4.2 Catalyzing local governance decisions to increase landscape resilience to erosion
The DEM and orthomosaic aerial photograph provided a unique visualisation of the landscape connectivity for community members who have little formal scientific training and normally have no access to satellite imagery. One of the central aspects underpinning the workshop discussion of hydrological connectivity on the ground was an implicit understanding of the need for effective governance mechanisms (including policy instruments) at both community and District levels, to enable community-led actions to be implemented effectively and, more importantly, consistently. Herein a key incentive (German, 2018) being retention of soil and nutrients within the plot and reducing collective impact on downslope common land. Two specific governance elements were identified by participants: Committed leadership supported by the majority of the community; and effective sanctions for policy non-compliance. Previous co-designed community actions (Blake et al., 2018; Rabinovich et al., 2019) included setting aside (and fencing against livestock) an area of severely eroded and gullied communal grazing land, as a demonstration plot to trial potential erosion mitigation and rehabilitation solutions. The demonstration plot had been established for three years and had been significantly expanded by the community without further external support or materials. The effectiveness of this area at slowing water and the speed of revegetation was frequently commented on during the workshop. Critically, the success of these plots (Figure 9) was recognised as being largely a reflection not of their physical design but of the quality of governance processes within this specific community. Despite severe pressure for grazing land, community members (including those who were not directly involved in the previous projects) were prepared to respect the Village Leader’s decision to exclude grazing in this area notwithstanding the resulting personal economic costs (loss of grazing). Success rested on short term gain for a small number of community members being deferred for longer-term gain for the wider community.
The connection between good governance mechanisms and mitigation measures to slow water in high risk areas reflects the temporal and spatial challenges of taking proximal actions to achieve distal benefits (Wynants et al., 2019). Land management actions need to be taken upslope and regularly maintained, at cost to individual land owners and users, but the benefits are largely experienced downslope and across relatively longer timeframes. Despite these challenges, this research demonstrates that using images and other visual tools supports communities to visualise actions, and associated changes in three dimensions; and facilitates abstraction of impacts beyond individual costs, to reveal wider societal benefits.
<<< INSERT FIGURE 9 >>>
Figure 9: evidence of recovery following livestock exclusion (comparing March 2017 and November 2019)