chapter 8: FORESTRY AS A USER OF WATER
GENUS EXCHANGE – AN ON-GOING CASE STUDY IN DECISION-MAKING
An interesting twist in the efficiency argument is currently facing the regulator. Forestry licences are granted on the condition of genus planted – with the water use calculation and consequent allocation (and payment) based on the estimated use by that genus. With forestry being a long-term investment market shifts may require the grower to seek a change in the condition and switch genera. This should not be a problem if the exchange is from eucalypts (highest water user) to pines (a lower water user), but if the exchange is from pines to eucalypts then more water is required. In fully allocated catchments this presents an obvious quandary; a 10% increase in water requirement would need to be met by a 10% decrease in the area planted – with productive land then going unused, resulting in bush and invasive plant encroachment, fire risk, lost opportunity cost, etc. Where the plantation owner is still engaged in pulling back from riparian zones in terms of conditions of environmental certification it may be possible to find the balance but otherwise this otherwise provides yet another facet to the question of water use efficiency. Is the saving going to be better used elsewhere? In closing this discussion it is useful to explore this final facet: Does any user have a greater ‘right’ to the water, and can this be assessed in terms of efficiency? The forestry sector lays claim to being an extremely efficient user of water in terms of contribution to the economy and jobs created. Historically the national government invested heavily in irrigated agriculture, constructing dams with the expectation of a certain inflow. Impact on the yield of those dams by upstream forestry was always deemed unacceptable - in favour of the irrigation users. Irrigation was, in this sense, always the favoured sector. Today, existing users downstream are ‘lawful water users’ and it would be unlawful to deprive them of their supply by allowing upstream users to take more. The National Water Act of 1998 has helped to shift the historic position – and sectors are now more fairly considered in terms of actual contribution to the economy. The essence of this shift is that forestry is as entitled to the water it users as any other sector would be – and that use should be weighed up in terms of the contribution, and cost, to society, the economy and the environment, but within the bounds of existing lawful use.
Concluding remarks
We have seen that land use planning – at both the basin and local micro-catchment scale - is the key ingredient in managing the water use efficiency of the sector. Growth of the sector is dependent both on the sophistication of such planning, aided and abetted by achieving water use efficiencies within plantation forestry, which in turn need to be translated into allocation benefits for the sector.
REFERENCES
Gush MB, Scott DF, Jewitt GPW, Schulze E, Hallowes LA, Görgens AHM (2002). Estimation of Streamflow Reduction Resulting from Commercial Afforestation in South Africa. Water Research Commission, Report no. TT 173/02. Pretoria, South Africa.
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