Stijn Speelman

A Choice Experiment Approach for Assessing Preferences to Forest Law Configuration and Compliance: The Case of NTFP Traders in Cameroon

SUMMARY Considerable efforts are being deployed to reduce illegal forestry activities in the Congo basin forests, but these efforts seem to be concentrated on illegal timber logging and wildlife poaching to the neglect of other illegal forest activities such as Non Timber Forests Products (NTFP) harvesting and trade. This paper applies a choice experiment approach to evaluate policy options that are hypothesised to provide incentives for small scale forest actors to comply with the forestry law governing trade in NTFP in Cameroon. Data was collected from 70 traders. Based on willingness to pay measures, it was revealed that the options most preferred by the sampled traders included a decentralisation of the application process to obtain permits and a reduction in the volume of paper work involved in the process. The authors conclude that acknowledging the preferences of small scale actors can be relevant in reducing illegality in the forestry sector.

Effect of water scarcity on groundwater use efficiency in the rice sector of Karnataka: a case study

Scarcity of a resource is proven to cause prudent and efficient use in many cases. This is contradicted in other studies where common property resource is shown as heavily abstracted in the face of scarcity. Our paper provides a field level examination of the ground water scarcity–use efficiency nexus using causal inference theory. We use data from villages of Madhugiri, Karnataka where groundwater is increasingly becoming a scarce resource. Groundwater Use Efficiency (GWUE) scores are calculated using the concept of sub-vector efficiency in Data Envelopment Analysis. The inefficiencies are then traced to the farm level scarcity indicators using Inverse Probability Weighting method. We use farm level proxies as scarcity indicators such as the age of irrigation! wells, irrigation investment cost and number of wells at farm level. Our study finds that water scarcity affects the GWUE negatively when conditioned on other confounders pointing to higher abstraction behavior in the face of scarcity. This result indicates that maintaining water availability levels at farm level would help in improving GWUE scores.

A source of conflict? Distribution of water rights in Abanico Punata, Bolivia

Concentration of rights and the access to water have become important issues in water and conflict debates in the Andes. In Bolivia the concentration of water takes place in an environment of increasing water scarcity and socio-economical differences between class, gender and ethnicity. Analysing the mechanisms of water right acquisition and access to water can serve as an input for policies to manage water-related conflicts. The aim of this study therefore was to investigate irrigation water allocation in 65 peasant communities that are part of ‘Abanico Punata’ (‘Punata Fan’), an agricultural oriented region in Bolivia, in order to understand the water-related conflicts that are taking place in the area. The results show that there is a large difference in access to water between and within the communities studied. Access is mostly determined by the number and the types of water sources households have at their disposition. Many households only have access to water from the river, which is dependent on the runoff and only provides water during the wet season. Water availability improves significantly when having access to water from reservoirs, but this access depends on customary law or on investments made during the construction of the infrastructure. Considering gender and water allocation the results show that the participation of women is small compared to that of men, as on average only 30% of water rights are registered under women’s names. Looking at ethnicity, the analysis shows that the determining factor in water allocation are the bonds of kinship and identification/recognition as a member of the community. Finally in relation to social class, it was shown that there is a correspondence between economic factors and water, especially because resources, mainly economic, enable a family to materialize their right, either during infrastructure creation or through purchase.

Modelling the value of wetlands in the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania, using community preferences

Wetland degradation has recently received considerable attention in research. Although wetlands are valuable ecosystems, their actual value is difficult to measure because the services they provide do not have market values. The current study tries to define the value of wetlands in the Kilombero Valley, central Tanzania. Choice modelling is used to determine communities preferences over wetland conditions associated with various management options. The results show that the inhabitants of the Kilombero Valley desire improvements in the wetlands conditions, suggesting that the ongoing degradation is not socially optimal. Local farmers are however highly dependent on the wetland for their livelihood. In order to reduce pressure on wetlands, it is therefore necessary and imperative to explore the options of alternative income generating activities and the application of proper technologies to improve efficiency and effectiveness in crop production.

Farmers' preferences for irrigation water demand management tools: a Bayesian analysis of choice behaviour of farmers in Krishna river basin, India

Policy designers have various water demand management (WDM) strategies to achieve efficient water use and allocation at their disposal, such as setting the price of water, decentralizing irrigation water management or improving the quality of water rights. Interestingly, most of these strategies have been applied individually without focusing on the relations between them. This paper uses a discrete choice model to analyse the scope for and the farmer’s acceptance of combinations of irrigation WDM tools. In terms of local irrigation water governance the presence or absence of collective irrigation water management among farmers in the form of water user association (WUA) is considered. Water rights are specified by the duration of the title, by their transferability and by the quality of title. Finally, four types of water pricing methods (area, crop, quota and volumetric pricing) are selected for the experimental design. Using the choice experiment we can elicit the most preferred water pricing method under different water rights, water prices and local irrigation water governance contexts. Our results indicated that under conditions of improved water rights, preference for volumetric pricing increases, while the presence of a WUA decreases this preference. We also showed that making the right combination of WDM tools considerably increases the willingness to pay for a change in scenario.