Rescaling water governance - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 80

Figure 4.1 Map of John Wesley Powell's proposed watershed states in the American West.
Thus, the conception of the International Joint Commission's International
Watersheds Initiative is an important movement to consider. On the one hand,
the initiative reflects an attempt to reframe governance models to represent
hydrologic borders, with representation from actors living within its basin. On the
other hand, the initiative is intrinsically bound by a nation-state framework, which
at its very foundation reifies (rather than erases) international borders, and is
exclusionary of sub-state actors.
Thus, in this chapter, I look at both the opportunities and challenges of the
IJC's International Watersheds Initiative (IWI). This discussion is important particu-
larly for Indigenous communities, as the IWI may provide an entry point for greater
engagement in governance processes and open up the opportunity for “nation-to-
nation” dialogues.
The watershed approach and rescaling IJC
The (re)emergence of the “watershed approach” is, in some ways, a response to
a changing socio-political climate, which has come to value and expect ecological
protection and citizen participation in decision-making processes. The International
Watersheds Initiative reflects these changing expectations. The development of an
international watershed approach is significant as it serves to rescale the governance
of transboundary waters from a federal-to-federal to watershed scale; and it aims
to provide a model for non-state actors, including Indigenous peoples, citizen
groups, non-governmental organizations, and industry.
Although discussions within the environmental governance literature largely
champion the watershed approach as a beneficial way to address environmental
issues at a “manageable scale ” 1 studies suggest that, in an international setting, the