Governance approaches for mountain ecosystems
29.10.2015
Since 2015 is the year of Sustainable Development and the United Nations Sustainable Development goals (UN SDG) have now been launched, the topic of sustainable development has been much explored through research and debate, but not much seen in practice. Over the next fifteen years, the world aims to become more sustainable, allowing for the human development but trying to reduce impact on the natural environment. A parallel process is underway, led by the Mountain Partnership, to devise a sustainable development paradigm for mountains. There has been some realization that governance is a prerequisite for sustainable development, and that the governance of complex socio-ecological landscapes is really about stakeholders, priorities, decisions, rules and penalties- not to forget that they are also ecosystems.
According to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Ecosystem Approach, a ‘healthy’ ecosystem is very important to ensure that goods and benefits continue to be available, while protecting biodiversity. This is seen most successfully in the Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) approach. There is scope to consider mountains and their surrounding landscapes as ‘large mountain ecosystems’ with sound governance systems in place to better manage the major important resources in a way analogous to Large Marine Ecosystems which protect fisheries. This type of environmental governance could contribute to the sustainable development of Africa’s mountains.
The Pangani River Basin in Tanzania, comprising the landscape and rivers south of Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Arusha in Tanzania, is a good example of an environmental governance system set up to manage the water supply within the basin. The well-researched water governance system has evolved through many painful trials and tribulations.
The Pangani Basin Water Board was established by the government of Tanzania in July 1991 in accordance with the Water Utilization (Control and Regulation) Act No. 42 of 1974 to create reliable and sustainable access to water within a ‘complex socio-ecological landscape’ and the management is proving very challenging. The many difficulties and unintended consequences over the years include the capture of benefits by powerful elites and the impacts of massive urban development on water demand. It would seem that the water flows within the basin are getting less, at the same time as the demand for water is increasing.
The Pangani River receives 55 percent of its water from the southern slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro and this water supports around 10 million downstream people.
Inexplicably, the River Basin Authority and its mandate does not extend to the management of the Mt Kilimanjaro/Mt Meru headwaters but deals only with the local users and their water access issues, and as the water supply to the Pangani Basin becomes more constrained, there is talk of augmenting the river system from other sources, rather than trying to restore the mountain catchment which has suffered from deforestation and fire.
It should be possible to govern the Mt Kilimanjaro/Mt Meru/Pangani River Basin as a single large ecosystem, rather than managing each element (mountain, forests, national park, river basin) in isolation as is currently the case. This would require increased complexity in the governance approach, but this could evolve over time from the existing Pangani River Basin management scheme, according to both local practices and international best practice.
The many other mountains with their surrounding landscapes and river basins in Africa could also benefit from being managed according to the large ecosystem approach, and that through the application of sound large ecosystem governance approaches, sustainable mountain development might be achieved.
By Sue Taylor - Mountain Research Initiative
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