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Environmental Governance in Urban Watersheds: The Role of Civil Society Organizations in Mexico

Author

Listed:
  • Helena Cotler

    (Centro de Investigación en Ciencias de Información Geoespacial, Mexico City 14240, Mexico)

  • Maria Luisa Cuevas

    (Environmental Consulting, Mexico City 03100, Mexico)

  • Rossana Landa

    (Fondo Mexicano de Conservación de la Naturaleza, Mexico City 03900, Mexico)

  • Juan Manuel Frausto

    (Fondo Mexicano de Conservación de la Naturaleza, Mexico City 03900, Mexico)

Abstract

Cities depend on several watersheds’ ecosystems as the main source of ecosystem services for urban populations; however, this connection is not visible to decision-makers and citizens. The current governance structures do not contemplate the integrated management of the urban-rural territory by watershed; they establish few spaces for citizen participation, and limit the transparency of information. We use qualitative methods to analyze the work of the Civil Society Organization (CSO) in seven urbanized watersheds in Mexico, located under different socio-environmental conditions, to incorporate the watershed cities’ management processes through new spaces of collaborative governance. Through environmental education campaigns, the CSOs raised awareness of the importance of watershed ecosystems to provide water for cities, explored the willingness to pay for their conservation, and the perception of the work of municipal water utilities. By promoting alliances between social sectors, the private sector, communities, and different levels of government, the CSOs built new institutions to increase the collaborative decisions and facilitate public participation, such as Watershed Committees, Citizen Observatories for Water and Consultative Councils. The incorporation of cities and citizens in the conservation of environmental services of the watershed was promoted through payment for environmental services programs. These processes of building new forms of governance are not linear. They depend on the convening and organizational capacity of the CSOs, the political will of the municipalities and states, as well as the socioeconomic conditions of citizens. In general, our results suggest that CSOs allow the formation of alliances that strengthen collaborations among stakeholders at different scales, increase government transparency and accountability, and provide a bridge of trust between upstream and downstream users in the watersheds.

Suggested Citation

  • Helena Cotler & Maria Luisa Cuevas & Rossana Landa & Juan Manuel Frausto, 2022. "Environmental Governance in Urban Watersheds: The Role of Civil Society Organizations in Mexico," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-26, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:2:p:988-:d:726105
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Arriagada, Rodrigo & Villaseñor, Adrián & Rubiano, Eliana & Cotacachi, David & Morrison, Judith, 2018. "Analysing the impacts of PES programmes beyond economic rationale: Perceptions of ecosystem services provision associated to the Mexican case," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(PA), pages 116-127.
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    Cited by:

    1. Xinwen Lin & Angathevar Baskaran & Yajie Zhang, 2023. "Watershed Horizontal Ecological Compensation Policy and Green Ecological City Development: Spatial and Mechanism Assessment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-21, February.
    2. Stavros Kalogiannidis & Dimitrios Kalfas & Grigoris Giannarakis & Maria Paschalidou, 2023. "Integration of Water Resources Management Strategies in Land Use Planning towards Environmental Conservation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(21), pages 1-20, October.
    3. Quanxi Wang & Ni Wang & Haodong Wang & Yuan Xiu, 2022. "Study on Influencing Factors and Simulation of Watershed Ecological Compensation Based on Evolutionary Game," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-23, March.
    4. Filippos Eliades & Maria K. Doula & Iliana Papamichael & Ioannis Vardopoulos & Irene Voukkali & Antonis A. Zorpas, 2022. "Carving out a Niche in the Sustainability Confluence for Environmental Education Centers in Cyprus and Greece," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-17, July.

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