Water Conference Full Report 0

Urban Water Utilities and Upstream
Communities Working Together

A report based on a learning
exchange held from May 30
to June 2, 2013 between
Latin American public water
utility operators and other
strategic water sector actors
in conversation with New York
City and State source water
protection advocates
By Daniel Moss, Our Water Commons

I. Executive Summary
While there are plenty of reasons to be discouraged by the state of
the worlds water, this study offers good news for innovative watershed stewardship. The report explores cooperative arrangements
among urban public water operators, municipalities, civil society organizations and the rural communities from where cities often draw
their water.
This paper and the global conference on which it was based investigates the common interest and practical collaboration for source
water protection that exists between urban and rural communities in
Latin America. Because of its instructive track record in working with
upstream communities, the NYC-Catskills/Delaware Program was chosen as a departure point for discussion. Participating in a learning
exchange with the NYC Water System were representatives from
some of the largest and most progressive water utilities in Latin
America including Montevideo, Quito, Lima and Medellin. They
were joined by mayors and municipal workers from cities in Central
America and Mexico, as well as representatives from

water funds and environmental and forestry agencies.
Civil society organizations were well represented. A list of
participants can be found in the annex of the full report.
local resource management arrangements in unexpected places. One of those places is the collaborative nexus between urban water managers and
rural water stewards.
With water use on the rise and hydrological cycles

less and less predictable due to climate change,
thoughtful stewardship of our water sources has become increasingly complex and urgent. In the name
of economic development, for example, extractive industries are often granted free rein to draw down
aquifers and pollute watersheds. The ecosystems,
on which we depend and which depend on us to ensure their survival, are often shortchanged and wither.
Lacking confidence in public water, families of modest
means spend many times their water bill on bottled
water, resulting in even greater wealth disparities.
Within a watershed, there are literally dozens of types

of actors, from farming communities to urban water
consumers, from beer bottlers to environmental regulators. Ideally, they all sit together at a table, ironing out
how to co-manage a shared water commons. Indeed,
multi-stakeholder dialogues are increasingly common
to facilitate this complex social and ecological negotiation. Some of these dialogues have been more fruitful at moving forward an action agenda; others have
stalled in protracted, inconclusive meetings.
While water management may be painted as a classic Tragedy of the Commons, there are paths forward that differ starkly from the one portrayed in the
much-cited article of the same name. While author
Garret Hardin suggests that shared goods such as
water are better held in private hands to overcome
mis-management, this work finds an opposite solution,
closer to the discoveries of the Nobel Prize winning
economist, Elinor Ostrom, who studied the economics
and sociology of the commons. She found dynamic
In such a non-linear planning process unfolding

through both scheduled meetings and informal advocacy visionary leadership, political power and financial resources clearly help move an agenda forward. This
study looks at illustrative cases in which urban utilities
put these assets to work in partnership with municipalities and rural communities to satisfy mutual selfinterests access for all to affordable, clean public water; a healthy landscape; and sustainable livelihoods that lift communities and protect the environment. They borrow a page from NYC, which brokered
a deal with upstream farming communities based on
the simple logic that a good environment yields good water.
That urban utility made investments from its operating budget
to strengthen a rural economy
based on stewardship, rather
than simple extraction, of natural resources. This model resonates with other utilities around
the globe, although each faces
unique contextual challenges in
its application.
Of course the urban-rural link isnt
always a positive one; upstream
communities may be wary of utility
bureaucracy and political partisanship. They may feel used by utilities getting back little for their water
stewardship and unable to interest
them, for example, in paying for reforestation of the upper reaches of
Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities Working Together Executive Summary Page 2
the watershed or increasing access to water for communities without. They may resent urban sprawl and resource
extraction. The sweet spot takes shape when the urban
areas recognize their dependency on rural areas for
clean, affordable water and rural areas concede that
the urban footprint on their landscape is inevitable
on both the landscape and local economy. A virtuous
circle isnt always obvious, at times obscured by relationships of a colonial nature. Its urgent to make urban-rural
cooperation work in which rural livelihoods improve as resource stewardship improves. Without it, well, the future
starts to look pretty bleak.
Civil society organizations can play a key role
in building a bridge between urban decision
makers and communities in recharge zones
and in pressuring operators to be more transparent and accountable. Organizations rooted in upstream communities that understand
their ecological, social, cultural and political
conditions, can, for example, help hammer out
and monitor fair compensation for ecological
services programs ensuring that such programs truly resolve economic and ecological
problems and are not profitable green-washing schemes.
part of water governance stakeholder roundtables.

Civil society organizations often play an important role
in ensuring multi-sectoral co-management.
4. Watershed protection ought to include traditional investments such as reforestation, as well as
non-traditional investments, for example, support
for upstream watershed stewardship organizations,
sanitation infrastructure or environmental policing. Investments should be guided by a vision of restoring a
healthy hydro-social cycle that protects working
landscapes where rights to livelihoods are respected
and technologies are applied that work with, rather
Key findings of this report include:

1. Public water utilities can and should play
a lead role in watershed stewardship. Their
technical know-how, public accountability requirements and financial resources can help
ensure that watershed management form part
of a broad public, territorial planning agenda,
in which watersheds and not just water are treated
as a commons and private watershed protection efforts
are well-coordinated under a public umbrella.
2. The value proposition for urban water utilities
to invest upstream is convincing. Their business depends on high quality, abundant and affordable water,
which is more economical when filtration treatments
can be reduced. This water standard can be achieved
through cooperation with upstream actors.
3. An authentic participatory watershed governance structure is essential, with legally-recognized,
publicly-funded watershed councils working in concert with public agencies and private interests. Water
utilities as well as rural communities should both form
than against, nature. Such investments should adhere

to a long-term, sustainable economic development
plan, recognizing urban and rural areas distinct interests and interdependence, without urban bias.
5. Effective watershed recovery requires strong public
institutions to curb domestic, industrial and agricultural pollution and ensure that all concessions
are subject to public scrutiny. A transition to agroecology and agroforestry practices in the watershed
is essential, but fruitless without reviewing water use
permits and stopping pollution points, including from
untreated sewage.
6. Compensation for ecosystem services mechanisms, including water funds, are essential wa-
tershed protection tools but must: a) complement

and/or catalyze public investments rather than seek
to supplant them, b) be governed transparently to
avoid political manipulation c) insert themselves into
long term, community-driven sustainable economic
development plans to avoid becoming distortionary
payment schemes. While these mechanisms may be
expensive, the ultimate cost to society will generally
be much less than traditional engineering solutions
that dont resolve source sustainability issues. At the
same time, it is important not to insist on full cost recovery for these programs from households of modest
means. Such an unfair burden could interfere with the
implementation of the human right to water. There exist myriad creative tariff structures to pay for upstream
improvements, which include weighting the cost burden towards bulk users and concessionaires.
7. Experimentation and learning is critical to better
understand how urban utilities can improve their
watershed protection role in concert with their rural
neighbors, public agencies and supporting civil society
organizations. From this experimentation, technological innovations, new business models and institutional
forms may emerge. Such learning should be encouraged and supported, particularly through partnerships
among public entities
8. Watershed protection and advancing rights to
potable water and sanitation are intimately connected, yet too often separated. In Latin American
cities, it is rare for consumers to drink from the tap,
tending to spend many times their water bill on bottled water. Declaring that a goal of watershed resto-
ration to provide high quality water to downstream

users which was the driver of NYCs interest in watershed protection would likely encourage a powerful
multi-sectoral coalition to emerge: the public health
and economic justice gains would be enormous. Reciprocity is likewise essential; advocates for the right to
safe water and sanitation should actively support the
efforts of watershed conservationists.
9. The ultimate protection for watershed health
is an informed groundswell of advocates. Simple
water conservation campaigns are not likely to generate the army of active water citizens required to
overcome the worlds water crisis. Patient, in-depth
community education is essential for consumers to
re-imagine their relationship to water, and assume an
identity as water citizens who understand the socio-economic-ecological realities of the communities from which water derives and embrace a sense
of upstream and downstream solidarity. It is these
water citizens who will continue to carry a progressive
water agenda forward, across sectors, even as elected
officials come and go.
This report describes a growing, community of watershed stewards seeking to advance urban-rural
cooperation in managing a shared water commons.
It is the contributing writers greatest hope that this
publication contributes to an active learning community reinforcing the link between cities and watersheds
to guarantee water security. The path to collaboration is
too often neglected even as it is well worn and obvious simply follow the water back from the tap to the
rural landscape.
II. Introduction and Background

Its a game-changing win when urban water consumers
can rely on high quality drinking water and upstream
communities are supported in stewarding water sources. While that watershed management philosophy is
still some distance from mainstream, there are positive
signs that it is inching in that direction. This report analyzes that encouraging trend in Latin America.
With urban populations exploding, climate change
bearing down and rural areas increasingly depopulated by global economic shifts, building equitable partnerships between urban water utilities and upstream
water-producing communities is an urgent matter.
What governance, management and financial principles and practices aid or obstruct this critical social objective? These were the topics explored by Latin American water utility representatives and a select handful
of supporting water sector experts at the conference,
Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities
Working Together, held from May 30 to June 2, 2013.
The conference was held at the Blue Mountain Center

in the midst of New Yorks Adirondack Park. The conference site was opportune for two reasons: The first
was the desire to forge an exchange relationship between the Latin American water sector and New Yorks
source water protection leaders renowned globally
for their work. The second was the generous support
provided by the Blue Mountain Center. The Center
serves principally as a writers retreat nestled on the
shores of a pristine lake. The environment models a
healthy watershed and the remote setting encouraged
two and half days of far-reaching discussion.
The conference featured forward-thinking urban water utilities, including small municipal operators, seeking to build authentic relationships with the upstream
communities that steward their water sources. During
the course of the conference, a variety of terms were
used to describe this urban-rural link in water management. Professor Kala Vairavamoorthy, an international expert in meeting the challenges of urban water
Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities Working Together Introduction & Background Page 5
services from the Patel Center for Sustainability at the

