Restoration can revitalize watersheds and communities. Villagebased restoration projects can be an effective route to restoring vital watershed functions and increasing the productivity of local ecosystems. In turn, this can increase farm income and make available more fodder and forest products that directly benefit village livelihoods and build the local economy.
Consensus-building is key to community effort. To be effective, watershed restoration requires participation from a wide array of families from across the social spectrum. The Darewadi experience shows that generating consensus among these social groups is not only possible, but also the most practical way to avoid conflicts and promote fairness. If decision-making is based on simple majority (or supermajority) rule, it can easily end up marginalizing the concerns of the poor.
Nongovernmental organizations provide crucial support. NGOs such as the Watershed Organisation Trust can play both a catalytic and capacity-building role in participatory watershed restoration programs. Experience shows that watershed programs without such an NGO partner do not stand the same chance of success. In Darewadi, WOTR’s intervention helped empower, organize, and educate the community, and provided technical help and financial instruments such as microcredit programs to help the community turn increased environmental income into financial strength.
Unequal access to land blocks equal distribution of benefits. The most lucrative benefits of watershed restoration—such as greater access to irrigation—generally accrue to landowners. The landless may also benefit substantially through greater access to wage income and subsistence products from restored common lands, but these benefits tend to be secondary or indirect benefits. Mechanisms such as saving clubs that increase the ability of the poor to lease or purchase private agricultural land, or directly access the products of common lands, can help correct this imbalance of assets. Development of such support services must be a central feature of watershed project design if aiding the poorest is a serious goal.
Forging links with government brings future benefits. Perhaps one of the most valuable long-term benefits of Darewadi’s watershed management program is the ties it has formed between the community and the local political system and development agencies. Villagers feel they have a new visibility and credibility with state officials, which means that they stand a better chance in the future of benefiting from state-funded economic development programs.
