Water resources governance and conflicts in the bahia de iguape marine extractive reserve

Abstract

The Baia de Iguape Marine Extractive Reserve is located in northeastern Brazil, in the the Paraguaçu River's estuarine zone. Its management involves a conflict related to the use of water resources upstream, with a drop in water flow and a decrease in fishing resource stocks. This paper aims to discuss the conflicts of use, the views of the actors and the causes of the conflict. The work was carried out based on documents and direct observation. It is observed that the conflict arises from the dam's engineering restrictions, which do not allow the optimal control of the water flow and that would require investments. Current governance has not been able to produce a consensus solution as to how to operate the dam meeting both the needs of upstream and downstream users. It is not noticeable, in the stakeholders' attitude, the presence of well understood interest, since they do not seem to see compatibility between individual short-term interests and long-term collective interests. Among the causes of the problem there seems to be the water resources legislation, which considers the estuarine area as an external element to the hydrographic basin, thus fragmenting the governance system and making it difficult to reach a consensus solution.