1st Edition
Multiuse Wetlands Governance Challenges and Institutional Choices
The Ramsar Convention was established in 1971 to ensure the conservation and wise use of wetlands across the world. India joined the Convention in 1982, however, in the past 50 years, despite Ramsar’s incredible achievements, the threat to wetlands across the globe, including India, has not diminished. This book studies the governance of multiuse wetlands in India.
The volume provides an exhaustive analysis of rural, peri-urban, and urban human-made wetlands to establish the relevance of institutional design and the effective role of authority in governing multiuse wetland ecosystem services. The author argues that the most challenging task in governing wetlands is to frame institutional choices that users and non-users comprehend, and agree to pursue under alternative property rights regimes.
Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the book provides a broad look into the causes and consequences of wetland ecosystem degradation and offers insights into improved sustainable management systems for different types of multiuse wetlands. It will be indispensable for students and researchers of environmental studies, sustainable development, biodiversity, conservation, and agricultural, natural, and environmental resource economics.
1. Introduction 2. A Synthesis of Institutional Approaches for Analyzing Multiuse Wetlands Governance 3. Wetland Diversity, Water-Wetland-Agriculture Interactions and Ecosystem Services 4. Ratanpur Wetland Complex: The Existential Crisis 5. Restoration Journey of Lake Vivekananda: Ecological Gain or Loss 6. Tanks and Tank Irrigation: Challenges of Institutions and Collective Action Restitution 7. Analyzing Self-Organized and Self–Governed Dabri Irrigation System 8. Culture Fisheries in Multiuse Wetlands under Alternative Property Rights Regimes 9. Emerging Policy, Governance and Research Issues
Biography
Dinesh K. Marothia is President, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics (Mumbai, India), Member Technical Advisory Board of Global EverGreening Alliance-an international collaborative platform to Restore South Asia and Coordinator, Centre for Integrated Natural Resources Management, National Institute of Ecology, Raipur/Delhi/Jaipur.
"Earth’s wetlands are among the most precious of ecosystems, for they are both beautiful and an essential part of the architecture that is Nature. Marothia’s moving love letter to wetlands masquerades as a scientific document, but it is all the better for it, because it hides the painstaking empirical work the author has undertaken to show what the wetlands offer the human economy. The book is a landmark."
Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics, Fellow of St John's College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
"Professor Marothia has written an exhaustive and impressive account of the manifold threats to the coherent management of fragile wetland habitats. Here we find careful attention to the institutional arrangements suited to the protection of these essential natural resources. No longer are such wet areas regarded as "swamps" or economically useless. Now, their role in integrated environmental management is well understood. Marothia’s exceptional treatise promises to be of enduring value in rescuing these habitats from mis-management or continued destruction."
Daniel W. Bromley, Anderson-Bascom Professor of Applied Economics (Emeritus), University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
"Governing wetlands sustainably and well requires the appropriate institutions that recognize their characteristics as common assets and their huge value in producing ecosystem services. Dinesh K. Marothia’s summary of these challenges and choices is required reading for anyone interested in governing our valuable wetlands."
Professor Robert Costanza, Institute for Global Prosperity, University College London, London, UK
"For millennia, wetlands and wetland habitats were universally regarded as the foundation of human civilization. Yet, throughout the imperial age and the industrial revolution, vast tracts of wetlands were ignored, devalued, drained, filled, and otherwise repurposed because of their perceived inability to generate short-term economic gain. Over the last five decades, the consequences of these oversights have grown increasingly apparent. Professor Marothia convincingly presents the fact that wetlands and wetland habitats are socially, ecologically, environmentally and economically important and require thoughtful and informed management. Maratha’s comprehensive and detailed treatment of these complex issues provides us with an indispensable roadmap for wetland researchers, managers and policy makers."
William E. Phillips, Professor (Emeritus), Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
"This is one of the most comprehensive, fascinating excavations of the complexities and interdependencies related to multitude wetlands and their users and non-users. Read this study. You will LOVE it"
Nighisty Ghezae, Director, International Foundation for Science (IFS), Stockholm, Sweden.