University of South Florida spoke of integrated urban
water management. Juan Jose Consejo of Oaxaca, Mexicos Institute for Nature and Society (INSO) coined the
term restoring the hydro-social cycle. Albert Appleton,
former New York City (NYC) Water Commissioner and
creator of the famed York City Catskills urban-rural
partnership for watershed stewardship, framed it as
bioregional planning. These concepts are intertwined
and informed by the broad body of work known as
integrated water resources management (IWRM). The
successful implementation of IWRM, noted conference participants, has been spotty at best and is a record upon which they seek to improve.
Participating in the conference were representatives
from some of the largest and most progressive wa-
ter utilities in Latin America including Montevideo,

Quito, Lima and Medellin. They were joined by mayors
and municipal workers from cities in Central America
and Mexico, as well as representatives from Mexican
water funds and environmental and forestry agencies.
Civil society organizations were well represented. A list
of participants can be found in the annex.
To describe choices faced by water planners, Professor Vairavamoorthy showed a slide of a highway with
three lanes one continuing straight on, a second
veering slightly and a third, an exit towards a new direction. Over the subsequent days, conference participants discussed just what that unknown road looks
like for cities and upstream communities cooperating
on watershed management and the changes it calls
on society to make.
Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities Working Together Introduction & Background Page 6
III. Governance and Management

Direct from NYC: Lessons for Latin America
The New York City Water System is well known for its
collaboration with upstream water producers (farmers) working towards the twin goals of clean water and
a viable watershed farm economy. To guarantee water quality, there ensued a debate about system design: Was it better to build a multi-billion dollar water
treatment facility or to protect the Catskills/Delaware
watershed? As water quality deteriorated in the upstate reservoirs, said Albert Appleton, the more cost
effective solution became obvious. The question was
how best to do it and overcome the resistance of traditional water quality experts who viewed watershed
protection with skepticism. But watershed protection
won the day and management of NYCs drinking water
followed a simple rule of thumb: A good environment
will generate good water.
After identifying pollution points in the watershed,
the Commission set target reductions in farm-born
pollution, in particular dairy cattle excrement, which
could carry disease causing pathogens into watershed streams and from there into City reservoirs. Initial
use of command and control environmental regulations wasnt well received by wary farmers, who were
not keen to change their ways to accommodate NYCs
thirst.1 Through a lengthy negotiation to design a voluntary program to meet NYCs clean water requirements and improve the farm economy, urban and rural found common ground. Appleton wasnt interested
in running a regulatory program; he wanted affordable, clean water. NYC paid for on-farm improvements
through a clean water/farm investment program called
Whole Farms, built on farmers own organization,
which guaranteed a critical mass of participants.
As Commissioner, Appletons logic went like this: The
tension is undeniable. For NYCs water to be clean, the
rural ecosystem must be healthy. As colonialist as it
may sound, rural landscapes are in practice largely determined by what the cities want food, water, second
Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities Working Together Governance & Management Page 7
homes, bucolic scenery, etc. Do cities prefer a depopulated landscape with pockets of pretty, conserved land
and a few large input-intensive and pollution-intensive
industrial farms to feed them? Or a healthy ecology built
on family farms practicing sustainable agriculture and
embedded in a sustainable
rural economy? In Appletons view, the natural resource-based rural economy
cant be sustained without
sustaining the environment
and likewise, the environment wont be healthy without supporting the rural
society that inhabits it. Furthermore, the rural dwellers
cant restore their landscape
alone. With the help of rural
investments from an urban
water utility which generates considerable revenue the environment may
be able to be restored over
time. But, Appleton warned,
cheap water and cheap
food are incompatible with
a sustainable landscape and
good water quality.2 Planners and politicians need
to make tough choices. The
NYC Water System was the
right institution to catalyze
necessary changes in farm
practices and the local economy at the watershed level, but clearly a rethinking of urban-rural relationships
in all public planning was needed for smarter choices
to be taken.
What lessons does the NYC case offer Latin American
water utilities? Daoiz Uriarte, Vice President of Uruguays public water utility, Obras Sanitarias del Estado
(OSE), confessed that until hed listened to Mr. Appletons presentation, hed nearly given up on reducing
pollution originating on farms. With Uruguays boom
in farm exports, agribusiness footprint on the watershed is growing larger. With serious money at play,
it is no simple matter to change profitable industry
practices that dump dangerous levels of phosphourous into the drinking supply. How does the NYC experience apply to Uruguay?
Maybe, Uriarte commented, by presenting legitimate

and achievable urban drinking water targets while
honoring farmerseconomic requirements, a solution
can emerge. However, an important consideration
for OSE is to avoid payments for environmental service
which compensate farmers not to pollute a public expense which most
Uruguayans would find
objectionable.
A similar challenge exists in
Peru. There, the elephant in
the room is the mining industry. Any watershed conservation measures that
SEDAPAL Limas public
water utility might set
in place to improve water
quality are more than offset by the mining industrys effluents. For Limas
water to improve, mines
must spend on pollution
control. How does NYCs
win-win case square with
a potential win-lose situation in Perus highlands?
Where extractive industries have significant political power and where
regulations and environmental policing are limited, payment for environmental services arrangements
must be accompanied by strengthened laws, regulations and policing.3
In Mexico, the NYC case has been a source of inspiration. Joaquin Saldaa from Mexicos Forestry Commission, CONAFOR, commented that much of CONAFORs
work in protection of natural areas and payment for
environmental services is based on the NYC case. While
that program obviously hasnt been imported wholesale conditions are far too different it has been
instructive. In the past 11 years, Mexico has made significant progress in passing laws and regulations and
putting in place innovative funding programs. These
could not have been imagined even a decade earlier.
Urban Utilities Leading Watershed Protection

As might be expected, stakeholder involvement
in watershed management was a topic of much discussion at the conference. There was no dispute over
the premise that all watershed actors must be at the
table that now standard procedure didnt generate
controversy. But as much as these participatory processes were seen as crucial, one lament was that they
can fall victim to trying to please too many actors with
few politically risky decisions and actions taken. Yolanda Anda described a lengthy process of this nature in
Lima, led by the National Water Authority, in which the
aforementioned elephant in the room pollution by
the mining industry was not addressed fully.
A consensus began to emerge that the water utilities themselves can and should be natural leaders of
these processes and that they are not always adequately involved in them. In an ideal circumstance, an
accountable public water utility with accountability being a desired but not always an existing state
feels pressure to provide clean water to customers,
report on budgets and keep costs down. Within the
course of daily business
operations, water quality
monitoring may very well
be part of their everyday
work. Ms. Anda described
long, harrowing days of
recalibrating water treatments following mine effluent discharges. Such water
quality data could be widely shared with civil society
organizations also involved
in watershed recovery efforts. Participants at the
conference were interested
to learn from Jane Thapa,
of the New York State Department of Public Health,4
of NY States transparency requirements through
which
utilities
must
issue
regular
reports to customers on water quality and finances.
This kind of transparency mechanism, the Latin Americans felt, would be quite useful in strengthening public accountability.5
Depending on regulators disposition, utilities may

be able to assess charges to customers to pay for
upstream conservation. Some forward-thinking utilities already build into their operating budgets investments in upstream work, identifying sensitive lands to
be conserved or environmental services programs that
might be created.
The public utility brings another asset to the table for
innovative water management its organized and
skilled workforce. With Lourdes Martinez, OSE employee and member of its trade union, FFOSE, the
conference explored how FFOSE encourages the utility
to increase involvement in upstream and source water matters. Stereotypically, one might expect a trade
union to be only concerned with salary and benefits.
While those are concerns, FFOSE also seeks to stretch
the utility in new directions. FFOSE was a leader in the
national referendum for the right to water through
the National Committee in Defense of Water and Life,
They now actively participate in convening the constitutionally-mandated watershed councils. Not only is
watershed protection the right thing to do, Ms. Martinez said, but if customers lose faith in the water utilitys water quality, well lose our jobs. Thats a far-sighted view for an actor often accused of operating from
narrow interests.
Of course, not all watershed restoration processes are

directed by utilities or even include them. Each process has its unique dynamic. Many are led by environmental or community organizations. In Lima, the
water fund Aquafondo formed their board with private enterprise and environmental organization leadership. The public utility, SEDAPAL is not yet involved.
Many utilities feel themselves too over-stretched servicing their urban customers to work upstream. They
may consider it mission-creep. Their engineers may
be more interested in water filtration technologies or
tapping new water sources than leading, say, a watershed reforestation program. Negotiating with upstream communities about their needs may not be in
the utility operators comfort zone or be part of an
engineers toolkit. In some cases, it may not be clear
how upstream work will reduce water production costs
and the utility may not have the skills to conduct the
economic and social analysis. Pressures to keep water rates down in the short run may preclude creative
thinking about upstream investments.
Due to perceptions of bureaucracy and political partisanship, civil society organizations and municipalities
may feel dissuaded from working on watershed stewardship with public utilities. As mentioned, water utility
transparency and accountability is a desired state, not
necessarily a present capacity. In the case of Central
Americas Mancomunidad Trinacional Fronteriza Rio

