Property Rights and Institutional Arrangements of a Man-Made Wetland in Dryland Area of West Bengal, India
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WETLANDS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD
Property Rights and Institutional Arrangements of a Man-Made Wetland in Dryland Area of West Bengal, India Sourya Das 1
&
Bhagirath Behera 2 & Ashok Mishra 3
Received: 2 April 2020 / Accepted: 12 August 2020 # Society of Wetland Scientists 2020
Abstract The property right is one of the most vital factors determining the sustainable governance and utilization of the wetlands. The paper analyses property right issues and institutional arrangements of a rural man-made wetland in dryland areas of West Bengal, India. It uses Participatory Rural Appraisal, Key-Informant’s Interview, Focus Group Discussion, and household interview to accomplish this objective. The wetland, being located in the dryland landscape, serves as the primary freshwater source for surrounding communities and is used for multiple purposes. However, the conflict among the stakeholders on property right has caused the dissolution of the traditional local institution. Lack of regulation on water and fish extraction from the wetland affected essential human activities like household use, irrigation, and fishery. Moreover, conflict among the stakeholders adversely eroded any form of collective action for maintenance and renovation of the wetland. The study suggests that decentralized conflict resolution through dialogue is the pre-requisite for encouraging collective action and development of institutional arrangements which are vital for the restoration and sustainable utilization of the wetland. Keywords Wetland . Property right . Institution . Conflict . West Bengal . India
Introduction In the dryland landscape, wetlands are immensely important, yet threatened natural resources. These wetlands provide different ecosystem services like habitat support for biodiversity, water for different livelihood activities, soil production, nutrient cycling, microclimate regulation, groundwater recharge, and various types of cultural services. However, excessive extraction of water for irrigation purposes often hampers other
* Sourya Das [email protected]; [email protected] Bhagirath Behera [email protected] Ashok Mishra [email protected] 1
WOTR Centre for Resilience Studies (W-CReS), Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), Pune, India
2
Departments of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India
3
Departments of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India
provisioning, regulating, and supporting services, especially for the dryland wetlands (MEA 2005a, b; Russi et al. 2013). In developing countries, management of wetland often suffers due to the challenges of policy and institutional arrangements. Wetlands face a range of property right issues, like ambiguity in the clear definition of the boundary, multipleresource characteristics, multiple numbers of users, and indivisible nature of the resource, which may lead to conflict among the stakeholders, and these conflicts may ultimately result in mismanagement (
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