Cooperation is required to restore our watersheds

Cooperation is required to restore our watersheds Wiryono ;  A Lecturer at the faculty of forestry at Bengkulu University

JAKARTA POST, 22 Maret 2013

To mark World Water Day, held annually on March 22, we need to renew our commitment to the restoration of our damaged watersheds, from which water flows into the rivers to be used for many purposes.  We are fortunate that many Indonesian provinces are blessed with a wet climate; so we have abundant water. The distribution of water, spatially and temporally, however, often does not match our needs. In some areas, annual rainfall is too low, while in some areas it is too high. In the dry season, the volume of water is less than our needs. On the contrary, in the rainy season there is too much water, causing erosion, sedimentation, floods and landslides.  To exacerbate the problem of water quantity, we also face the problem of quality, that is, pollution. In many places, mostly cities, our water is so polluted that it is not suitable for many purposes. Water is a renewable resource. After being used, water will flow back into rivers and be part of the hydrological cycle, which has no political boundary.  Water that evaporates in a country may be blown away by wind and fall as rain or snow in other countries. Large rivers, like the Nile, flow through several countries. Managing those rivers requires cooperation between the countries that the rivers flow. Without cooperation conflicts occur and all affected countries will suffer. It is not surprising that the United Nations has declared 2013 the International Year of Water Cooperation.  Indonesia has many rivers flowing through several provinces. Cooperation among provinces is required to manage those rivers as well as the watershed, or land from which the water flows into the rivers. Mismanagement of upstream water catchment will have a detrimental downstream impact.  We have designated certain areas to protect hydrological cycles. According to Presidential Decree No. 32/1990, a forest area with an altitude of 2,000 meters (m) and above is categorized as protected forest and cannot be cut. The lands surrounding water springs (200 m width), lakes (50-100 m width) and along river banks are also categorized as protected areas. The width of the protected river bank is 100 m for large rivers and 50 m for small rivers outside the settlement, while for rivers in settlement areas, the width of protected river banks is 10-15 m. Another protected area is one that has high rainfall and soil structure capable of absorbing a large quantity of water. In addition, land having 3 m-depth peat is also protected. By protecting those areas, we maintain the hydrological function of the ecosystem. When water falls as rain on forested land, it will take several paths. Some is intercepted by vegetation and evaporated again in the atmosphere, some is absorbed by humus or decomposed leaf litter, some infiltrates the soil and some will run off or flow on the land surface.  Forest soil and humus retain the water and release it slowly, so the water keeps flowing in the water spring during the dry season. A study in the Ivory Coast found that rivers flowing from primary forests had twice as much water as those flowing through coffee plantations in the middle of the dry season and five times more at the end of the dry season.   Forested lands not only reduce flooding in the rainy season and prevent drought in the dry season, but also act as a natural water treatment plant. The water spring from forested land is relatively clean.  The government of New York City calculated that to get clean water, maintaining the forest ecosystem in catchment areas is much cheaper than installing and operating water treatment plants. So, they decided to invest millions of dollars to protect the watershed instead of spending billions of dollars for water treatment plants. They worked hard to make the New York City watershed memorandum of agreement, signed by New York City, New York state, upstate towns comprising the watershed and various environmental groups.  The agreement contains land use regulation for the watershed and various programs to protect the watershed funded by the city. As a result, the New York City watershed provides approximately 1.3 billion gallons of clean drinking water per day for about 9 million people. This is the largest unfiltered water supply in the United States. (www.catskillcenter.org) Indonesia has 458 watersheds, 60 of which are highly critical, 222 critical and 176 are potentially critical (www.antaranews.com). High demand for land for agriculture, settlements and industry has caused deforestation in upper water catchment areas. Without sufficient forest coverage the watershed can no longer function to regulate water flow and filter polluted water. The increased run off in rain results in erosion, sedimentation, floods and landslides.  The Indonesian government has issued Government Regulation No. 37/2012 on the management of watersheds. The regulation aims to coordinate, integrate, synchronize and synergize the watershed management in order to improve the carrying capacity. For the watershed of large rivers involving two or more provinces the management falls under the Forestry Minister in coordination with other relevant ministries, such as the Public Works Ministry, which has specific units to manage rivers, namely the Agencies of River Area under the Directorate General of Water Resources.  Managing a watershed is a very challenging task, as a great portion of land within the watershed are owned privately. We can learn from New York City. The involved provinces and districts must work together with land owners and environmental groups to create agreement on watershed protection. The government must provide funds and expertise for protection programs that give economic benefits to land owners, to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of the agreement.  We are blessed to have high annual rainfall. The abundant water falling on watersheds will bring economic and ecological benefits if properly managed. But if we fail to manage it, we will suffer economic and ecological loss through erosion, sedimentation, floods and landslides in the rainy season and drought in the dry season. ●

