There has been a global shift in the way that water provision for urban water use is viewed. Governments are increasingly choosing to invest in environmental health. By protecting river systems, governments can reduce management costs. In this brief, examples of international case studies related to such government interventions are presented, followed by a South African case study: the Kromme River.

Recommendations:

protect what we have: protecting natural resources will ensure their services are delivered in perpetuity. The Kromme case study, which illustrates this, may be applied to other catchments in South Africa
forming partnerships: landowners (service providers) are based in water-providing catchments and their actions have an impact on the water produced that municipalities (end-users) benefit from. Municipalities need to form partnerships with landowners to assure the supply of high quality of water
align incentives: all stakeholders must work towards the same goal. Landowners must be willing to restore and protect the catchment and the end-users must be willing to pay for the delivery of services (e.g. clean and reliable water flow)
communication is vital: all government departments, implementing agents, conservation initiatives, landowners, and scientist s must make earnest attempts to achieve effective communication when it comes to working in important water-producing catchments
Biodiversity Stewardship Programme: tax and financial incentives are available to landowners who sign up to the Biodiversity Stewards Programme through which landowners in ecologically important areas are required to manage invasive alien plants. This programme is one vehicle for such partnerships between landowners and government
law enforcement: South Africa has sound laws for the protection of natural resources but these need to be enforced to avoid the degradation of natural resources