This field document is a part of a series of publications of the Participatory Watershed Management Training Asia (PWMTA) Program of the Netherlands/FAO(UN), GCP/RAS/161/NET and the Farmer-Centred Agriculture Resource Management (FARM) Program of the UNDP/FAO, RAS/93/062. In the regional expert consultation cum advisory committee meeting (REC-ACM) of the PWMTA in April 1996, the focal points decided to hold a series of regional workshops and training to meet the objectives of the PWMTA. One of the most serious gaps identified in the REC-ACM was lack of sufficient knowledge on the participatory processes for successful watershed management. Accordingly, a regional workshop on "Participatory Approaches to Integrated Watershed Management" was held in Oct., 1996 at Kathmandu to analyse the experiences of successful participatory watershed management which have been earlier published as field Documents 4 and 5 by this program. The present field document is an outcome of this regional workshop. In Part I, it tries to establish the key elements of the participatory processes based on an analysis of related case studies. Some lessons on participatory methodology (courtesy: FAO/Italy GCP/TNT/542/ITA project) required for successful watershed management are also highlighted in Part I. More detailed articles on gender, land titling and legal aspects (latter courtesy: Thammasat University, Bangkok) related to participatory watershed management and natural resource management are included in Part II. The Part III, reports some related successful experiences.
I thank all the authors of the articles and the participants of the regional workshop for their contributions to this field document. In particular, I thank Dr. Jimmy Escano, BAR, the Philippines; Prof. Amnat Wongbandit, Thammasat University, Bangkok; Mr. Luca Fe d'ostiani and Mr. P. Warren, FAO/Italy, GCP/INT/542/ITA project, Tunis; Ms. Sheena Chaddha of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi, and Dr. John Dixon, FAO, Rome, for their contributions to this field document after the workshop has been held. All the repertoires, chairpersons and resource persons in the regional workshop are thanked for their contributions.
Mr. M. P. Wagley, Dept. of Soil Conservation, Nepal and Ms. Rajen Sharma are highly thanked for proof reading of this document. All the help from the PWMTA team members is fully acknowledged. Mr. Umesh Pradhan's help in layout of this document is highly appreciated.
I hope this document is useful to you in making your natural resources management and watershed management programs more participatory. Your comments on this document will help improve future editions.
June, 1997
Prem N. Sharma
Regional Coordinator/Chief Technical Advisor &
Senior Natural Resources Management Advisor (WM)
PWMTA-FARM, FAO(UN), Kathmandu, Nepal
