Improving Cross‐Sector Policy Integration and Cooperation in Support of Freshwater Conservation

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

To achieve effective conservation of freshwater ecosystems, close coordination and cooperation is required among sectors responsible for protection and management of water resources, biodiversity conservation, landuse management (including agricultural resources), and integrated development planning (MacKay & Ashton 2004). Of special importance is the coordination between land-related and water-related sectors because freshwater ecosystems are affected by activities that happen throughout their drainage areas (Linke et al. 2007). Acknowledging the precarious state of freshwater ecosystems in South Africa (Nel et al. 2007), the reality of overlapping and sometimes conflicting sectoral policy mandates and the need for cooperative action, several South African government departments and national agencies agreed to participate in a series of small discussion groups and 2 larger workshops to debate their respective mandates and strategies for managing and conserving freshwater ecosystems. Participants included the national departments responsible for governing water, environment, biodiversity, agriculture, and development planning, and South African National Parks. The engagement process led to the development of a hierarchical policy framework that links a national goal for conserving freshwater biodiversity through a set of cross-sector policy objectives, implementation principles, and operational policy recommendations. (For details on the content of the hierarchical policy framework, see Roux et al. [2006a].) Generally, the convergence in thinking and conceptual integration that emerged during the engagement process was encouraging. Here, we reflect on and extract key