Lempa (MTFRL), mayors have not yet found the best
way to work with ANDA El Salvadors water parastatal which has expressed little interest in supporting the MTs Lempa River headwaters conservation
efforts despite the fact that 37% of San Salvadors
water is drawn from the Lempa River. The river begins
in Guatemala, crosses Honduras and flows into the Pacific Ocean in El Salvador.
Whether it is a matter of utilities working upstream
themselves or civil society organizations learning to
collaborate with them, the learning curve is steep.
Changing utilities culture and practice to incorporate
local perspectives6 likely requires a significant institutional shift, one which may require political and civil
society pressure.
Can watershed restoration be financed by the water
utility? The cost of ensuring clean water is already generally a utility cost, similar to maintaining a delivery
system. In the NYC case, clean water proved cheaper through upstream investments than engineering
solutions. At the same time, concerns were expressed
that a well-designed watershed program could be
too costly to pass on to wter consumers, particularly
where wter is already expensive.7 In such cases, it may
be necessary to look for other public revenue streams,
based on the argument
that public and environmental health are public
goods and justify public
spending.
A wrinkle in tightening
the weave been cities
and watersheds is the
fact that the urban-rural
link is not always spatially obvious. Francisco
Gordillo, technical director for FORAGUA in
Loja, Ecuador, described
village water systems
in distinct micro-watersheds that arent easily
linked to downstream
utilities, perhaps because
they dont flow into urban supplies or because
they may be owned privately and no ordinance

requires their protection. In those instances,
isolated rural areas resolve their water supply
and watershed protection challenges alone.
Likewise, when urban utilities draw groundwater for supply, they may not easily perceive their
connection to upstream rural communities.
Managing Watersheds for Rights to Water

and Sanitation
Lourdes Martinez, from FFOSE, Uruguay, explained how watershed protection followed naturally from a campaign for the right to water and
a requirement that it be administered by public
agencies. In a demonstration of the inter-dependence between land and water, a second referendum mandated revamped territorial planning
(resulting in new land use regulations). Yet, the
regulations are difficult to implement. The newly formed
watershed councils in which FFOSE participates lack
regulatory authority to impose zoning restrictions in the
watershed; it is difficult to rein in industrial agriculture
and its impact on the countrys rivers and water supply.
In Ecuador, the rights of another actor, a relatively quiet
one, inform water management. Ecuadors 2008 constitution recognizes the rights of nature.8 Among priority
uses of water, safeguarding ecological health is among
the top three. With a healthy environment, the logic
goes, clean water flows abundantly to human communities, which in turn can use the water for economic
purposes as well. Watershed management in Ecuador
is, in theory, guided by these priorities although, as
was explained by the Ecuadoran participants, due to
extractive industries economic importance, violations of the human right to water and rights of nature
are often overlooked. Nevertheless, said Juan Carlos
Romero of the Quito water enterprise, EPMAPS,9 a significant mindshift has occurred in the average water
engineer due to the new constitutional commitments
to rights to water and rights of nature.
Along with the right to water, rights to sanitation were
enshrined in a 2009 UN General Assembly declaration.
Clearly, water quality improvements can only have limited success without sanitation action. In El Salvador,
the upstream Mancomunidad Trinacional is enlisting
the support of the capital city of San Salvadors planning department, OPAMSS, to improve urban water
by reforesting the upper watershed. At the same time,
San Salvador is subject to downstream pressures to

clean up its sanitation deficits.
How to pay for this sanitation infrastructure remains a
challenge. The experience of the Brazilian NGO, IBIO
may be instructive here. IBIO is an NGO contracted by
the national water agency, ANA, to manage a watershed improvement program on the Doce River. Carlos
Brasileiro, its president, described a competitive grants
process, which frequently makes grants to cities for
sanitation improvements.
A human rights commitment also means that water
must be managed for poorer families to enjoy a basic
level of affordable water and sanitation. Cross-subsidy
arrangements become increasingly important if water
rates need to rise to pay for watershed protection. Left
unresolved in conference discussions was how upstream investments can help resolve rural communities access to water and sanitation, a global crisis for
hundreds of millions of families. Ideally, downstream
and upstream collaboration brings benefits to both
parties clean water downstream and not only a
healthier watershed upstream but safe drinking water
access as well. Upstream investments, however, tend
to focus principally on conservation and measures to
ensure a high quality urban water supply; it is neither
clear, nor common that rural communities water issues are resolved.10 Yet reciprocity is crucial. If collaborations are perceived as colonial with benefits
accruing principally to the more powerful urban party
a true partnership is not likely to be sustainable.
Discussed only briefly but important nevertheless, was

the topic of land rights. Increasingly, secure land title
has been identified as a hinge-pin in achieving conservation goals. The rapidly expanding work of the Rights
and Resources Initiative,11 for example, is premised on
the idea that to be sustainable, climate change mitigation strategies must enlist the support of forest
and farm communities, made more stable with secure
titles. How can water utilities support land titles and
other forms of economic and social stability for communities living in sensitive areas of the watershed?
More exploration is necessary.
Overcoming Weaknesses in Regulations, Compliance and Policing

Watershed stewardship is, at minimum, two-handed.
While one hand restores ecologic health through such
measures as soil conservation and reforestation, the
other reduces pollution points and prevents ecosystem damage. The former is no easy task, requiring
enormous ecological and cultural sensitivity and economic planning. In many ways, however, the latter is
an even more formidable challenge, requiring public
agencies to mediate conflicts over water and land use.
While the NYC case demonstrates the enormous possibilities of voluntary cooperation in making environmental changes, it is significant that a credible regulatory threat loomed in the background. That threat is
weaker in many parts of Latin America. Yolanda Anda
from Limas water utility, SEDAPAL, showed graphs
of heavy metal readings in streams near mining operations and described the challenges in treating the
water back to a potable form. Through chemical and

mechanical treatments, SEDAPAL must hurry to make
the water drinkable before it reaches Lima taps. The
utility receives little support from the national water
authority and sister agencies to curb industrial pollution. It does not have the authority to sanction mining
companies, much less demand compliance with frequently-ignored water laws.12
Utilities and NGOs may find support for their soil conservation and reforestation projects; less frequently
can they count on a united front against polluters. The
NYC case demonstrated success in working with small
farmers to stem pollution, who discovered self-interest in discarding contaminating farming practices. The Latin Americans wondered if a deal could be
brokered with agro-industrial farms and mines, asking
if NYC was only able to prevail because the farmers
because were weak politically. Appleton clarified that
was not the case. The farmers in the watershed, like
many farmers in the U.S., had opposed regulation of
farm pollution. That vocal opposition was a major reason that the public health community assumed that
watershed protection wouldnt work. NYC prevailed
against the farmers partially because the City respected their political strength and made clear that they
were only up in the watershed to get clean water. The
farmers, once they saw that environmental regulation
could be compatible with their self interests, concluded
that rather than engage in a bloody political brawl, this
could be an opportunity. The same logic could hold
true with agribusiness and mines if and when sustainability is a shared agenda and measured in terms of
economic activity compatible with environmental stewardship rather than degradation.
The current threat of fracking in the NY watershed
provides a sort of test case as to if and how
a utilitys customer base might become advocates for regulation. Thus far, there has been
overwhelming push back by New York City,
from the Mayor on down to prevent fracking in
the watershed. The resulting commitment from
the Cuomo Administration to ban fracking illustrates the depth of NYs commitment to watershed protection.
Transforming Communities Relationship to

Water and Cities Relationship to Rural Areas:
Where Education Meets Philosophy
For the INSO in Oaxaca, co-management and social
participation are key elements of their work, achieved
through a dialogue between civil society and government. Significantly, INSO recently hosted their
35th Foro Oaxaqueo de Agua, during which they
presented a Common Plan for the Common Good,
created with communities to restore the Verde-Atoyac
River Watershed and improve the living conditions of
its inhabitants.13
As part of that organizing work, INSO seeks to transform public thinking about the symbiosis between water and society, cities and the countryside. Juan Jose
Consejo, INSO director, spoke of ruralizing the city
and urbanizing the countryside meaning the restoration of the proper functioning of a hydro-social
cycle. That suggests building green infrastructure into
cities and conservation infrastructure into the countryside, with public agencies and civil society organizations co-managing shared watersheds. It means
rethinking large-scale engineering as the default approach to solving water catchment and distribution.
It requires asking: What kind of countryside does the
city want? If the goal is simply to extract water from
the countryside for urban use, most efficient would
be to pave the streambeds and funnel all water
to downstream towns and cities. But if the goal is
to have neighbors who live in a working rural landscape and provide clean water as a by-product of a
healthy economy, thats a different philosophy and
requires a more friendly and sustainable urban footprint in the countryside.14
To facilitate this change, public education becomes
more than simply making the public aware of projects
and campaigns. It probes deeper, as it did in the NYC
case, seeking to facilitate a sea change in the publics relationship to water, a transformation of principles, paradigms, and philosophies that in turn strengthens the
political will for a citys investments in watersheds. One
hopeful sign that change has begun is that the paradigm
of the watershed is beginning to take root. The term is
now used freely, even among those who seem not to
understand how watersheds actually work. A new appreciation is emerging in mainstream circles that there
indeed exists a reciprocal inter-relationship between
healthy cities and a healthy countryside. In some cases, the extractive mindset, in which the countryside
merely produces water for growing cities, is ebbing,
replaced by rural-urban interdependence.
INSO hopes that this rethinking of water and watersheds, city and country will become the new foundation for multi-stakeholder work, where confrontation
need not to be the norm. That would mean that stakeholder groups would not have an urban bias, starting
negotiations with, what can we pay you to give us
city folk our clean water? but rather a more authentic
sense of mutual problem-solving for mutual benefits.
At the same time, rural stakeholders would embrace
their economic dependence on cities to pay for the
urban goods that they import. This requires an urban
appreciation for rural goods and services for example food, fiber, extractive resources and tourism.
Offering a complementary indigenous perspective at
the conference was Francisco Tzul, ex-mayor of the
48 Cantones in Totonicapan, Guatemala. The 48 Cantones is a centuries-old organizational structure to
coordinate management of natural resources among
48 small, indigenous villages located around the city
of Totonicapn. There, indigenous communities are

guided by a Mayan cosmovision of connection to water, guiding their community stewardship responsibilities. The 48 Cantones have, for example, supported a
youth group to paint community murals representing
a stewardship ethos towards water.
Inter-municipal Collaboration Jointly Managing

