Creating equitable water institutions on disputed land: a Honduran case study

Abstract

This article explores the decade-long process by which village-level water committees established a reserve in 2002 to protect communal mountain springs in the Montaña Camapara region of Honduras. In so doing, it considers the conditions under which shared dependence on water resources may motivate cooperation and foster equitable access to water in the face of difficult challenges posed by conflicts over land and water rights claims and degradation of the resource.

Keywords:

• common property
• water rights
• conflict
• institutions
• Honduras

Acknowledgements

Support and funding for this research came from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (Grant No. 7748), the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (CRN-2060), the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change, and Indiana University. I am deeply grateful to the residents, water committees, and municipal authorities of San Marcos de Caiquín, La Campa and Santa Cruz in Honduras; they responded openly to questions, welcomed me to their meetings, and offered frank assessments of the historical and current challenges they continually confront in managing Montaña Camapara and its resources. Staff at the Honduran Institute for Forest Conservation and Development and former employees of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Spain’s Solidaridad development projects in Lempira kindly provided useful documents and information. Throughout my research, the participants revealed their commitment to the ongoing demands of water resource management, discussed the challenges they faced and continue to address, and imparted the lessons they have learned. I appreciate their thoughtful and modest reflections, and the optimism they imparted.

Notes

1. Of these 12 farmers who left the mountain, 8 were still farming land in La Campa in 2010. Two had departed to find work in an urban area, one had died, and another was incapacitated due to a stroke.