Rescaling water governance - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 101

a watershed board, it is unlikely that the IJC's involvement will foster a “borderless”
geographic imagination for those involved. The IJC's presence, although ultimately
in place to provide support at a watershed level, is still under the rubric of a nation-
to-nation governance structure, which, in turn, reifies colonial constructions of
space.
Conclusions and reflections
In this chapter, I explored the role of subnational actors in transboundary water
governance through an analysis of the IJC's new International Watersheds Initiative.
IJC's International Watershed Boards provide an opportunity for a more regional
approach to transnational environmental cooperation. Since the inception of the
International Watersheds Initiative in 1997, the IJC has helped to form four inter-
national watershed boards across the Canada-U.S. border. The new boards
represent, in many ways, the shift from “government” to “governance” and an
increased involvement of subnational actors as environmental actors. It also
represents a broadening of responsibilities, which addresses water quality and water
quantity issues simultaneously. However, despite the expanded role of the IJC's
watershed boards, several regions have yet to participate at the local level, including
the Pacific.
The development of the IWI approach is consistent with wider trends of
multijurisdictional cooperation and increased participation of local actors in
environmental governance. The Initiative was particularly noteworthy as it marked
a distinct departure from the IJC's largely federally oriented governance style.
Although the Initiative has not been widely adopted, it does show an institutional
willingness on the part of the IJC to adapt to changing socio-political conditions,
specifically the increased demand for civic engagement in natural resources issues.
I began the analysis by detailing the proposed composition of the Watershed
Boards. Specifically, I showed how the Boards build on the strengths of the
established IJC governance mechanisms, such as the References, fact-finding roles,
and Water Quality/Quantity Boards. I described how collaboration, committee
work, and shared goals have helped establish trust between the actors - a key
element of being “a good upstream neighbor”. Furthermore, I have suggested that
the IJC's role in creating neutral platforms would likely remain a main asset for
the Watersheds Initiative.
I then turned to the numerous critiques of the watershed approach. In particular,
I questioned the long-term sustainability of the transboundary watershed group if
it remains a federally-controlled process, particularly in times of non-crisis. A key
argument throughout this analysis is that when the primary mechanism for
transboundary water governance is state or federally-controlled, the nation-state
boundaries are inherently reified. Even if the stated purview of the state/federal
agency is “transboundary”, they are defined by systemic nation-state boundaries
and associated policies that are colonial relics. The work towards collaborating with
partners on the other side of the border continues to reinforce national identities