Watersheds
The headwaters of the transnational Lempa River sit
in the Trifinio region where El Salvador, Honduras and
Guatemala intersect. The region is poor and under-resourced; municipal governments struggle to achieve a
viable economy of scale to provide public services to
their constituents such as water and sanitation.
The watershed straddles the three countries. It is significantly degraded and its restoration requires the
active collaboration of all three countries. Toxic pesticides used in one country, even if banned in another,
percolate across political boundaries. Unless slopes
are forested and soil is conserved across the region,
the Lempa watershed will continue to erode.
Hector Aguirre, technical director of the Mancomunidad Trinacional and Angel Lara, mayor of Sensenti,
Honduras, described
the coordinated efforts of their tri-national,
inter-municipal
non-profit
corporation to harmonize
environmental regulations
across municipalities
and aggregate basic
services. The corporation also works
with
downstream
municipalities in and
around San Salvador
to enlist their support for upstream
watershed conservation efforts. Ironically, while the Trifinio region produces water for San Salvador, cities in the region such
as Ocotopeque, Honduras, have such poor municipal
water that many residents wont even use the brown
liquid to wash their hair.
With few resources flowing from central governments

to the Trifinio municipalities,15 combining the water
services of federated municipalities puts decentralization, regional integration and inter-municipal cooperation all essential ingredients for successful watershed management to the test. Related challenges
include working across three different countrys legal
systems and remaining accountable to constituents
for quality delivery of city services.
Relatively brief electoral cycles represent a hurdle to
fulfilling the long-term commitments needed for successful watershed stewardship. With elected officials
political agendas often shifting, shared ordinances
and financial mechanisms offer an element of permanence which may be resisted by newly elected
mayors. In anticipation of this resistance, the mayors
that are party to the Mancomunidad Trinacional are
required by constituent mandate to contribute to the
non-profit, inter-municipal corporation from their city
budgets. They sit on its board of directors to steward
the investments and can withdraw from the corporation only with their electorates approval.16
FORAGUA, in the southern Andes of Ecuador, operates similarly to the MT but with a specialty in water
source conservation. FORAGUA is composed of nine
municipalities and seeks to
integrate 39 municipalities
in the region, all abiding by
municipal ordinances jointly
declaring conservation areas
and environmental taxes.
Conservation help is offered
by the technical departments
of the cooperating cities and
by the Technical Secretary of
FORAGUA. FORAGUA monitors the investments in water recharge areas and funds
are raised monthly through
a designated environmental
charge to water users. As in
the Trifinio region, a series
of agreements guarantee
that this process is not interrupted by election cycles
the cooperating municipalities commitments are longterm, approved by each cities electorate.
Carlos Brasileiro, from Brazil, spoke about IBIOs distribution of federal, state and local resources for watershed improvements, collected from bulk users such
as hydroelectric facilities. IBIO is a Brazilian non-profit corporation charged with managing the watershed
council on the Doce River. The council makes investment decisions, discusses watershed threats and can
recommend water use restrictions to the national water agency, ANA.
FORAGUA and the Mancomunidad Trinacional, as well
as Brazils IBIO, broadly share
water quality information, in
some cases collected with
the help of local universities,
across municipalities. This
joint effort reduces costs for
each municipality. The information can be used to target
investments and to pressure
watershed and water system
managers to improve water
and landscape quality.
Public Management Affirmed

One might expect sharp debate about public vs. private
management of watershed restoration. That topic is a
lightning rod at forums like the World Water Forum,
where public-private partnerships and private water
management is encouraged. In this instance, however, given the complexities of up and downstream
collaboration, crossing political jurisdictions and brokering agreements among municipalities, there wasnt
a great deal of debate. The consensus was that successful watershed management involving urban and
rural actors requires public leadership and oversight; a
profit motive among some actors might dampen enthusiasm for this sensitive work.
Solving Problems of a Manageable Scale

In the Catskills, Mr. Appleton mobilized cooperating
agencies not around restoring the entire Catskill-Delaware watershed, but rather a series of manageable
steps to guarantee clean drinking water to NYC customers and a fair deal to upstate farmers. He assured
farmers that he was less interested in new watershed
protection regulations than in high quality drinking
water required by law. This narrower objective, while
still ambitious, could be accomplished through manageable changes in farm management investments
that the utility would underwrite. This approach appeared more reasonable to the farmers than being
told that they were responsible for watershed restoration writ large.
Just such a concrete problem-solving approach is
also employed in Olanchito, Honduras. There the municipality, which operates the citys water services, is
concerned about land use
changes in the forested area
from which Olanchito obtains
their water. The municipality co-founded a consortium
called MACO, which includes
the regional watershed association, AJAASSPIB and the
international NGO, Ecologic.
Together they seek to ensure the integrity of the citys
water supply by preserving
a forested buffer in the upper watershed and educating
Olanchito residents about land and water use. Funds
are used for land purchase, community education and
technical assistance to landowners.
Prospects for Potable WaterOr is Bottled Water

the New Normal?
Watershed restoration in New York State was largely
driven by the clean water requirements of New York
City. The water utility, due to state and federal pressure to comply with clean water requirements and a
desire to preserve its reputation and brand with customers, took measures to ensure high quality potable
water. In Latin American cities, it is rare that consumers
drink from the tap, tending to spend many times their
water bill on bottled water. Over past decades, water
quality has deteriorated and even in cases in which
the water is declared potable, consumer confidence is
low. Interestingly, as well as a cause for concern, is that
many of the watershed restoration efforts explored in
this conference did not have as their goal the provision
of truly potable water water that consumers could
confidently drink from the tap. And yet, such a goal
would no doubt encourage a broad citizen front to coalesce the public health and economic justice advantages are enormous.
Enhancing Learning and Advocacy Across Watersheds

The learning exchange held at the Blue Mountain Center represents just a tiny fraction of learning exchanges underway among watershed stewards around the
world. Sharing problem-solving strategies across
geographies even in very different conditions
has proven to be a valuable learning and capacitybuilding tool.
Rossana Landa described the Cities and Watersheds
Learning Community, facilitated by the Fondo Mexicano para la Conservacin y la Naturaleza (FMCN) among
11 cities and watershed sites throughout Mexico. The
sites are tied together by their commitment to urban
water supply and source protection and experimentation with integrated watershed management governance, financing and training innovations. To broaden
perspectives and skills, FMCN convenes the groups to
learn from one another and from experts in the field,
often in concert with the National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR). The FMCN also offers technical assistance to start-up initiatives, such as the state of Veracruz Environmental Fund. Based on the assessment
that Mexicos watershed councils are largely ignored,
FMCN is likewise playing an advocacy role, backing a
new water law to give the councils greater authority.
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) supports a similar
learning network, albeit on a much broader scale and
with a specialty in what are called water funds, a tool
designed initially in the Andes to support upstream,
watershed investment.17 TNC has supported dozens of

cities in starting dedicated funds to protect the watersheds on which they depend. Alejandro Cavalache,
TNCs fund director currently works with Maria Isabel
Gomez of EPM to design Medellins new water fund,
described in greater detail below.
On a more modest scale and with a more rural tilt,
the Association of Water Committees (AJAASSPIB) in
Honduras operates a learning exchange among 27 rural communities. Carlos Duarte spoke in depth about
one such committee, el Manejo Ambiental Conjunto
de Olanchito (MACO) or in English, Joint Environmental Management in Olanchito that seeks clean urban
drinking water by ensuring water flow from reforested watersheds. The AJAASSPIB committees exchange
knowledge and labor.
The Council of Canadians supports a different kind of
learning and networking. Their specialty is support to
resistance strategies in cases of large-scale threats to
water systems and watersheds whether it be a large
dam, a mine or privatization of a water utility. Claudia Campero, the Councils Latin America coordinator,
described their global campaigning for international
visibility and political leverage, which starts with support to grassroots activists who may be persecuted for
their watershed protection efforts. The Council helps
community groups strengthen advocacy skills. At the
same time, together with OSE and FFOSE, the Council
supports public-public partnerships, in part through
the UNs Water Operators Program.18
As may be evident from this description, the Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities
Working Together conference
was an eclectic gathering of small
and large water operators, public
authorities, and NGOs. The conference, as a learning exchange,
no doubt created challenges for
itself by mixing apples and oranges in the same bowl. At the same
time, participants remarked that
it is through this diversity of experience and organizational types
that water will be managed as a
shared commons.
IV. Financial Support Mechanisms

A diversity of financial support mechanisms were explored at the conference.
State-administered Payment for Environmental