Toward community water supply

Toward community water supply Mohamad Mova Al’Afghani ;  The writer, who obtained a PhD from the University of Dundee, lectures at Ibn Khaldun University’s school of law in Bogor, West Java; In 2010, he was involved in the “Review of Legal Framework for Community Water Services” in cooperation with UNICEF and AMPL, East Nusa Tenggara

JAKARTA POST, 22 Maret 2013

  

Under a government policy issued in 2003, the Indonesian water system is divided into “institutional” and “community-based” water services. The institutional category is meant to denote water services provided by ordinary water utilities (PDAM) whereas the “community-based” category is meant to denote water services provided by local community associations. The community category is predominantly found in rural Indonesia, although in some cases it is also applicable in urban settings untouched by PDAM services. According to some sources, while the majority of PDAM are currently ailing and in financial trouble, the community category has been very successful and now constitutes more than half of Indonesia’s total water services.  In many ways, the community category — supported by the 2003 policy — has been a successful endeavour of the government, local communities and donors. Nevertheless, there are problems with both the concept and implementation of the community-based system that threatens its sustainability.  Although cited in various documents by donor institutions, the typology made by the 2003 policy, which categorizes water services into “institutional” and “community” categories, is flawed.  This is because the community is also a form of institution and delivers water services through formal organisations.  The second problem is the term “community” itself. What do we mean by it? Perhaps the term community is used to distinguish from other entities such as corporations. But what if, for example, a particular local community owned shares in a water corporation? Could we not say that the corporation was community-based?  The third problem is the notion of community ownership. Many donors and water activists assume that community ownership is self-explanatory in practice.  The assumption is that when a donor institution disburses funds to build water service infrastructure in remote villages, the community will “own” that infrastructure. This is incorrect.  The truth is that the so called “community” in the context of water services cannot be legally identified. Therefore, water services assets can only be owned by a legal entity and not directly by the individuals of  the community.  For example, an individual in a village does not directly own a communal toilet. He or she can “own” a toilet via the entity that owns it, such as a cooperative, a foundation or an association that has been accorded legal entity status, or even a corporation.  Thus, the notion of community ownership is flawed, for it is not the community that owns water services assets, but the legal entity in which the individuals of the community can be members.  In this respect, the key issue is whether the legal entity owning the water assets is sufficiently democratic in terms of its decision making process.  The questions that donor institutions should ask are whether women are adequately represented and whether marginal groups’ access to water is guaranteed.  Activists need to be wary of power politics and whether patriarchal relations are embodied into legal entities. This is done by evaluating the entity’s articles of association and its application. The fourth problem is with respect to its assets. I said earlier that a community can only “own” water services assets through a legal entity. Under the Indonesian legal system, the process of forming a legal entity is very cumbersome and can take up to more than a year.  Village communities often do not have means at their disposal to handle this. In one research project, I found no clarity as to who owned the infrastructure assets built by donor funds.  The fifth problem relates to the fourth, namely, its operation and maintenance. Without clarity on asset ownership, no one is responsible for maintenance.  In turn, assets will be abandoned by the population due to a lack of maintenance. Ownerless assets also mean that they are vulnerable to confiscation or expropriation from third parties, like developers or powerful village figures. The sixth problem relates to incoherencies in the national legal framework. Due to (unproductive) debates on water privatization, the government prioritises PDAM to provide water services in Indonesia and leaves the community and private sector only a secondary role. As a result, there is a lack of recognition and standards for non-PDAM services in national law.  The trend now is for some regions to enact regional bylaws on community-based water services and due to problems number three and four above, resort to village government to own and maintain assets.  However, the bylaw is often inconsistent with national legislation and often there are areas of overlap and even clashes between PDAM and community-based water services.  Furthermore, resorting to villages — which in a way, are state instruments — means that we are moving away from community-based water and back toward traditional state provision. The community-based water system has (so far) been a tremendous success in improving access to water in Indonesia and the credit goes partially to donor funds.  But without a clear conceptual framework, without clarity on who owns and who is able to own assets and without support from national legislation, the sustainability of community-based water services is of great concern. ●