Most of the IDBs felt that their management practices had changed in recent years to incorpo-
rate conservation measures, although the type and extent of measures varied considerably across
boards. Several boards had extended the use of environmental management practices, which were
initially introduced in SSSIs to cover the rest of their districts. In general, the smaller, more tradi-
tional boards, which had fewer staff, were less involved in environmental practices. The larger
boards which covered a broader area were more often involved in activities such as creating new
habitat, planting trees and hedges and drawing up agreements with local wildlife trusts. Since larger
boards were more likely to contain land owned by conservation bodies or SSSIs, it is not surprising
to see a relationship between size of board and conservation interest. Perhaps what matters here
is not the size of the board per se, but rather whether conservation bodies own land in the loca-
tion and are therefore represented on the board.
One of the larger boards, the Kings Lynn Con- sortium, had a separate conservation committee.
This comprised seven people and included a board member who worked for English Nature,
another who was a trustee of the Norfolk Natu- ralists Trust, two academic ecologists and the
chief conservation officer of the Broads Author- ity. This board is working with English Nature to
create a GIS system which will help show what areas should be conserved. Another group of
boards had a full-time conservation officer whose post was grant-aided by English Nature. It is his
job to liase with the environmental bodies and set out the IDBs’ conservation strategy. Many of the
other boards had a conservation committee, and with only one exception, the representatives inter-
viewed indicated a good working relationship with conservation bodies.
Most of the IDB respondents could identify at least one area where it would be possible to
re-create wetland, although the size of the area varied considerably. In East Anglia, most of the
boards had certain pockets of land, usually on the extreme edges of the catchment, which were self-
contained and which, with the owner’s consent, could practicably be turned into wetland areas
with minimum risk of flooding to the surrounding area. Those interviewed emphasised feasibility is-
sues in identifying suitable land: that the area should be at the upstream end of the pumping
system, that it is a self-contained area independent of the adjoining drainage systems and that there is
a fresh water supply to keep the levels high. The ability to manage the raising and maintenance of
high water levels precisely often depends on the presence of considerable water management in-
frastructure. Ironically, in the absence of further investment in infrastructure, this criterion would
make wetland restoration more feasible on flat or gently sloping land, which also tends to be most
profitable for agriculture. In fact the areas which the clerks or engineers identified as being most
suitable for wetland restoration were often on the highly productive agricultural land, rather than
on the areas of lower grade land in the district. This highlights the complexity involved in balanc-
ing the opportunity cost and environmental benefits in identifying land suitable for wetland
restoration.
All of the IDB respondents stated that they would be willing to help in any scheme that
involved water level management as long as that was what rate-payers required. They would have
to undertake substantial feasibility work to ensure that raising water levels in one area would allow a
safe level of flood protection for other land users. The larger IDBs in particular were keen to have a
very pro-active role. This suggests the potential responsiveness of IDBs to economic opportuni-
ties, as opposed to their having a narrow preoccu- pation with agricultural production.
6. Potential of the new water management institutions and the need for reform
6
.
1
. The role of IDBs From the survey of IDB representatives, we
have seen that most of the IDBs surveyed do at least claim to take their new conservation duties
seriously. Some of the larger boards have formal conservation representation, and the Kings Lynn
consortium even use their detailed knowledge of local areas to suggest to policy makers where
conservation could take place. IDBs in general have detailed local knowledge of water tables and
flows, soil characteristics and variations in farm- ing practice Friend and Laffin, 1983. This makes
existing organisations a potentially a rich source of information for policy makers interested in
targeting areas for wetland restoration, or conser- vation more generally. However, although some
of the larger IDBs appear very constructive in efforts to restore habitat, there are other smaller
IDBs that have no formal conservation represen- tation on their boards and appear to give little
attention to conservation issues and opportuni- ties. There are some aspects of how these institu-
tions are constituted that may impede the development of any new role they might have as
more general water management institutions.
