This report presents arguments for the potential role of protected areas in helping to maintain water supply to major cities. It demonstrates that water provides a powerful argument for protection. Through payment for environmental services it can also help to defray the costs of managing protected areas if, as is increasingly the case, governments introduce charges for pure water coming from forests protected by the state.
Findings:
- well managed natural forests provide benefits to urban populations in terms of high quality drinking water;
- maintaining high quality water supply is an additional argument for protection;
- the watershed benefits of forest protected areas could help to pay for protection;
- many of the world’s largest cities rely on drinking water from protected areas.
Recommendations:
- awareness-raising: better information about links between forests, protected areas and water supply could help build a constituency for good watershed management;
- protection: the report found several instances where lack of protection has been already been identified as a problem and other cities where it seemed that better catchment management would help to address urgent problems in quality and in some cases also of supply. Increased use of protection, including protected areas, could help many cities to maintain their drinking water;
- landscape approach: in crowded areas, or where existing land use and tenure makes full protection inappropriate, other approaches exist including management and restoration, which can for instance result in a mosaic ranging from full protection to a number of carefully chosen management interventions;
- livelihoods: care is needed to ensure that politically powerful urban populations do not gain high quality water at the expense of rural communities. Approaches that include negotiation, joint decision-making and compensation, including payments for environmental services, have proved to be the most successful in ensuring equity;
- economics: with the right set of circumstances, it pays to protect the watershed, instead of building expensive water purification systems. In the context of growing population and increasing urbanisation, strategic choices are needed now to set aside funds not only for protection but for effective management of forests and other vegetation;
- biodiversity: better understanding of biodiversity issues is required within water supply companies to make the best use of land set aside for water supply.
