Water Security, Justice and the Politics of Water Rights in Peru and Bolivia

Miriam Seemann

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781137545220
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137545237
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The author scrutinizes the claim of policy-makers and experts that legal recognition of local water rights would reduce water conflict and increase water security and equality for peasant and indigenous water users. She analyzes two distinct 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' formalization policies in Peru and Bolivia - neoliberal the former, indigenist-socialist the latter. The policies have intended and unintended consequences and impact on marginalized peasants and the complex inter-legal systems for providing water security on the ground. This study seeks to debunk the official myth of the need to create state-centric, top-down legal security in complex, pluralistic water realities. The engagement between formal and alternative 'water securities' and controversial notions of 'rightness' is interwoven and contested; a complex setting is unveiled that forbids one-size-fits-all solutions. Peru's and Bolivia's case studies demonstrate how formalization policies, while aiming to enhance inclusion, in practice actually reinforce exclusion of the marginalized. Water rights formalization is certainly no panacea.

1

Water Security, Formalization and Water Justice

There is enough water for everyone. The problem we face today is largely one of governance: equitably sharing this water while ensuring the sustainability of natural ecosystems. (UNESCO 2006: 3)

In Latin America and in many other countries around the world, smallholder irrigation groups are often the main providers of food on local and national levels. In a global world of competing goods and products, however, they face growing water insecurity. During the last decade, increasing pressure on and greater competition over the resource (both among local communities and between old and new users) has transformed water into a contested resource. Thus water is no longer just a vital natural resource of life, livelihood, and cultural identities, but has also turned into a source of power, subject to conflicts and struggle for water justice (Roth et al. 2005; Bebbington et al. 2010; Boelens et al. 2013).

In most cases, water scarcity and water insecurity are not the result of lack of freshwater in absolute terms; they stem from unequal water distribution, access and quality and water-related benefits due to power structures marked by inequality (cf. Boelens and Seemann 2014; Martinez-Alier 2002; Soussan and Lincklaen Arriëns 2004; Swyngedouw 2005; UNDP 2006). In response, formalization is commonly seen as a key to reducing water conflicts and to increasing water security for the local water users. Numerous theoretical approaches in academic and policy debate advocate well-defined and clarified water rights in order to arrange water affairs in a “rational,” “efficient,” and “secure” manner. Herein, customary water rights tend to be seen as chaotic and insecure (Boelens and Vos 2012). The dominant discourse to formalize local rights in order to increase security has been particularly promoted by the Peruvian economist De Soto (2000) and has been highly advocated by the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) (UNDP 2005). They see the lack of formal property rights as the main obstacle against entering the world market economy, presuming that the latter would allow local users to escape from poverty. The panacea of water rights formalization has not only been taken up by national governments and international financial institutions, but has even become a main demand of social movements.

This book challenges the widespread assumption that the formal recognition of local water rights would increase water security for vulnerable groups in society. It probes into formalization policies in Peru and Bolivia and draws from extensive primary field data collected in four Andean communities. During the last decade, both countries have adopted water rights formalization policies. Peru follows a “top-down” water formalization policy focusing on individual water rights within a neo-liberal governance framework, whereas the indigenist-socialist governance model of Bolivia implements a “bottom-up” water rights formalization policy. As demanded by the irrigators’ movement following the Water War of 2000, the Bolivian model is based on the recognition of existing local customary water rights. The two countries show no single, homogenous formalization policy, rather a range of diverse, heterogeneous water formalization policies, based on different property rights approaches, historical contexts, political regimes and theoretical currents.

This book argues neither in favor of nor against formalization policies or legislation in general, but aims to scrutinize the claim by policy makers and water experts that legal recognition of local water rights reduces water conflicts and increases water security and equality for peasant and indigenous water users. The engagement between formal and alternative “water securities” and controversial notions of “rightness” is complex and contested. This book examines how formalization policies, while aiming to enhance inclusion, in practice actually reinforce exclusion of marginalized water users.

The contested concept of water security

Access to clean freshwater is vital for people’s life, health, and ecosystem and is inalienable to sufficient food production. Since the 1970s the debate on water problems and increasing threats against the resource have entered national and international policy agendas. The 2008 progress report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) states that nowadays almost half of the world’s population face some form of water scarcity (United Nations 2008: 40). The World Economic Forum that launched “the Global Agenda Council on Water Security” has ranked the “crisis” of water supply among the top-five of global risks: “with global freshwater demand projected to exceed current supply by over 40 percent by 2030, increasing competition and stress on water poses a significant risk and impact on food, energy and industrial and human security around the world, including on close to 4 billion people living in areas where the demand for water far exceed available supplies” (World Economic Forum 2013: 1). In response to increasing awareness of water scarcity, we can see how over the past decade, the concept of “water security” has received increased attention by international organizations and in current development policies. Notably the World Water Council (WWC), the Global Water Partnership (GWP), the second Asia-Pacific Water Summit of 2013, and the UNESCO-Institute for Water Education define “water security” as a core theme for investigation and their political agendas (Cook and Bakker 2013). An important hallmark of the increasing prominence of the concept has been the “Ministerial Declaration of The Hague on Water Security in the 21st Century,” which in 2000 was adopted by around 120 Ministers of Water. In the declaration, the ministers and heads of delegation agree upon the common goal of the international community “to provide water security for all” (World Water Forum 2000: 3; cf. Clement 2013). Two years later, the relevance of this goal was reaffirmed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): “water security is the main goal inspiring the international community’s emerging agenda for the 21st Century” (FAO Legal Office 2002: 1).

