2018 Conference

Individual Paper Presentation

Peru faces severe water challenges: the majority of its population is located along the arid coast, which receives less than 2% of the country’s water, and climate change is only expected to exacerbate disparities.  In the past, Peru pursued dams to control water flows, but there is also a need for greater watershed protection, particularly in the Andes where water originates.  Based on international best practices, the national government passed laws enabling payment for ecosystem services and calling for the establishment of multi-stakeholder river basin councils.  Basin councils provide space for stakeholders to reach ‘socially-acceptable agreements.’  Yet, in Arequipa, which is in many respects is a ‘most likely’ case for watershed protection, stakeholders failed to reach agreement.  Collaborative governance scholars highlight how heterogeneous values challenge agreement-making; however, as I argue here, the analysis needs to be extended to include how stakeholders’ belief systems and epistemologies intersect within the collaborative governance process.  Given the technical nature of basin council governance, campesino communities from the upper basin who have been excluded from water management historically continue to be marginalized.  Not only does this eliminate valuable knowledge that could help improve watershed protection, but I argue it could delegitimize the process in the eyes of the campesinos and perpetuate water injustice.  This study is based on 46 interviews in Arequipa between 2016 and 2017.