Services (PES)19 Programs
Joaquin Saldaa of CONAFOR described three types of
PES programs in Mexicoa centrally-administered National Program of Payments for Ecosystem Services, a
matching grant program called Fondos Concurrentes
(with 50% provided by the local partner, be it local
government or civil society partner organizations), and
the Biodiversity Endowment Fund. Reforestation and
forest conservation advances are tracked through satellite images and field visits.
CONAFOR created these programs as an economic incentive scheme for the owners of forestlands where
ecosystem services originate. The programs are voluntary, based on mutual agreement between participating parties. Under these arrangements, ecosystem services users (cities, water utilities, businesses, etc.) pay
to receive them, while providers (forestland owners)

adopt measures to maintain or enhance the ecosystem services in exchange for compensation.
CONAFOR is a Latin American leader in these programs, the majority of which are paid to providers
of hydrologic ecosystem services. Between 2003 and
2011, CONAFOR allocated $520 million for the implementation of 5,085 conservation projects covering
over 3 million hectares.
The matching funds program is the only one of its
kind in Latin American in which the federal government promotes, in all 31 states, the establishment and
strengthening of local PES mechanisms. The program
is designed with sustainability in mind; the idea is to
encourage local environmental services users, including water utility operators, to initiate contractual relations with environmental service providers, and develop sources of local financing. Each year, together with
FMCNs Cities and Watersheds program, CONAFOR
convenes the recipients of the fundsall local actorsin
Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities Working Together Financial Support Page 17
indigenous population of Poplucas y Nahuatls and recuperation of

springs and river banks.
Watershed Stewardship Training

and Support
a learning exchange to share best practices. In 2013,

representatives from similar international programs
were invited to share their advances and challenges.
Francisco Tzul spoke of Guatemalas PINFOR program,
which is administered by the National Forest Institute
(INAB). The program provides funding to landowners, including municipalities that carry out reforestation and forest stewardship programs. Interestingly,
the program is not perceived as a good fit with the
48 Cantones model of watershed stewardship. That
model relies on centuries of traditional Mayan forest
management and community volunteerism. The 48
Cantones have chosen not to participate in PINFOR
programs because local participation in conservation
activities is already robust and community leaders fear
monetizing and commodifying water and labor. They
are concerned that a payment program may erode the
Mayan cosmovision that connects them to water and
the spirit of community volunteerism needed to steward their water sources.
The Public Trust of the Veracruz Environmental Fund
is a parastatal managed by the Veracruz state government in Mexico. To benefit both water producers and
consumers, it supports water treatment, conservation
and overall watershed management, financing projects from which both parties benefit. The Fund makes
available 5.8 million pesos for environmental services
in the Huazunlan-Texizapan watershed, benefiting the
Financial support is often supplemented with training or other complementary strategies. The group
explored numerous examples of capacity-building in watershed stewardship, offered by both public and
private agencies. Examples include
INSOs (Oaxaca) permaculture training center in Pedregal, technical assistance offered by forestry staff to
partners in CONAFORs Fondos Concurrentes program, a Food Security
and Watersheds program in Totoncapn, Guatemala, and the Fondo Mexicano para la
Conservacin y Naturalezas (FMCN) advocacy for empowered local watershed councils.
Watershed Funds
Watershed funds take a variety of forms, from Veracruz
Environmental Fund operated by that states Ministry
of the Environment to an NGO-managed fund such as
Profaunas efforts in Saltillo, Mexico to inter-municipal
consortiums in Central America, Brazil and Ecuador.
Funds were typologized in the following way:
Pooled Intermunicipal Funds
Along the shared border of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, municipalities are experimenting
with inter-municipal funds for watershed conservation
through the Mancomunidad Trinacional. In the region
around Loja, Ecuador, FORAGUA brings together nearly a dozen municipalities and seeks to integrate 39
more. In Brazil, IBIO convenes municipalities along the
Doce River in a watershed council that provides grants
for watershed improvements. The boards of directors
for these non-profit corporations include mayors and
oversee watershed improvements such as reforestation, land conservation and sewage treatment.
Municipal Funds
In the small Honduran city of Olanchito, the municipal government, in collaboration with a consortium of
watershed councils, AJJAASPIB and the international

NGO, Ecologic, created MACO. Carlos Duarte, the programs coordinator, described how the Uchapa and
Pimienta sub-watersheds are stewarded by MACO
through land purchases, community policing and environmental awareness work with school children.
State Agency-led Fund
Caridad Gonzalez spoke to conference participants
about Veracruz new Environmental Fund (FAV) which
will support a range of environmental improvements,
from habitat protection to reforestation. Veracruz is
a hugely biodverse state, from coastal plains to 5000
meter peaks; 33% of Mexicos runoff passes through its
14 watersheds. The FAV is overseen by the State Environmental Secretary and coordinates closely with federal agencies such as CONAFOR and municipally, with
water operators. The principal source of income for
FAV is 1% of consumers water bills. Other sources are
environmental charges for timbering and land clearing.
State support for this initiative means that it may be
able to count on a long-term funding stream and collaboration of various state agencies. In the near future,
it will receive 60% of the automobile smog test fees.
Utility-led Fund
Quitos water utility, EPMAPS, and Medellins utility,
EPM, are just some of many public utilities that have
established, or are moving towards establishing, wa-
tershed funds. The EPM in Medellin is in the planning

and development phase for its water fund. In their
case, they are developing three different strategies for
three watersheds facing diverse pressures housing
development, agrotoxins, and mining pollution respectively. EPM is establishing a Water Fund Corporation, through which it will bring together, under one
roof, dispersed watershed efforts. Their revenue plans
include making use of a legislative stipulation through
which municipalities can destine 1% of their budget to
environmental payment services and land purchases.
EPMAPS was the lead donor in setting up FONAG,
a $10 million-plus fund whose mission is to improve
the quality of the citys water supply through upstream investments. FONAG is a non-profit entity on
whose board EPMAPS sits. They hold a 51% interest
in FONAG. In addition to FONAGs watershed investments, EPMAPS makes investments from its own budget, which in volume, surpass those of FONAG. The
two funding streams are used for different and complementary purposes. Both Medellin and Quito have
worked with The Nature Conservancy for technical assistance and initial funding.
NGO-led funds
A promising example of NGO-led funds is that of Profauna in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. With the support
of the FMCN, Profauna seeks to conserve and restore
the ecological integrity of the mountains of Zapaliname, which provides water to the downstream city
of Saltillo. Profauna collects funds through voluntary
contributions that water users may attach to their water payments. To date more than 46,000 families from
Saltillo contribute to this scheme and the State and
Municipal governments have also joined this effort
with a counterpart contribution. These funds are applied to investments in Zapaliname; the selection of
projects is guided by a Management Plan implemented by Profauna in coordination with the rural communities. It is supervised by a Steering Committee, which
ensures transparency and accountability to citizens.
Although in research for USAID, Joaquin Saldaa from
CONAFOR generally found limited consumer support
for voluntary watershed conservation payments, the
Saltillo fund has thus far enjoyed public support.
technical know-how, it can use its own funds whether from revenues or loans for upstream investments.
Of course a risk is that in the face of other pressing
priorities, the utility does not make the investments at
all. A second risk is that if the utility does not have a
community oversight board, key stakeholders in the
watershed may be excluded.22
In spite of these risks, Al Appleton sees this option
utilities incorporating upstream work into their operating budgets as not only viable, but desirable and
efficient. If utilities can treat watershed investments as
normal and essential costs, it becomes an expected
public service for which they are held accountable by
customers. Not only water, but watersheds as well, are
then managed as a commons for the public good.
Fund Governance: Trust Funds

It is standard procedure for a business to shift
funds from one budget line item to another. It
can, however, be a deadly dynamic for a utilitys watershed conservation initiatives, which
are almost always considered lower priority
than other budget items.
Direct Water Utility Upstream Investments

Many water utilities make upstream investments in a
quieter way than a dedicated fund, simply as part of
their ongoing water quality programs. SEDAPAL (Lima)
and OSE (Montevideo) have not created independent
water funds, but have made upstream investments
from their operating budgets.21 Relative to a standalone fund, this model has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, since the upstream investments may not be visible to the public depending on
the utilitys level of transparency the utility may be
less accountable for these upstream investments. On
the other hand, if the utility has the political will and
A mechanism that has met with some success is trust funds, monies used for restricted purposes as approved by an independent
board. Ideally, sitting on this board are municipal governments, environmental agencies,
the water utility and citizen groups that jointly ensure that funds are spent for approved
watershed stewardship activities. This kind of
independent trust fund may make the fund
more attractive to outside investors and may dissuade
the misuse of funds for political interests. Of course
a public utility that is transparent to its customers via
public reporting requirements and hearings may already enjoy the same level of public trust.
Making Effective Watershed Investments

Investment needs will almost certainly outpace resources. Whether funds originate from a trust fund
or utility or municipal budget, it is essential to know
where the funds will do the most good and what
precautions need to be in place so they do no harm.
Of course, every watershed is distinct and interventions, therefore, must respond to local political and
ecological conditions.
In the more straightforward cases, sensitive properties might be purchased and converted to conservation land. EPMAPS, for example, recently purchased
a.12,000 hectare pramo that had been degraded
by over-grazing. Land purchase for conservation is a
common way to protect watersheds and may be preferred over incentivizing landowners to change land
use practices. FORAGUA, for example, reports that
once trees mature during a conservation period
agreed to with a land owner that same land owner
may no longer accept restrictions and seek to harvest
the trees. FORAGUA manages 48,000 hectares of conservation land, governed by municipal ordinances. The
land is purchased and in cases in which the municipalities dont have sufficient funds, they design compensation plans. At the same time, it is no secret that
it can be challenging to police conservation land and
resolve conflicts with local communities that count on
the conserved lands resources.
Needless to say, effective watershed protection must
reach further than forest conservation and reforestation. Forests should not be misconstrued as water factories over-reliance on them to correct water problems may prove disappointing. This is not to
understate the enormous value of agroecology and
sustainable forestry in a watershed fundamental for
producing and storing good quality water, restoring
fisheries, diminishing flooding, and supplying forest
products, just to name a few. But sound watershed

management must be nested within an overall rural
sustainability plan, which in turn rests upon an economic plan providing dividends to the natural environment, rural communities and cities all dependent
on the watershed. That plan for economic sustainability may include agriculture, tourism, timber products,
sewage treatment, and even mining as consistent
with negotiated ecological standards.
It may also be that there is simply no forest to invest in.
Such is the case in the watershed above Lima a high
and arid plateau. How to increase water volume there
is not obvious and improving the water quality of mine
effluents cannot be resolved through reforestation. A
PES program designed around reforestation or paying
mining operations not to pollute, explained Yolanda
Andia of SEDAPAL, may not have the desired impact
and would not be an easy political sell the mines
are not really providing an environmental service. So
in this case, traditional PES investments may not be
the best course of action, a higher priority for watershed protection might be training muncipalities and
the Ministry of Energy and Mines to work with miners
on sustainable practices, strengthening citizen watershed watchdogs committees and environmental policing agencies perhaps unusual investments for watershed restoration.
lihoods. The Oaxacan government

has authorized the $450 million;
the funds are there. From INSOs
perspective, the problem is that the
money is mis-allocated towards a
dam, which has a higher price tag,
promulgates a myth of water scarcity and the need for an expensive
technological solution that can be
easily mismanaged.
Ranking priority uses of water is also helpful to guide

investments. In Ecuador, with the right to water and
rights of nature enshrined in the constitution, the
State developed a hierarchy of water uses human
consumption, food sovereignty and water for nature
are the top three. Such a hierarchy could mean, for
example, that instead of investing in modernized irrigation for export crops, resources might be oriented
to help small farmers with low water use irrigation for
traditional crops.23
Do No Harm and Avoid Costly Mistakes

