Roderick Juba
The tagline “Water doesn’t come from a tap” brings back fond memories of the advocates for sustainable management of water resources getting the messaging spot on.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF’s) “Journey of Water” campaign, which made this phrase famous, spoke to the need to consider catchments as crucial areas for water security.
Similarly, the Day Zero campaign by the City of Cape Town, spurred on by the extended droughts, did a wonderful job conveying this message.
Disaster was averted mainly through the collective buy-in from residents, but the success was ultimately driven by good communication and mobilisation of civil society.
The effects of the messaging around that drought can still be felt when you visit some hotels in the city. Low-flow taps, toilets, and showerheads are the order of the day, hotel management requests for the re-use of towels where possible are common and back-up water supply systems are a given.
At the same time, interest from the private sector to contribute to the investment in the maintenance and rehabilitation of catchment areas of the Berg and Breede rivers has increased substantially.
The perceived role of natural ecosystems in this regard has also steadily been on the increase and the time may be right to capitalise on this momentum.
However, for too long, the need for effective management of water source areas have remained a scientific and perhaps practitioner discussion that seemed to be out of reach of civil society.
Where civil society was involved, they were informed rather than consulted. But this is no longer the case, and it’s in part driven by the adapted approaches to engagement being employed.
The last decade has seen the emergence and strengthening of collaborative action, mainly through increased learning and networking enabled by various Communities of Practice.
These drive effective and coordinated implementation, information sharing, and capacity building, while guarding against inefficient use of resources. For instance, the uMngeni Ecological Infrastructure Partnership, which is convened by the SA National Biodiversity Institute, has been in operation for a decade and is seen as a key platform for local stakeholders to engage, plan, and pool resources.
Similarly, the Living Catchments Project has supported the establishment of catchment partnerships in various Strategic Water Source Areas, whereas the Lewis Foundation is in the process of exploring a mechanism for supporting a network of mainly NGO-driven CoPs countrywide.
The continued growth of the Upper Breede Collaborative Extension Group has also provided useful insights into how such a platform can involve private landowners in issues of water resource management.
Alongside the emergence of communities of practice, the messaging around ecological infrastructure has become more synchronised, resourcing has steadily increased, and decision-making has become a shared practice between all stakeholders.
However, these changes were not just happening at a partnership level. Across the sector, major events like the identification of the National Freshwater Priority Areas, the campaigns around the Journey of Water, and the delineation of Strategic Water Source Areas have all contributed to a shift in the recognition of ecosystems as both important beneficiaries of water, as well as critical suppliers thereof.
This shift in the focus of water ecosystems as something to be protected mainly for the sake of biodiversity has been significant, and it has also shown up in the latest gazetted version of the Pricing Strategy for Raw Water Use Charges. We are now seeing public sector institutions going beyond their mandated functions to support catchment-related work.
With the increased interest in water resources from various institutions and the associated changes in practice, there has never been a better opportunity for a co-ordinated response to issues facing our water resources than right now.
* Dr Juba is a senior knowledge co-ordinator at the Water Research Commission.
Cape Times