Ecological Economics 35 2000 107 – 118
SPECIAL ISSUE THE VALUES OF WETLANDS: LANDSCAPE AND INSTITUTIONAL
PERSPECTIVES
Wetland restoration, collective action and the role of water management institutions
Ian Hodge
a,
, Sandra McNally
b
a
Department of Land Economy, Uni6ersity of Cambridge,
19
Sil6er Street, Cambridge, CB
3 9
EP, UK
b
Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Monks Wood, Abbots Ripton, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, PE
17 2
LS, UK
Abstract
Over the past 50 years, large areas of agricultural land have been drained and put into intensive agricultural production. Increasing attention is now being paid to the issue of restoring wetland areas and promoting environmen-
tal benefits. Collective action is important for wetland restoration, both because of the physical interactions among landholders and because of the cost saving and enhanced environmental benefit that can be achieved at a larger scale.
Policy needs to be geared towards facilitating co-operation among farmers if environmental schemes are to be effective in enabling wetland restoration. Internal Drainage Boards have been primarily involved with securing of
land drainage for local landholders. They now have a formal responsibility to further nature conservation but could take a more proactive role in promoting wetland restoration. They have good information on local water
management options and are well placed to co-ordinate actions for restoration. Agri-environment policy could be redirected in order to promote collective action for wetland restoration. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights
reserved.
Keywords
:
Collective action; Institutions; Internal drainage boards; Wetland restoration; Water management www.elsevier.comlocateecolecon
1. Introduction
In lowland England, active periods of land drainage in the 19th century, and again between
1940 and 1980, resulted in a massive loss of wetland habitat Williams and Bowers, 1987.
More recently, there have been very few new land drainage schemes as a result of changing govern-
ment policy grants are generally no longer paid for new field drainage, the declining fortunes of
agriculture, a growing awareness of the resulting environmental damage and the fact that much of
Britain’s wetland habitat has already been drained Dunn et al., 1994. The main threat to UK
wetlands in recent years has been more intensive agricultural management on existing grasslands.
In recognition of the threats posed to important natural habitat, there have been several agree-
Corresponding author. 0921-800900 - see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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ments and legislation, nationally and internation- ally, to protect what remains and restore where
possible. At an international level, the govern- ment signed the Ramsar Convention, which aims
to promote the conservation of wetlands. The EC Birds Directive and the EC Habitats Directive
require the designation of special protection areas and special areas of conservation, respectively. At
a national level, under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act, wetlands may be notified as sites
of Special Scientific Interest SSSIs.
The need to curb over-production, while also recognising the important role of farmers as man-
agers of the countryside, has provided the ratio- nale for the various agri-environment schemes
that have grown in importance since the initial designation of Environmentally Sensitive Areas
ESA in the UK in 1987. Several of the 22 areas now designated in England and Wales contain
wetland habitats, where the aim is to maintain or enhance the wetland resource by paying farmers
to pursue appropriate agricultural practices.
There has been much debate over the appropri- ate mechanism to ensure that farmers deliver the
public benefit of nature conservation or enhance- ment at least economic cost Colman et al., 1992;
Whitby and Saunders, 1996; Smith and Colman, 1997. However, there has been little discussion of
the importance of collective action among farmers in delivering this public good and the role water
management institutions in facilitating this pro- cess. There has been some attention in the media
given to the lack of co-operation among farmers. This is perceived as a significant impediment to
the effective conservation of wet grassland in the Somerset Levels; compulsion has been proposed
as an alternative approach The Times 24298.
In this paper, we review the reasons why collec- tive action among farmers may be important for
the purpose of wetland restoration Section 2. We discuss how the findings in the social science
literature can be related to collective action in this context Section 3. We then ask whether there are
suitable water management institutions in the UK that could facilitate this process, drawing on the
findings of a survey of Internal Drainage Board representatives Sections 4 and 5. We conclude
with some potential directions for institutional reform and policy development more generally.
While the emphasis here is on the experience in England and Wales, water management in other
countries involves similar institutional issues. In particular, the study by White and Runge 1995
on watershed management in Haiti has some rele- vant findings in this regard Section 3. Institu-
tions for the collective management of irrigation are more often discussed in the literature e.g.
Loehman and Dinar, 1994; Ostrom, 1990. How- ever, the principles discussed here will apply in a
similar way to diverse locations and water man- agement issues.
2. The rationale for collective action
