Reviving Indigenous Water Management Practices in Morocco

Alternative Pathways to Sustainable Development

Sandrine Simon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000390667
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia africana

This book demonstrates how Morocco and other semi-arid countries can find solutions to water scarcity by rediscovering traditional methods of water resource management.

The book begins by examining indigenous water heritage, considering the contribution of Islam and the mixed influences of Greek and Roman, Middle Eastern, Andalusian and Berber cultures. It then provides a thorough examination of resource management practices in Morocco throughout history, tracing the changing patterns from the instillation of agrarian capitalism in the 19th century, through the Protectorate years (1912–1956), to the 21st century. The book explains how reviving and modernizing traditional methods of water management could provide simple, accessible, and successful methods for addressing 21st century challenges, such as water scarcity and climate change. The work concludes by highlighting how these indigenous practices might be used to provide real-world practical solutions for improving water governance and therefore developing sustainable water management practices.

Reviving Indigenous Water Management Practices in Morocco will be of great interest to students and scholarsinterested inwater resource management, indigenous peoples, traditional knowledge, and sustainable development.

Part I

Indigenous North African water heritage

A lesson in agro-ecology

Introduction

As Healy et al. (2013) have shown, a need for more participatory research that would involve citizens on the ground and promote social learning between decision-makers and practitioners was expressed at the end of the XXth c. Efforts were undertaken to improve collaborative decision-making processes (EU 7th Framework Research “Science and Society Programme” 2008–2011) that would encompass a full spectrum of approaches, frameworks, and methods, from interdisciplinary collaboration through stakeholders negotiation to transdisciplinary deliberation and citizen participation. This movement stem from the needs felt by numerous communities to democratize decision-making and policy, reinvent public governance piece by piece from the bottom-up, and improve livelihoods.

One important part of this movement came from decision-makers themselves, who realized that, when it came to operationalizing sustainable development, they both had to involve people more in the decision-making process but also could benefit from learning from local knowledge, closer to environmental resources and milieu.

Another growing part of this movement has been identified as “the environmentalism of the poor and the indigenous” (Martinez-Alier, 2002). This has generated interest on indigenous practices and has also highlighted some important shortcomings in current development policies. What is for sure is that “indigenous culture” has its place in developmental issues and that it could contribute to designing alternatives to communities’ survival and resilience if carefully studied, rediscovered, and integrated in forward-looking policies.

Optimistically, El Faiz (2015) stressed that:

people around the world have become more conscious of the relevance of indigenous knowledge and know-how, and of the ability of traditional practices to improve agriculture and the rural world. Only a few example suffice to illustrate the role that the arabo-muslim agronomic hydraulic experience has had in the development of agricultural practices and in ensuring, for centuries, a sustainable and equitable management of arid and semi-arid ecosystems.

(p. 230)

Thanks to the rediscovery of these traditional practices, research had been carried out by agronomists in Tunisia (Salaheddine El Amami) and in Morocco (Paul Pascon), as well as by architects (Pietro Laureano), in order to restore ancient techniques that could contribute to improving water management (El Faiz, 2015). Their efforts resulted in the creation of the UNESCO Chair of traditional know-how. As El Faiz highlights, one wonders why, therefore, years later, these water traditional engineering systems haven’t been funded and used as development leverage systems. In the current context, they might become priority targets in research institutes that are focused on operationalizing sustainable development.

In Morocco, Berber people of various origins constitute the “indigenous community”. Originally nomadic people, they progressively settled in rural environments, mostly in mountainous areas. Throughout history, they have developed agricultural and water management techniques that are well-adapted to particularly harsh climatic and sociopolitical conditions. Inhabitants of the country of Morocco as we know it today, they were both people of the land and some of the greatest dynasties. However, the colonization of the country by the French, followed by its independence and, more importantly, the pan-Arabism movement, put Arab culture at the forefront, at the expense of Berber culture. Despite Berbers’ will to be recognized as Moroccans, their culture was progressively hidden behind the supremacy of the Arab Muslim one and the non-Berber Alawi dynasty.

Recently, a Berber movement has emerged. This has occurred at a time when “across the globe, ‘culture’ as a category is being upheld as a right, an object of political struggle, and a commodity to be marketed” (Maddy Weitzman, 2015: 2501). A series of campaigns has focused on making Moroccans rediscover various aspects of Berber (or “Amazigh”) culture. For instance, as Gagliardi stressed:

Moroccan women, and especially Amazigh female figures, suffered most from the pan-Arabist, elitist and male construction of national identity. (…) Amazigh militants have promulgated a redefinition of Morocco on the basis of its pre-colonial and pre-Islamic Berber heritage, and have sought political change to preserve Berber culture and language as a “human right”.

(2019: 3)

Throughout the start of the XXIst c., indigenous peoples’ representatives have been extremely active. Due to their efforts, there have been some notable achievements. For instance, the Indigenous Peoples’ Major Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the International Indigenous peoples Forum on Climate Change had a voice at the 21th Conference of Parties (COP21) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in Paris in December 2016 (Vinding and Mikkelsen, 2016).