Juan Jose Consejo from INSO made a provocative assertion to conference participants: It is not that there
is a lack of money to invest in conservation and regeneration of watersheds, but rather that those funds
are often spent in ways that they shouldnt be, and
without adequate efficiency and transparency. He
posed the example of a dam project intended to resolve an alleged problem of water scarcity for the
growing city of Oaxaca. In the face of considerable
opposition, the Paso Ancho dam will bring water to
Oaxaca from over 100 kilometers away at the cost of
$450 million. At the same time, INSO estimates that
for $300 million, a program could be created to work
with local communities in the watershed on natural
infrastructure and stewardship techniques to resolve
water limitations and quality while boosting rural live-
For INSO, this is a misdiagnosis

and missed opportunity for a holistic solution. Their rule of thumb
for watershed investment is to deploy resources that restore the hydro-social cycle and acheive more
with fewer resources. The proposed dam disrupts rather than
supports that cycle. Water funds
and other financial mechanisms
ought to avoid unnecessary infrastructure solutions when a sustainable hydro-social
cycle can be restored without them. The strategy according to INSO, should be to restore the water cycle at all stages precipitation, filtration, evaporation,
etc. In Oaxaca, current average precipitation is adequate. The problem is that due to human activity, runoff is large and filtration is low. Theres been a loss of
balance between elements of the cycle. Interventions
should be directed then to restoring all parts of the
cycle to proper functioning, including the social fabric
that stewards the cycle.
The Oaxacan example affirms the essential premise
of sustainability: working with the environment rather
than against it is cheaper, more profitable and ought to
guide watershed investments. In the long run as water
becomes more scarce and humans bump up against
other natural limits there will be a lack of money for
traditionally engineered solutions like the Paso Ancho
dam that look to fight nature, use it as a waste dump,
or externalize the costs of environmental abuse. Solutions that work with natural capital, and with the social
capital of the countryside, will increasingly be appreciated for the ways in which they can unlock resources,
as they did and do for New York City. The wealth of
nature to save both nature itself and the social landscape that depends on it, must be part of the new paradigm, the exit ramp from business as usual.
V. Conclusions and Recommendations

Its a daunting time for water management, but also
ripe with opportunities. With water use on the rise and
hydrological cycles increasingly unpredictable, stewarding our water sources has become more complex.
Progress on Millenium Development Goals (MDG)
goals is painfully slow; the number of families without
clean water and sanitation is an unconscionable failure of development. Vying for economic growth and
shrunken public services, some governments give extractive industries free rein to pollute watersheds just
as they privatize municipal water systems. At our peril,
we persist in robbing water from the ecosystems that
give us life.
At the same time, there is cause for cautious optimism.
Rights to water and sanitation were passed at the UN
in 2009 and the human rights and conservation communities are forging stronger working relationships,
albeit too slowly. The very concept of watershed is
gaining traction worldwide, pointing to the possibilities of integrated land and water planning that embraces territories and bioregions. From water utilities
to bottling companies, more organizations are looking
upstream some with an eye towards monopolizing

supply to protect water sources. Big infrastructure
dams and the like are questioned as hydro-social
systems that work with nature restoring natural
flows are gaining public acceptance. Cities increasingly recognize and even embrace their dependence
on their rural neighbors witness the explosion of urban farmers markets. Emerging is a variety of policies
and programs in the area of compensation for ecological services some positive and some perverse to
promote shared water stewardship goals. Its a time of
tremendous learning and experimentation.
To further that learning, we offer the following recommendations:
1. Public water utilities can and should play a lead role
in watershed stewardship. Their expertise, public accountability requirements where they exist and resources including an engaged workforce can help
ensure that watershed management remains a public
responsibility and that private watershed protection
efforts are well-coordinated under a public umbrella.
Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities Working Together Conclusions & Recommendations Page 23
2. Watersheds, and not just water itself, should properly be considered a commons. This is not a rhetorical
flourish or a back door argument for expropriation but
rather encourages a joint land use and water-planning
framework to negotiate with private owners and users
of shared land and water resources.
3. The time and effort to create and maintain an authentically participatory watershed governance structure is an essential investment for effective watershed
managment. At the same time, multi-stakeholder bodies may be characterized by many meetings and few
actions, side-stepping controversial issues such as industrial pollution. Faciltation by neutral parties and coalescing around a narrow clean water agenda are just
some ways to improve governance and management.
4. Watershed protection investments ought to include traditional investments, e.g., reforestation, as
well as non-traditional investments, such as support
to upstream watershed stewardship organizations or
strengthening public environmental policing. Sanitation investments in watersheds are essential and frequently overlooked.
5. The growth of multi-party water funds as a watershed recovery tool is a positive development. However, this strategy should be closely tied to water utilities
independent upstream investments. .
6. Payment for environmental services programs can
be effective watershed protection tools but must take
measures to avoid political manipulation and extortion.
7. A do no harm approach to watershed protection

means that engineering solutions that work against
nature, such as large dams, should be approached
cautiously. Investments should be encouraged that
restore a healthy hydro-social cycle, one which protects working landscapes, rights of its residents and
ecological realities. This requires adhering to a longterm, sustainable economic development plan, recognizing urban and rural areas distinct interests and
interdependence, without urban bias.
8. Effective watershed recovery requires strong public
institutions to curb domestic, industrial and agricultural pollution. A transition to agroecology and agroforestry practices in the watershed is essential, but fruitless without stopping pollution points, including from
untreated sewage.
9. Stronger laws giving local watershed councils
greater decentralized authority are critical just as their
coordination with public agencies is essential. Ideally, the national and state government should marshal
resources and regulate the implementation of watershed stewardship plans; but these ought to be carried
out by local actors, following principles of subsidiarity.
10. The learning curve to expand water utilities role
in watershed stewardship and to encourage their collaboration with public agencies, civil society and businesses is a steep one. To guarantee safe drinking water
and sustainable watersheds, development banks and
other funders should support learning and participatory research.
11. A rights framework should undergird
watershed protection, implying four commitments: a) As ruled by the UN, everyone
should enjoy rights to water and sanitation
without discrimination. Access to these
rights should be an explicit goal of watershed protection, especially in rural areas;
b) Watershed management should satisfy
natures basic ecological needs whether
or not the rights of nature have been formally recognized in a legal or constitutional
framework; c) Rural communities should retain rights to livelihoods in watersheds and
provided with legalized land titles and other
incentives to use the landscapes natural resources sustainably; d) A hierarchy of water
uses should be established, as in Ecuador, serving as

a planning tool and value statement prioritizing water
and watershed uses.
12. Watershed restoration and access to potable water can best be achieved in coordinated fashion. The
two are too frequently separated. In Latin American
cities, consumers rarely drink from the tap, spending
large sums on bottled water. The goal of providing
high quality water drove NYCs interest in watershed
protection. Through this twin agenda in Latin America,
a powerful citizen front can coalesce around environmental protection, public health and economic justice.
Campaigns to implement the human right to water
and sanitation would likely grow by building alliances
with watershed conservationists.
13. Transformative education, that goes many steps
further than water conservation campaigns can help
water consumers re-imagine their relationship to water
and the upstream communities that steward it. This education may encourage a new water citizen to advocate
to discard obsolete water management practices and
invest in a functioning hydro-social cycle.
Too frequently, cities look upon rural areas simply as

factories of food, water, minerals other extractives
and bucolic landscapes for tourism. At times colonial
in posture, cities often miss the texture and needs
of the rural communities that provide for their sustenance and enjoyment. As water security rises in
importance at the highest policy echelons, there is
a fork in the road. One road paves the countryside,
channels the runoff into a funnel, pumping it through
city taps. The other takes a more reciprocal, co-management approach, supporting rural communities in
pursuing their livelihoods to undergird sustainable
watershed stewardship.
In recent years, the field of watershed management
has evolved considerably. With their self-interest in
affordable clean water, water operators can play a
leadership role in forging the politically charged, rural-urban divide into a relational link. Although ripe
with risk, this work is essential. Without an equitable
connection between cities and watersheds, our water
security is sure to remain elusive.
14. We are in the midst of an exciting period

of technological experimentation through
innovations in storm water management,
matching water quality to intended use, and
expanding water systems in modular fashion, just to name a few. These technologies
can reduce pressures on watersheds but
will yield more robust results when complemented by changes in how society governs
and manages water.
Endnotes and Photo Credits