Within many IDBs, representation is still very highly skewed in favour of agricultural landhold-
ers. The voting procedure, as discussed above, gives farmers with higher value and therefore
more productive agricultural land greater weight in the voting procedure. This is due to the fact
that rates, the IDBs’ main source of income, are calculated on the basis of the value of land and
buildings. This voting procedure for IDBs has long ago been considered as outdated Ministry of
Agriculture Fisheries and Food, 1985. Given the statutory remit of IDBs and their role as
providers of public goods, there is a case for allowing for more formal representation of con-
servation interests on boards, even in districts where conservation organisations are not impor-
tant landholders. Such a move would not be unprecedented in the light of recent changes to
local authority representation.
Similarly, one could argue that if IDBs are providing public goods, there needs to be some
change in the way activities are financed. There is a general argument for central contributions to
local spending in cases where the central govern- ment or residents of other localities have an inter-
est in particular aspects of an authority’s spending Helm and Smith, 1987. However, there is cur-
rently no mechanism by which IDBs can fully recover costs for work they undertake specifically
for environmental reasons. Although, they are eligible for a capital grant of 25 from MAFF
for specific projects rising to 50 in special pro- tected areas, the implication is that ratepayers
must pay at least half of the proposed costs. Unless affected ratepayers increase their contribu-
tion, this would reduce the revenue available to IDBs to carry out other types of work within the
catchment. Hence this system of financing reduces the incentive for such organisations to consider
more ambitious projects — even where the public benefit could be very high. On this basis, it could
be argued that where projects are carried out with a ‘public good’ objective, organisations should be
eligible for full compensation for technical work that is directly related to the scale of the public
good provided. This would follow the ‘Provider Gets’ principle OECD, 1994; Hanley et al., 1998.
6
.
2
. Incenti6es for collecti6e action If IDBs were reformed, they might also be more
effective in identifying opportunities for wetland restoration and there might be more examples of
boards undertaking similar activities to those of the Kings Lynn consortium. They might also be
more enthusiastic about providing information to farmers about possible environmental schemes
and reducing the transactions costs of farmer co-operation where this is an issue.
However, even with institutional reform, collec- tive action will not be forthcoming unless private
incentives are sufficiently high to encourage adja- cent farmers into schemes. One option is simply
to increase payments that are currently available. Alternatively one could think of revising the way
in which current schemes operate explicitly to encourage collective action. The present system of
offering standardised contracts to individual land- holders limits the flexibility of schemes and the
capacity to search for new co-operative arrange- ments among landholders. An alternative would
be to offer grants to groups of landholders who are prepared to undertake wetland restoration at
a larger scale. The arguments made earlier con- cerning the higher net benefits of restoring larger
areas could justify higher rates of payment to such proposals. This would establish an explicit
role and incentive for IDBs using the high quality of information available to identify feasible
schemes within their area and to sound out poten- tial participation among local landholders. Advice
from local conservation bodies could help in iden- tifying potential conservation outputs appropriate
in local circumstances.
A major disadvantage of the existing approach is that the rate of compensation is the same for
each landholder despite the inevitable variations in costs between farmers. Introducing more flex-
ible agreements would allow scope for levels of compensation to be varied between group mem-
bers and perhaps reduce the problem of one or two high cost landholders holding out against the
local scheme. On the other hand, bargaining be- tween landholders could introduce its own incen-
tive
problems and
inefficiencies. However,
neighbouring farmers involved in similar produc- tion operations are in a good position to judge
what costs are reasonable in assessing fair com- pensation — unlike the government agency,
where often a problem of ‘asymmetric informa- tion’ is experienced Moxey et al., 1999.
The incentive for cost-effectiveness could be promoted through competitive tendering see e.g.
Latacz-Lohmann and Van der Hamsvoort, 1998 whereby tenders for contracts from different
groups of farmers would be scored by the govern- ment in terms of the environmental benefits of-
fered and the payment levels demanded. This provides an incentive for landholders not to state
an excessive cost for the proposed action. This process of competitive tendering would also en-
hance the efficiency and transparency of the deci- sion-making process in that projects could be
evaluated in relation to each other, and projects with highest net benefit could be funded. Incorpo-
ration of environmental assessment or cost – benefit appraisal techniques into the process of
assessing competitive tenders would allow more explicit consideration of the potential environ-
mental and economic benefits of increased size.
7. Conclusion
