in getting the EANTH-L List up and running smoothly. List ownership is now in the capable hands of Christian Turner (U Georgia). If you are new to the Section, EANTH-L is a forum for discussing matters related to the study and practice of ecological/environmental anthropology. News, conference announcements, calls for papers, discussion of research and theory, and other related topics are welcomed and encouraged. To sign up, send an e-mail note to: listserv@listserv.uga.edu. Leave the subject line blank, and in the first line of the mail message, write: Subscribe EANTH-L <YOUR NAME HERE>.
The Coming Blue Revolution
By John M. Donahue (Trinity U)
Fresh water is increasingly in short supply. In fact, there is no more fresh water on earth today than there was 2,000 years ago when the human population was less than three percent of it current size (Population Reports (1998) XXVI(1): 1). Policy makers are calling for a "Blue Revolution," local, national and international efforts to conserve and manage freshwater supplies in the face of growing demand (ibid. p. 2). Today 31 countries, comprising 8% of the world’s population, face chronic freshwater shortages. Among them are Iran (128 million people), Kenya (50.2 million), and South Africa (71.6 million). If projected population growth rates hold, in 25 years 48 countries are expected to face shortages, affecting more than 2.8 billion people, or 35% of the world’s population. Among those countries will be India, with a projected population of 1.33 billion in 2025 (ibid., p. 9). The message is clear. Without better management of scarce freshwater resources, sustainable development and environmental security will be impossible.
Are we indeed facing a "tragedy of the commons" as Garrett Hardin predicted in his germinal 1968 piece (Science 162:1243-8)? Or are there social and cultural models of water management that communities can develop to sustain this scarce and increasingly valuable resource? Experts point to several principal weaknesses in developing water management plans. These points of weakness might serve as points for applied anthropological research and policy recommendations. Let me mention three and give examples from the work of contributors to Water, Culture and Power: Local Struggles in a Global Context (Island Press, 1998) edited by Barbara Rose Johnston and myself, and from several more recent sources.
Water management is fragmented among individual property owners, sectors, institutions and even nations.
Anthropological research might focus on those aspects of the institutional cultures of competing actors that inhibit or enhance cooperation in water management. For example, water policy in Texas since 1904 has been based on the English rule of "free capture," or the absolute ownership of groundwater. With technological improvements, the rule of capture has become "the rule of the biggest pump." Recently, farmers in Van Zant County in East Texas took the Ozarka Spring Water Co. to court, arguing that Ozarka was drawing down so much water from the aquifer that their wells had gone dry. Their lawyers argued for a "reasonable use" doctrine of water management. The Texas Supreme Court in a split decision found for the Ozarka Water Co. which had argued that the wells went dry because of the drought. Nonetheless, it seems that the "reasonable use" doctrine is gaining support in Texas judicial and legislative circles.
Anthropological research could reveal the environmental and historical contexts in which current models of water management arose and how technological changes, in particular, are forcing people to look for alternative models of water management. Critical to this research effort would be to illustrate the connections between water doctrines or models and changing socioeconomic and political environments. In that regard, the work of William Derman (1998:73-94) is instructive, as he shows how water and land rights in Zimbabwe reflect the colonial pattern of cash cropping as distinct from the communal patterns of subsistence farming. Consequently, reform in the land and water laws will need to go hand in hand.
Water management policies do not link the quality of water to human and environmental health.
To the extent that policy makers define water as a commodity to be divided up among competing users, the linkages between water and human environmental health are obscured. Art Murphy, Brian Riley and Miguel Rosado (1998:237-261) demonstrate this quite clearly in the case of Oaxaca, Mexico. Their research revealed that nowhere in the city did the drinking water meet the standards of the World Health Organization. Ironically, the older, more affluent neighborhoods had the poorest quality water.
My own research on land and water policy in the City of San Antonio, Texas (1998:187-208) illustrates how the policies of urban growth into the hilly northern area of the city jeopardizes the quantity and quality of the water in the aquifer, the city's sole water source. As building over the recharge zone of the aquifer continues, the flow of rainwater into the aquifer decreases, while the danger of pollution increases.