1 Urban areas generally have the upper hand in state politics over their rural counterparts. NY is no exception. Past relations had been
marked by power imbalances, strained relationships and land expropriation. The negotiation process was delicate. After learning of
the NYC Water systems original proposals, one farmer leader calculated and gave wide publicity to his conclusion that the program
would impose crippling regulation on 45% of his farmland. Appleton met with him first and subsequently 700 area farmers in a
public meeting at a high school. Over time they learned to work together.
2 Nationally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture took note of the program. The idea that you cant save the rural environment without
saving the rural economy made sense to them. The USDA offers numerous conservation incentives to US farmers. In the US and
throughout the world, urbanites put pressure on rural areas to provide large quantities of cheap food through industrialized food
production The pressure comes back to bite in compromised water quality from poor soil stewardship and overuse of chemical
inputs.
3 Conference participants also commented that it is important to speak scientifically about the relative weight of pollution sources.
There should be little comparison between say, cyanide stream poisoning and poor management of cattle excrement. Ironically,
more attention is often paid to the latter; farmers may be easier targets.
4 Ms. Thapa also participates in the Source Water Collaborative, which unites 25 national organizations to protect water sources in the
U.S. http://www.sourcewatercollaborative.org/
5 Conference participants were interested to learn about the Safe Drinking Water Acts requirement to assess the vulnerability of
every public water system and to communicate those vulnerabilities to the public. This has led many utilities in NY to develop a
multiple barriers approach to safeguarding the water system. Were those kinds of requirements in place in Latin American water
systems, participants felt it might generate public pressure to safeguard drinking water supplies.
6 As part of encouraging this institutional shift, in Tamil Nadu, India, the CHANGE program trains public sector water engineers to
work more closely with the communities they serve and to seek local knowledge and participation.
7 In an interview, Philadelphia Water Commissioner, Howard Neukrug, , commented that it is unfair to ask poor urban residents to pay
for improvements on upstream farms. Relative to their incomes, water expenses are already high.
8 There are advocacy efforts underway to enshrine the rights of nature enshrined in a UN declaration.
9 EPMAPS is not the water authority but a public enterprise, subject to public oversight and regulation.
10 Even in the U.S., improvements in rural water services tends to be left out of the equation in most watershed planning, though in
NYC, as part of their watershed cleanup program, they engaged in a major effort of upgraded local sewage treatment upgrading
and fixing repaired local septic systems. In watershed improvement programs in the developing world, where health standards are
often not upheld, rural communities access to water and sanitation could but generally isnt, used as a key selling point. Moreover,
as these are areas in which the municipal water utility has some obvious expertise, design of cost effective ways to deliver rural
services could be achieved through partnership.
11 The Rights and Resources Initiative is a global coalition to advance forest tenure, policy and market reforms. www.rightsandresources.org/
12 This is not to say that positive actions do not occasionally occur. During the past year, a mine was temporarily shut when results
from a surprise water quality inspection were distributed to the press.
13 http://plancomunparaunbiencomun.wordpress.com/author/plancomunparaunbiencomun/
14 When Mr. Appleton was asked what he might do with $10 million to invest in the watershed, he suggested creating a special local
food market for growers in the watershed to sell their sustainably-produced products in NYC, thus solidifying the ties between city
and country dwellers. In addition to the obvious economic benefit for farmers in the watershed, such a program might encourage
advocacy actions on the part of the urban customers to defend the health of their watershed.
15 The Plan Trifinio is one source of support. It is an anti-poverty, pro-Central America integration program begun in the late 90s with
support of the InterAmerican Development Bank. The Plan Trifinio supports some municipal works but is more focused on education and training and national level inter-ministerial collaboration. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/water/ihp/ihp-programmes/pccp/publications/case-studies/summary-the-case-of-the-trifinio-plan/
16 The federated municipalities have thus far collected nearly $100,000 in contributions from their own budgets. While a large sum
for them, it falls far short of what is needed to restore the watershed. Political pressures are intense for the mayors to show their
constituents that such an extraordinary budget allocation is relevant to their daily lives. The MT is actively seeking contributions to
match and support the municipalities investments.
17 http://www.naturalcapitalproject.org/pubs/TNC_Water_Funds_Report.pdf
18 www.gwopa.org
19 Conference participants and even CONAFOR officials prefer the term compensation for ecological services over payments for environmental services to show the variety of possibilities beyond direct payments. For historical reasons, payments for environmental
services persists.
Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities Working Together Endnotes and Photos Page 26
20 Civil society organizations implement 66% of the Fondo Concurrentes local, matching funds projects.
21 As mentioned, in Lima, an NGO-led fund, Aquafondo, is building its capital base. Aquafondo and SEDAPAL are in discussion about
how best to work together. http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/southamerica/peru/explore/aquafondo-the-waterfund-for-lima.xml
22 In some cases, it is this very lack of transparency that spurred the formation of independent water funds in the first place.
23 74% of water drawn from the Guayllabamba watershed near Quito is for irrigation purposes at the same time as the utility is
reaching further and further away to bring water to the growing Quito population. Thus far, little has been done to diminish water
demand for irrigation, but it is a growing need as costs rise to transport water from less tapped and compromised sources. For now,
EPMAPS invests in land purchases in water producing areas to ensure source quality and productivity, purchasing only from large
landowners so as not to incentivize small farm sell-offs.
Photos:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 14
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 21
Page 22
Page 23
Page 24
Page 25
Page 28
Page 29
Page 30
Page 31
commons.wikimedia.org
radioespectaculo.com
commons.wikipedia.com
sciblogs.co.nz
commons.wikipedia.com
FORAGUA
en.wikipedia.org
www.nycwatershed.org
SEDAPAL
Forest Trends
www.actionforglobalhealth.eu
www.hydroprojekt.com.pl
Fondo Ambiental de Veracruz
macaulay.cuny.edu
EPMAPS
www.worldpulse.org
MACO
www.water.org
Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities Working Together Endnotes and Photos Page 27
VI. Annex
A. Acknowledgements and Contributors
This report is based on intensive discussions among
the participants of the conference, Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities Working Together.
All content is, however, the sole responsibility of the
author, Daniel Moss.
Those who generated the ideas explored in this paper and offered critical editorial support are: Joaqun
Saldaa, Rossana Landa, Juan Jose Consejo, Caridad
Gonzalez Claudia Campero, Hector Aguirre, Francisco
Tzul, Carlos Duarte, Angel Lara, Juan Carlos Romero,
Francisco Gordillo, Daoiz Uriarte, Lourdes Martinez,
Yolanda Andia Cardenas, Maria Isabel Gomez Ochoa,
Alejandro Cavalache, Carlos Brasileiro, Albert Appleton, Kala Vairavamoorthy, and Jane Thapa. I am indebted to this visionary, hard-working group.
I am deeply grateful for the Spanish translation work

of Roberto Ponce Lopez and Azucena Rojas Parra and
to Tara Mathur for design and layout.
This paper would not have been possible without the
generous support and encouragement of Harriet Barlow, Sheila and Isaac Heimbinder, the Blue Mountain
Center and my wife, Tyler Haaren.
Reprinting and recirculation is encouraged; citation would be greatly appreciated. This report can
be downloaded at no cost in English and Spanish at
www.ourwatercommons.org. Questions, comments
and suggestions can be directed to ourwatercommons@gmail.com.
Urban Water Utilities and Upstream Communities Working Together Annex Page 28
B. Participant list
Mexico
Joaqun Saldaa, CONAFOR
Rossana Landa, Cuencas y Ciudades,
Fondo Mexicano Para La Naturaleza y la Conservacin
Juan Jose Consejo y Laura Lpez, Instituto de la
Naturaleza y la Sociedad de Oaxaca (INSO) y el Foro
Oaxaqueo del Agua (FOA)
Caridad Gonzalez, Coordinadora del Fondo
Ambiental, Estado de Veracruz
Claudia Campero, Blue Planet Project
El Salvador
Hector Aguirre, Mancomunidad Trinacional
Guatemala
Francisco Tzul, 48 Cantones de Totoncapan
Honduras
Carlos Duarte, Municipio de Olanchito
Angel Lara, Alcalde de Sensenti
Ecuador
Juan Carlos Romero, EPMAPS
Francisco Gordillo y Lucia Placencia, FORAGUA
Uruguay
Daoiz Uriarte, OSE
Lourdes Martinez, FFOSE
Peru
Yolanda Andia Cardenas, SEDAPAL
Colombia
Maria Isabel Gomez Ochoa, EPM
Alejandro Cavalache, The Nature Conservancy
Brazil
Carlos Brasileiro, IBIO, AGB Doce
United States
Albert Appleton, Former New York City
Commissioner of Environmental Protection and
Director of the New York City Water and Sewer
System (NYC Water)
Professor Kala Vairavamoorthy, University of
South Florida
Jane Thapa, New York City Department of Public
Health and member of the Source Water Collaborative
Daniel Moss, Director, Our Water Commons
Roberto Ponce, MIT
C. Profiles of Some of the Participating Organizations

The Mancomunidad Trinacional is a federation of
municipalities along the Guatelamalan, Honduran and Sal-
vadoran borders in the Trinfinio region. It formed in the absence of an integrated, participatory cross-border development strategy to face the many development challenges of
the region. Through the public policy, Forests Forever, the
Mancomunidad Trinancional a) Uses incentives to reduce
the loss of forest cover and perpetuates the functioning of

forest ecosystems. b) Promotes the sustainable management of protected areas and the connectivity among them.
Through the Shared Waters public policy, the Mancomunidad Trinacional seeks to improve integrated, sustainable
and shared water resources management. This is achieved
through regional planning, inter-municipal cooperation in
provision of water services and basic sanitation, improving

access to potable water in sufficient quantity and quality,
reducing the regional contamination of water sources, and
by implementing a tri-national system of compensation for
ecosystem services. http://www.trinacionalriolempa.org/
The Cities and Watersheds Program (PCyC) of the Mexican Fund for Conservation of Nature is based on an incubator model to accelerate projects that protect and restore
the watersheds that supply water to 10 cities in Mexico. It is
a project of national scope to encourage a transition from
management of natural resources dispersed across sectors
to a model of integrated watershed management. The PCyC
uses a model of long-term support that brings together resources, knowledge and technical capacities, through
dialogue, to promote the integrated management of watersheds via the informed participation
of all sectors of society. The model seeks
to introduce a watershed perspective,
the coordination of
actors based on common objectives and
the development of
co-responsibility between the cities and
the watersheds that
supply them with water. http://fmcn.org/
cuencas-y-ciudades/
Since 2009, political
will and a spirit of
solidarity has existed
between large and
small municipalities in
southern Ecuador. It
has allowed for the creation of the Regional Water Fund,
FORAGUA, which seeks to slowly integrate 39 municipalities of that region. Using municipal regulations, 48,000
hectares have been declared municipal reserves. 50,000
users now contribute an environmental fee, which is administered by legal representatives of the National Finance
Corporation and the Technical Secretary, which oversees
and manages complementary funds for water sources investments. Through FORAGUA, the technical departments
of the municipalities have secure resources and technical
support, resulting in a certain amount of agility in conservation processes. http://www.foragua.org/
The Oaxacan Institute for Nature and Society (INSO) was
formed in 1991 to support collaborative and autonomous
efforts for natural conservation and social well-being. Our