However, despite the energy carried by the Berber Movement and King Mohamed VIth’s willingness to value the Amazigh culture, “there is no constitutional recognition of ancestral lands, group or indigenous rights” (Gagliardi, 2019: 7). Besides, Morocco is not a state party to the ILO Indigenous and Tribal People Convention 1989 (no. 169) and was absent during the voting on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). This is not entirely surprising considering that, in 1930, the Berber Dahir (decree) enacted during the Protectorate, had been aimed at dividing Berbers from Arabs through the enforcement of separate judicial systems (Gagliardi, 2019: 7). Although defending Amazighity was then directly linked to the separatist colonial policy, the current reluctance of the Moroccan state in valuing Berber culture, know-how and land use, is more complex. As Oluborode Jegede (2016) stresses, this can be explained by the fact that land use policies in post-independence African states have been informed by a modern market-oriented development model which had no regard for indigenous peoples’ concept of land tenure and use. Therefore, as Vinding and Mikkelsen (2016: 13) conclude, “the root cause of many indigenous peoples’ socio-economic poverty is their precarious situation when it comes to land and resource rights”. Focusing on the marginalization and impoverishment of the rural, largely Berber population, must be part of the Berber movement’s demands. Integrating Berber culture in Moroccan developmental debates and strategy should therefore go well beyond a “folkloric add-on” and aim at making people learn from indigenous approaches to environmental protection through land management.

Supporting social–ecological systems whose stewards have had to continuously adapt and innovate implies protecting the rights of local and indigenous peoples to maintain their ways of life. In Morocco, indigenous communities living in and with the rural world could greatly contribute to tackling climate change pressure by providing insights into adaptation methods and resilience. However, although they have recently gained official recognition, their cultural heritage and know-how must be further explored and understood if it is to be taken seriously and integrated in the developmental strategies of the country.

Part I explores who indigenous communities of Morocco are, how a set of traditional water management systems have been developed throughout time within Berber communities, and what place defending traditional water management practices really has, in the context of the Berber revival movement.

References

• El Faiz, M. (2015) Agronomie et agronomes d’Al Andalous (XI –XIVe s.). Casablanca: La croisée des chemins.
• Gagliardi, S. (2019) Indigenous peoples’ rights in Morocco: subaltern narratives by Amazigh women. The International Journal of Human Rights. 23 (1): 281–296.
• Healy, H. et al. (Eds) (2013) Ecological Economics from the Ground Up. London: Earthscan.
• Maddy-Weitzman, B. (2015) A turning point? The Arab Spring and the Amazigh movement. Ethnic and Racial Studies. 38 (14): 2499–2515.
• Martinez Alier, J. (2002) The Environmentalism of the Poor; A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation. Cheltenham: Edward Edgar.
• Oluborode Jegede, A. (2016) The Climate Change Regulatory Framework and Indigenous Peoples’ Lands in Africa: Human Rights Implications. Pretoria, PULP.
• Vinding, D. and C. Mikkelseon (2016) The Indigenous World 2016. Copenhagen: IWGIA.

1Reviving indigenous water heritage

The indigenous communities of North Africa

The first inhabitants

The geographical location of Morocco, door to so many different environments and civilizations, evokes passageways of communities and memorable episodes in the history of the relationships between the Northern and Southern shores of the Mediterranean Basin. As historian Tourabi stressed:

At the very cultural roots of what used to be called “Al Maghrib Al Aqsa” (the far west), stood some of the main characters of the Greek mythology. It is [there] that the giant Atlas lived and gave his name to the channel of mountains shaped in a North-East – South-West crescent that Zeus condemned him to carry on his shoulders. There also that Hercules created the Strait of Gibraltar by breaking a mountain with his swords, hence splitting definitively Europe from Africa.

(2012: 2)

The first inhabitants of Morocco seem to have been called the “pebble people”, from the tools that were found in archaeological sites close to Casablanca. They lived there between about 125,000 and 75,000 bc, when warm temperate and semi-tropical woodland covered much of North Western Africa. Then, came the last Ice Age, when “modern humans” spread around the Mediterranean from south East Asia. Around 12,000 bc, the Oranian culture emerged in what is now known as Western Algeria and spread into what is now known as Morocco. The wetter climate started to end in 5000 bc and, by the IIIrd millennium bc, the final stages set in. As the Sahara expanded, it split the Maghreb off from sub-Saharan Africa and anchored it more firmly in the Mediterranean basin. The climatic conditions that developed in Morocco by the end of the Ist Millenium bc were roughly those that exist today, although the landscape has changed over the last 2000 years (Pennell, 2009: 4).

Contemporary to the Greeks, the Phoenicians, coming from what is now known as Lebanon, ventured towards the West of the Mediterranean Basin. Great sailors, they had little interest in invading inland territories but transformed the Mediterranean as one of the greatest trading sea, scattering their marks by creating trading ports after the VIIIth c. bc. These included Rusaddir (now Melilla), Tamuda, near Tetouan, Ksar es-Seghir and Tingis (Tangier). The greatest of all, founded around the end of the IXth c. bc, was Carthage, in what is now known as Tunisia. Later, they even ventured further down the coast of Africa where, from the town now known as Essaouira, they traded one of the most valuable commodities in the ancient world: purple dye (Pennell, 2009).

Berber communities first appeared in Africa 9000 years ago (Tourabi, 2012: 2) and became the “stabilised communities inhabiting this region”. Amongst them, Pennel (2009: 7) listed the Mauri, a tribal federation of pastoral communities who based themselves in the West from the IVth c. BC, the Masaeslyi, a century later, whose kingdom stretched from the Moulouya river to Constantine in Algeria, and the Massyli, nearer Carthage. These communities had spread over the “grand Maghreb” after taking power in Egypt in 950 bc and creating a dynasty ruled by Chechonq the 1st – the start of which also corresponds to the beginning of their calendar (Tourabi, 2012).

The Roman province of Tigitana and the birth of the Berber name

Progressively, various kingdoms and dynasties, most of the time made up of confederations of tribes, were created. Whilst the Phoenician language was used for diplomatic and administrative purposes, ...