Conference Theme:
"Mainstreaming Mindset and Efforts in Ensuring Sustainable Water for All"
Background
The Center for Climate-Smart Initiatives and Innovations for the Uplands (CSI-UPLANDS), Bicol University College of Agriculture and Forestry (BUCAF), Guinobatan, Albay will be hosting the Conference on Sustainagility of Watersheds. “Sustainagility” is coined by Bob Alexander a social scientist and economist of Rural Livelihood Risk Management Consulting, combining sustainability and agility, from the recent International Conference on Climate-smart Knowledge Management for the Uplands here in Legazpi City, Philippines and hosted by the Bicol University College of Agriculture and Forestry. And NOW….the International Conference On Sustainagility Of Watersheds.
Watershed has strategic importance at national level, given the goods and services it actually produces, as well as its potential. It is a natural ecosystem, defined by its critical resource which is water. Watersheds supply water needs of its upstream, midstream and downstream areas. Rivers flow through intensively cultivated areas, where land use decisions have a great impact on downstream water flows and quality. An important aspect of watershed management is that many watershed resources are not managed on private basis, but on commercial or group basis. These resources are of a common property nature.
Critical common property resources within the watershed play fundamental roles in governing patterns of natural resource management as well as in the welfare of individuals, households, and communities who depend on these resources. Given the clash of interests between and among right holders and stakeholders of watershed resources, issues on resource rights and responsibilities, proper pricing of resources, resource use conflict negotiation and mitigation as well as resources’ vulnerability to climate change impacts are important to respond to. In the past, problems resulting from overexploitation of these natural resources were dealt with fragmentally and in an uncoordinated manner, without considering the intricate linkage of land and water within the natural ecosystem and the human dimension within the social environment.
At present, watershed management offers a new approach for integrating technologies, governance, and socio-economic strategies within the natural boundaries of a drainage area (watershed). This allows for optimum development of land, water, plant /trees resources to meet basic needs of people and animals on a sustainable manner (IIRI, International Course on CBIWM, 2006).
As a popularly accepted concept offering a lot of opportunities, knowledge sharing on watershed management, particularly conserving, protection and management of its water resource, is deemed necessary.
Watershed has strategic importance at national level, given the goods and services it actually produces, as well as its potential. It is a natural ecosystem, defined by its critical resource which is water. Watersheds supply water needs of its upstream, midstream and downstream areas. Rivers flow through intensively cultivated areas, where land use decisions have a great impact on downstream water flows and quality. An important aspect of watershed management is that many watershed resources are not managed on private basis, but on commercial or group basis. These resources are of a common property nature.
Critical common property resources within the watershed play fundamental roles in governing patterns of natural resource management as well as in the welfare of individuals, households, and communities who depend on these resources. Given the clash of interests between and among right holders and stakeholders of watershed resources, issues on resource rights and responsibilities, proper pricing of resources, resource use conflict negotiation and mitigation as well as resources’ vulnerability to climate change impacts are important to respond to. In the past, problems resulting from overexploitation of these natural resources were dealt with fragmentally and in an uncoordinated manner, without considering the intricate linkage of land and water within the natural ecosystem and the human dimension within the social environment.
At present, watershed management offers a new approach for integrating technologies, governance, and socio-economic strategies within the natural boundaries of a drainage area (watershed). This allows for optimum development of land, water, plant /trees resources to meet basic needs of people and animals on a sustainable manner (IIRI, International Course on CBIWM, 2006).
As a popularly accepted concept offering a lot of opportunities, knowledge sharing on watershed management, particularly conserving, protection and management of its water resource, is deemed necessary.