Of special note in the area of environmental health is the work of Arizona Common Ground. Anthropologists at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy have brought ranchers and environmentalists together to talk about the procedural, psychological and substantive issues that must be addressed in environmental conflict resolution in that State.
Governments depend too much on centralized administration to develop, operate, and maintain water systems.
Anthropologists are well positioned to document and encourage stakeholder involvement and community participation in setting water policies. Such a procedure would allow for a broader cultural discourse on water than may be possible at the more abstract level of bureaucratic management. Had promoters of the Central Arizona Project held to such a policy the residents of Tucson might have agreed to use the water for potable purposes when it reached them (Sheridan 1998:163-186). As it turns out, the Tucson Water Department has had to create a blend of groundwater and Colorado River water that would meet community taste demands. This has involved allowing the river water to soak into the soil in especially constructed basins and reach the water table. The next step involved an extensive community education program to enlist "volunteer neighborhoods" where residents would drink a blend of groundwater (70%) and Colorado River water (30%). According to Tucson Water Director, David Modeer, the results are promising (Ambassador Neighborhoods Program, Tucson Water, City of Tucson, Arizona, n.d.).
My research in South Texas offers another example of how "top-down" management of water systems can actually generate community participation, if in the form of opposition. ("Sitting Down at the Table: Mediation Efforts in Resolving Water Conflicts," by John M. Donahue and Jon Q. Sanders, In San Antonio: An Environmental History, Char Miller, editor (U Pittsburgh Press, forthcoming).)
After two unsuccessful attempts to pass a bond referendum to build a surface reservoir, the San Antonio City Council agreed to hire John Folk-Williams, a renowned mediator in water conflicts. He set about to form a committee that would represent all the parties in the city who had interests in the management of the Edwards Aquifer. These included real estate developers, environmentalists, the Armed Forces who maintain five bases in the city, the Chambers of Commerce, neighborhood groups, civic leaders, and anti-reservoir activists, excluded from previous water policy committees. The mediation effort was essentially one of "consensus building." There was no chairperson, since that would endow one of the constituencies with more power than the others. The mediators acted as facilitators to insure that the group abided by the "ground rules," set agendas, met or changed deadlines they set for themselves, and generally moved toward their goal of completing their mission or charge. There were no votes taken, but a topic was discussed until such time as everyone felt they could "live with the decision of the group" whether or not they agreed with everything that was said. Folk-Williams commented that the process demanded that "people had to listen to one another" (personal communication)
The ground rules were simply that participants not be presenters, that the meetings be open to the public, that press releases be handled through City Council, and that members not say anything outside the room that could jeopardize the cooperation realized within the group. The participants understood that "everything was on the table" and that nothing would go into the final report that had not been discussed within the group. Items on which consensus was not possible would be so noted.
At the end of the process, the "bones of contention" were two. Did San Antonio have a "water problem" or a "water management problem?" The first statement suggested that priority needed to be given to seeking additional water sources. The second implied that San Antonio had more than adequate water in the aquifer and that it should be managed well before millions of dollars were spent on pipelines to bring expensive surface water to the city. In the end, however, a common ground emerged on a water policy for the City of San Antonio. The San Antonio Water System agreed to establish the Citizen's Working Group, which on April 6, 1998 produced a series of "benchmarks" by which the policy goals of the mediation committee could be measured and evaluated.
Anthropologists are well positioned to bridge the gap between policy makers and communities for whom freshwater is becoming an increasingly scarce resource. To those policy makers who argue, as does Garrett Hardin, that people have a natural tendency to act selfishly, the anthropologist can effectively argue that selfishness or cooperation are not "natural," but are socially constructed behaviors. To communities that feel frustration over the bureaucratic and "top-down" approach of water managers, anthropologists can investigate "project culture" (James E. Nickum and Daniel Greenstadt 1998:160). Armed with that knowledge, citizens would be empowered to hold policy makers and bureaucrats accountable for the fair and equitable stewardship of the commons. Either way this research could contribute to the "Blue Revolution."
Send your Section news items to Ed Liebow (liebow@policycenter.com, tel: 206/675-1002; fax: 206/675-1005). And check the Anthropology/Environment website regularly: http://travel.to/anthenv