principal project, Aguaxaca began in 2003 among communities, civil and social organizations and government agencies. It is a holistic and collaborative strategy to conserve
the natural processes that guarantee water in Oaxacas
Central Valley and improve the life of its inhabitants. We
have 5 strategies: The Photo (research), the Table (seeking
consensus and financial mechanisms environmental services), the Plan, the Tools (regeneration actions and alternative technologies) and the Voice (dissemination and awareness raising). We now have a firm hydrological, ecological
and social understanding of the watershed. We created the
Oaxaca Water Forum, with 80 members, as a place to seek
consensus, define water policies and put them into practice.
Among our actions, we have to reforested and conserved
soil and ravines, and introduced permaculture, water improvement and treatment
techniques,
energy conservation
and efficient irrigation. Lastly, we have
disseminated
news
about the project and
carried out various
actions of awareness
raising and education.
http://insoaxaca.
wordpress.com/
The Municipality of
Olanchito (MACO)
agreement
began
as an initiative of
the muncipality of
Olanchito, Honduras,
based on the experience of small communities that have come
together in an association to administer and protect micro-watersheds. They
work with an environmental fund established for that purpose and have built management capacity with support from
the Ecologic Development Fund. MACO brings water users
and landowners into a dialogue to pursue the following priorities: upstream land purchase and downstream awareness
raising about water use to guarantee a water source of sufficient quality and quantity for the city of Olanchito and the
community of Agalteca. http://www.ecologic.org/ourteam/partners/local-partners/#anchor5
The Metropolitan Public Company for Potable Water
and Sanitation (EPMAPS) of Quito, Ecuador delivers Quitos drinking water and treats its sewage. EMPAPS is conscious of the need to reach agreements with different water
users in the watershed, maintain community relations, purchase and manage areas of hydrological significance and
conduct research. Many of these activities are carried out
through the Fund for the Protection of Water (FONAG), of
which EPMAPS is the principal constituent and contributor.
http://www.aguaquito.gob.ec/
The Public Trust Fund of the Environmental Fund of Veracruz (FAV) is a parastatal entity of the state government
of Veracruz, Mexico. Its work is focused on watersheds, and
supports projects of restoration, preservation and conservation of Veracruz ecosystems. The work includes pollution control, implementing climate change mitigation
strategies,
environmental planning, environmental education
and communication,
and strengthening local capacities. http://
www.veracruz.gob.
mx/medioambiente/
State Sanitary Works
(OSE) is the state
agency responsible for
water supply throughout the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,
and sanitation services
within the country
since 1952, creating
law SBI states that
their tasks must be
performed with an orientation primarily hygienic putting in front
the social reasons to
economic. Moreover,
through the reform
of the Constitution of
2004, Uruguay became
the first country to declare a fundamental
human right access to
safe water and sanitation. Similarly, it was provided that these services are provided exclusively by the state. For these reasons is that SBI
constantly faces new challenges to provide solutions that
will improve the services it provides, prioritizing the welfare
of the community.
The Patel Center for Global Solutions develops research
that creates solutions for sustainability development in a
rapidly-changing world. Its research is based upon USFs
broad, interdisciplinary expertise in the areas of water, pub-
lic health, energy, global security, and social equity. This

interdisciplinary approach provides a fertile foundation for
the development of unique solutions to emerging and existing problems. The Patel Center for Global Solutions provides cutting-edge research and emphasizes developing
appropriate transfer mechanisms so that it can be applied
on the ground. Focus areas include challenges surrounding
the development of resilient, livable, and healthy cities of
the future, particularly in the developing world. Research
generated at the School is key to the development of the
global sustainable cities agenda. http://sgs.usf.edu/
Since 1952, the Public Sanitary Works (OSE) has been the
state agency responsible for water supply
throughout Uruguay.
Public health is the
highest priority social order comes before economic concerns. Through the
2004 constitutional
reform, Uruguay became the first country
to declare a fundamental human right
to safe water and sanitation and mandated
that these services be
provided by the state.
OSE constantly faces new challenges to
improve the services
it provides, prioritizing the welfare of the
entire
community.
www.ose.com.uy/
The Matching Funds
program
(Fondos
Concurrentes) seeks
to bring together resources from
CONAFOR (Mexicos
National
Forestry
Agency) and the users of environmental services to offer
a payment or compensation to landowners and users of
forest land who carry out sustainable forest management
which permits and improves environmental services. Within this framework, CONAFOR can provide up to half of the
money for between 5 and 15 years to create or strengthen a local payment for environmental services mechanism.
Funds can be applied to: 1) Watershed and sub watersheds;
2) Biological corridors; and, 3) Important areas for conservation. http://www.conafor.gob.mx/
The Federation of Workers of Public Sanitary Works

(FFOSE) is the union of OSE workers. Its mission is to protect the workers in all their moral and material struggles
for better living conditions for all, worker unity, solidarity
and actions for common objectives. We work with National
Committee for Water and Life (CNDAV) towards the defense
of the commons, including the defense of land as water and
land are inseparable. We participate nationally in the PITCNT and internationally with Public Workers International.
http://www.ffose.org.uy/
SEDAPAL is the public water utility for Lima and Callao
whose mission is to improve the quality of life for the populations of these cities, through supply of potable water,
collection, treatment and final disposal of sewage waters,
providing for the re-use of water and preservation of the
environment. http://www.sedapal.com.pe/inicio
The mission of the natural resource council of the association of mayors of the 48 Cantons of Totonicapan is to care
for, protect, and conserve of the natural resources and in
particular the communal forest of the Totonicapan municipality. The 48 Cantons of Totonicapan is a traditional
Kiche governance authority that has represented and served
local villages for approximately 800 years. The 48 Cantons

co-manages the forest with the Guatemalan National Park
Service (CONAP) and the municipal forestry office of Totonicapan. For the Kiche Maya of Totonicapan, the forest is not
only a vital source of freshwater, it is revered as the spiritual source of life and the foundation of their community.
http://www.ecologic.org/our-team/partners/local-partners/#anchor9
IBIO-AGB Doce, the Institute Bio-Atlantic, is a non profit
organization whose mission is to increase environmental
quality and promote sustainable territorial management in
the Rio Doce basin for economic development, social equity and human well-being. IBIO-AGB works in the Brazilian
states of Minas Gerais (through 6 watershed committees)
and in Espirito Santo (through 3 watershed committees).
IBIO-AGB Doce provides grants and technical support for
upstream management of the Rio Doce watershed, including for sewage treatment infrastructure. The work is financed by fees to concessionaires. Goals and activities are
defined in management contracts between IBIO-AGB Doce
and the National Water Agency (ANA), as well as with the
Mining Institute for Water Management (IGAM). http://
www.riodoce.cbh.gov.br/
Municipalidad
de Olanchito

Water Conference Full Report 0

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Water Conference Full Report 0

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Urban Water Utilities and Upstream

Communities Working Together

By Daniel Moss, Our Water Commons

America and Mexico, as well as representatives from

With water use on the rise and hydrological cycles

Within a watershed, there are literally dozens of types

In such a non-linear planning process unfolding

part of water governance stakeholder roundtables.

Key findings of this report include:

than against, nature. Such investments should adhere

tershed protection tools but must: a) complement

ration to provide high quality water to downstream

II. Introduction and Background

The conference was held at the Blue Mountain Center

services from the Patel Center for Sustainability at the

ter utilities in Latin America including Montevideo,

III. Governance and Management

Maybe, Uriarte commented, by presenting legitimate

Urban Utilities Leading Watershed Protection

Depending on regulators disposition, utilities may

Of course, not all watershed restoration processes are

Americas Mancomunidad Trinacional Fronteriza Rio

they may be owned privately and no ordinance

Managing Watersheds for Rights to Water

San Salvador is subject to downstream pressures to

Discussed only briefly but important nevertheless, was

Overcoming Weaknesses in Regulations, Compliance and Policing

water back to a potable form. Through chemical and

Transforming Communities Relationship to

of Totonicapn. There, indigenous communities are

Inter-municipal Collaboration Jointly Managing

With few resources flowing from central governments

Public Management Affirmed

Solving Problems of a Manageable Scale

Prospects for Potable WaterOr is Bottled Water

Enhancing Learning and Advocacy Across Watersheds

watershed investment.17 TNC has supported dozens of

IV. Financial Support Mechanisms

State-administered Payment for Environmental

to receive them, while providers (forestland owners)

indigenous population of Poplucas y Nahuatls and recuperation of

Watershed Stewardship Training

a learning exchange to share best practices. In 2013,

watershed councils, AJJAASPIB and the international

tershed funds. The EPM in Medellin is in the planning

Fund Governance: Trust Funds

Direct Water Utility Upstream Investments

Making Effective Watershed Investments

products, just to name a few. But sound watershed

lihoods. The Oaxacan government

Ranking priority uses of water is also helpful to guide

Do No Harm and Avoid Costly Mistakes

For INSO, this is a misdiagnosis

V. Conclusions and Recommendations

upstream some with an eye towards monopolizing

7. A do no harm approach to watershed protection

uses should be established, as in Ecuador, serving as

Too frequently, cities look upon rural areas simply as

14. We are in the midst of an exciting period

Endnotes and Photo Credits

I am deeply grateful for the Spanish translation work

C. Profiles of Some of the Participating Organizations

the loss of forest cover and perpetuates the functioning of

provision of water services and basic sanitation, improving