The FAO is a leading actor in linking the debate on water security with food security and its role in the agricultural sector (FAO 2011a): irrigated agriculture provides for roughly 40 percent of food production worldwide. According to UN-Water statistics, irrigation accounts only for approximately 20 percent of cultivated land, yet it withdraws more than 70 percent of the world’s freshwater resources and is thus by far the largest water consumer (Turral et al. 2011: 1). The same applies for Peru and Bolivia: Although, according to the World Resources Institute, Peru together with Chile are among the countries that face the highest water stress in Latin America, the agricultural sector is the main water consumer of freshwater, accounting for 80 percent of total water use, followed by drinking water (12 percent), industry (six percent) and mining activities (two percent). The agricultural sector employs approximately 30 percent of the country’s population and contributes to 13 percent of its GDP (IADB 2007: 2). The situation in Peru is similar; the total irrigated areas cover approximately 1.7 million hectares, whereas two-thirds of its irrigation infrastructure (mainly large-scale) is located in the coastal arid region and only one-third (mainly small-scale) in the highlands. In Bolivia, the agricultural sector plays an important economic role, employing approximately 40 percent of the economically active population and contributing roughly 14 percent to the national GDP (2000–2004). In rural areas of mainly peasant and indigenous populations, the agricultural sector employs up to 80 percent. As in Peru, in Bolivia irrigation is the highest consumer of water and accounts for 86 percent of the total freshwater withdrawal. However, of the total area of agricultural land, only 11 percent (approx. 226,500 ha) is irrigated. Bolivia has about 5,000 irrigation systems, mainly located in the highlands and semiarid regions (Valles and Altiplano) (MMAyA 2007: 24; IADB 2008: 1; MACA 2005: 17).

Table 1.1 Agricultural sector and the use of freshwater

Despite the widespread application of the water security concept, especially notable within the food-water debate nexus, and the ubiquitous development aim to increase irrigation “efficiency,” there is little agreement on the definition, scope or analytical approach.

Cook and Bakker (2013: 55–7) define four main interrelated subjects within academic work on water security that approach and define the concept from different angles: First, works that view water security by concentrating on “sufficiency” (in terms of water quantity, availability, and affordability), mainly of drinking water supply for individuals. For instance, the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2010 defined water security, among other aspects, as “access to safe and sufficient drinking water at an affordable cost in order to meet basic needs, which includes sanitation and hygiene and the safeguarding of health and well-being” (United Nations University 2013b: 2; United Nations General Assembly 2010). A second group of academics link the concept of water security to water related hazards and issues of national security. In 2012, for example, the US Intelligence Community, upon request of the US State Department, published a report on the question: How will water problems (shortages, poor water quality, or floods) impact US national security interests over the next 30 years?” (DNI 2012). Here, water security is related to questions of water supply stabilization and the role of the armed forces and militarization of water resources and its relation to state failures. A third theme within the literature, mainly promoted by the GWP, defines water security as one of the Sustainable Development Goals. Following Grey and Sadoff’s (2007: 545) definition of water security as “the availability of an acceptable quantity and quality for health, livelihoods, ecosystem and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks to people, environments and economies,” the GWP embeds the concept into the social, environmental, and economic dimensions of development (Global Water Partnership 2012: 7). A fourth group approaches water security from a human needs (and human-rights) perspective, which covers different human development-related issues, such as water access, food security, and affordable services. For instance, Witter and Whiteford (1999: 2) define: “Water security is a condition where there is a sufficient quantity of water at a quality necessary, at an affordable price, to meet both the short-term and long-term needs to protect the health, safety, welfare and productive capacity of positions (households, communities, neighborhoods or nations).”¹

Interestingly, UN-Water developed a common working definition of water security in which all four above-mentioned themes are combined in a container concept:

[Water security is t]he capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of and acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being, and socio-economic development, for ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability. (United Nations University 2013a: 1)

Despite the fundamental differences between the contested concepts on water security, the majority of the concepts have one issue in common: they define water security as a desirable state from which all would benefit equally, without stating what security for one group might entail for others. Rather than providing another definition of water security, the focus of this book is to examine the complex relationship between formal and local concepts of “water security.”

