Comparing the conservation effectiveness of private water transactions and public policy reforms in the conserving California landscapes initiative

摘要

Recent efforts by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to reduce the environmental impacts of waternimpoundment and diversion have pursued two distinct but interacting strategies in California’s complex waternresources management system: (1) the private acquisition of water rights (wherein the NGO dealt directly with anprivate citizen and purchased water rights through a willing seller model) for instream or environmental flows or,nthrough water rights transfers, in order to avoid further diversion of groundwater or surface water that could causenenvironmental harms and (2) active participation in public policy-making processes that attempt to influence thenimplementation of regulatory mechanisms, federal contracts or other forms of governmental influence to affect thendiversion of water or the allocation of water rights in ways that directly address the environmental consequences ofnwater impoundment or diversion. Determining the relative effectiveness of these two distinct (but complementary)nstrategies and how they interact is therefore relevant to a wide range of water stakeholders. This article comparesnthe relative effectiveness of these two approaches, as well as their interactions, through an evaluation of effortsnfunded by the Packard Foundation in its Conserving California Landscapes Initiative from 1998–2002.