Turton, Cathryn

This issue of Natural Resource Perspectives from ODI (Overseas Development Institute) examines participatory watershed management in India as a means to improved rural livelihoods. India is remarkable not only in the scale of its wastelands, and in the volume of government funds committed to reversing degradation, but especially in the attempt to link environmental improvement and poverty reduction. The government's 1994 Guidelines for Microwatershed Rehabilitation envisage a high degree of participation and local autonomy in the design and implementation of rehabilitation.

Based on experience from watershed progams in India this paper examines the conditions necessary for microwatershed development approaches to be rapidly replicable.