ABSTRACT
The study investigated the role of community (traditional) and
government-bases institutions in watershed management in Anambra State of
Nigeria. Data were collected from 92 respondents who were selected and
interviewed using both interview schedule and questionnaires. The data
collected were presented using percentages and means. The results indicated
that for the community based institutions, it is the adult males that manage
the watersheds and this role has not changed, whereas the government-based
institutions manage and regenerate the watersheds. The result also indicated
that the effective management activities in Anambra State watersheds embraced
defecation, prohibition of excess wood logging and dumping of refuse with mean
of score and above. The result also showed that for the both institutions, gaps
were noticed in watershed management in the state. It equally revealed that between
the community-based and government-based institutions, there is little or no
links and respectively) and that inter-ministerial linkages and
interdisciplinary linkages with communities for quarterly meeting is the needed
link between those institutions. It further revealed that enacting laws was
considered the most needed role in watershed management; while Anambra state
Agricultural Development Project was identified as the needed new institution
for watershed management. This suggest the need for extension organization to
organize training for its staff in the aspect of watershed and teach them
verified techniques that involves best Agricultural Management practices which
should be taught to farmers who farm within the watersheds and to coordinate
the role among all the institution agencies and ministries that are
stakeholders in watershed management.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
Water covers about 71% of the earth’s surface, and is always present to
some extent in the atmosphere. Over two thirds of earth’s surface is covered
with water (United Nations, 2001). Water supplies many good services essential
to human health and well being among which are water for drinking, agricultural
and industrial production, water for transportation, recreation, hydroelectric
power generation, and natural habitat for aquatic plants and animals. The role
and importance of water to man is indispensable. As a matter of fact, life and
death of every living thing depend on water.
Water can make or mar our life depending on how it occurs and how it is
managed (UN-Water/Africa, 2004). When it is too little or insufficient, it will
kill us faster than starvation. Both plants and animals depend on water and
lack of it can both dehydration and starvation. Nevertheless, irrespective of
the mode of occurrence, it can be an instrument for poverty alleviation and
economic recovery, if properly managed. Otherwise, it results in poor health
and low productivity, of both plants and animals, which will in turn lead to
food insecurity and constrained economic development (Obiora, 2006). Thus what
we get out of water depends greatly upon what we put into it in terms of
management; and how water is managed in particular basins and individual
watersheds is the key to sustainable water management (Lant, 1999, Jackson et
al 2001). The availability and quantity of this precious but infinite
natural resource depend largely on its watershed (U.S. EPA, 2003).
The area that supplies water to a stream and its tributaries by direct
runoff and by ground water runoff is the drainage area or watershed for the
stream (Douglas et al., 1989). Watershed is also area of land that draws
into a body of water such as stream, lake,
Swallow et al, (2001), Shukla (2004), terms
like catchment or drainage basin are also used to refer to watersheds, the term river basin
sometimes is used synonymously with watershed.
Watershed management has become a prominent approach to natural resource
management (NRM) in Australia and elsewhere in the world like Nepal USA etc. In
the Australian State of New South Wales (NSW); catchments management, the NSW
watershed management initiative has been in place both in coastal and
non-coastal areas for nearly two decades.
Institutions are humanly devised constraints on behaviour made up of
formal rules (constitutions, laws, contracts etc, informal rules (norms,
cultures etc) and the enforcement characteristic of both (Badami, 2004).
According to Igbokwe (2005) an institution is an enduring complex of norms,
roles, values, beliefs and sanctions encompassing a prescribed aspect of human
life. Institution can also mean that rules and norms guiding a community or a
society. According to Saravanan (2001), institutions are the rules and
organizations including informal norms that co-ordinate human behaviours. Thus,
they could range from groups of farmers or persons organized to achieve a
specific goal to formal organization such as research, educational or
governmental establishments.
Before the advent of the colonial administration in Nigeria, most
communities have different traditional methods for cleaning water surroundings.
In Anambra State, most communities had traditional institutions who in the past
had helped manage the watersheds. Among which are the men and women groups, the
village/town unions, the....
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