Water scarcity, security and the politics of water rights formalization

In response to the increased pressure on water and the “water insecurity” or “threats” that various academics try to tackle, the recognition has grown among international donor organizations, governments and property rights literature that an efficient and equitable use of water (and other natural resources) depends on the ways property rights are defined and distributed (cf. Johnson 2004; Sen 1981; Leach et al. 1999; Hagmann 2005: 21; Collier and Hoeffler 2000). As both the 2006 World Water Development Report and the 2006 Human Development Report make clear, water scarcity and water insecurity are mainly the results of failed policies and unequal distribution of water volumes and power structures; and not due to environmental characteristics of different regions: ‘The scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty, and inequality, not in physical availability ( ... ) Scarcity is manufactured through political processes and institutions that disadvantage the poor.’ (UNDP 2006: 10, 13).

While there is enough water to ensure that everyone in the world has water, the key challenge is how to design the necessary policies to ensure the actual access. In direct relation to this, there is a widespread assumption in the theoretical debates on water property rights and legal and political reforms alike, that the formal recognition of local customary water rights is essential to provide water security. The World Bank (2003b: 7) argues that in order to ensure an efficient water allocation and use, it is essential to develop a “legal and enforceable system of water rights.” Following the Dublin Principles, they view water as an economic good and claim that establishing formal rights would lead to three things: incentives for a sustainable resource use; reallocation to those requiring more resources, such as growing cities; and, ultimately, mounting pressure causing improved data collection and hence more “secure” resource management (World Bank 2003: 7). De Soto expands and builds upon the neo-liberal argument and claims that issuing property titles to marginalized population segments is the only way to enable resource access and security, leading to credit opportunities and thus to reduced poverty. According to De Soto’s main argument, the formalization, registration and definition of legally protected formal property rights is the most important institution for economic growth and development (De Soto 2000; De Soto 2002). This assumption and respective policy reforms have not only been supported by international financial and development agencies, but also by critical policy thinking and social movements who demand legal recognition of customary rights in order to improve resource security (cf. Albó 2008, Boelens and Seemann 2014; Bustamante 2006).

Striving for standardization principles and formalizing local resource property systems is not only a modern or colonial phenomenon. Also in pre-colonial Latin America, powerful rulers, such as the Inca Empire, tried to organize societies according to their aspirations (cf. Scott 1998; Benjaminsen and Lund 2003). Since independence, however, it has been the state’s exclusive privilege to enforce the law, standardization, and a one-size-fits-all solution, applicable to everyone equally. A range of formalization mechanisms, including written documents, introduction of tax-systems, recording and registration of rights, permits and concessions, has been implemented and associated with “evolutionary progress” and “developed societies.” Until today, formality is often associated with “efficiency and modernity,” whereas informality is linked with “backwardness and unruly” societies (cf. Boelens 2009). As such, governments, donor agencies, social activists and a number of property rights theorists propose formalization.

Recently, countries such as Brazil, Chile,² Mexico and South Africa have pursued water formalization policies according to the principles defined by international financial institutions and are often cited as best practices, in which ‘substantial progress’ has been made in respect to water security (World Bank 2003: 7). The Andean countries are no strangers to this development and have been urged by international donor organizations to reform their water policies and to normalize and formalize³ their diverse socio-legal frameworks in order to increase “efficient” water use and water security and reduce conflict among water users (Trawick 2003; Gelles 2000). In Peru and Bolivia, water security achieved through formalization policies is promoted as a problem-solving instrument, which would equally benefit all citizens and which commonly equates “legal” with “legitimate” water rights. Simultaneously, water security appears to be naturalized and is portrayed as something that follows legal and objective principles. Presented as such, water security becomes a powerful discourse that directly or indirectly may influence the judgment of water experts, policy makers or local water users and activists concerning local water rights and management (cf. Boelens et al. 2010b; Vos et al. 2006). This becomes manifest as many social movements and policy makers view the formal registration and administration of water rights almost as a universal and rational solution to water “scarcity” and “insecurity.” That is why it becomes all the more important to investigate empirically how day-to-day struggles, local conflict and power reshape formal water rights.

Moreover, studies of national water policies in countries with a vast diversity of persisting local water rights, identities and practices, as in the cases of Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia, examined by Budds and McGranahan (2003);...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Water Security, Formalization and Water Justice
• 2  Property Rights in Water Resources Management
• 3  Legal Pluralism and the Political Ecology of Water
• 4  Water Security and Equity for Peasant and Indigenous Communities in the Peruvian Highlands
• 5  The Formal Recognition of Local Water Rights in Peru
• 6  The Formal Recognition of Local Water Rights in Yanque, Colca Valley, Peru
• 7  Water Security and Equity for Peasant and Indigenous Communities in the Bolivian Highlands
• 8  The Formal Recognition of Local Water Rights in Bolivia
• 9  The Formal Recognition of Local Water Rights in Cochimita, Tiraque Valley, Bolivia
• 10  Conclusion The Politics of Water Rights Formalization and the Missing Ingredient of Water Security
• Glossary of Spanish and Quechua Terms
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index