Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
7.2.3
Participation
Swiss citizens maintain extended political rights through the specific constitutional
rights for referendum (Art. 140 FC), petition (Art. 33 FC) and initiation of a refer-
endum (Arts 138 and 139 FC). These rights of participation are a fundamental part
of the Swiss Constitution not only in law, but also in practice. Therefore, a large
number of legislative acts in most policy fields are subject to referendum, requiring
ratification by a majority of the electorate and the cantons. This also applies to water
policy issues, allowing NGOs, trade unions and professional associations to exert a
considerable influence on political decision-making processes (Mauch and Reynard
2002
). The right to referendum and the resulting people's initiatives concerning
water policy
1
(SFV
2006
) show that public participation has been key in moving
forward the ecological agenda in water governance in Switzerland. However, it has
been well documented that since the 1970s, voter turnout has started to decline
(IDEA
2009
) .
In the practice of water management, participation takes place at the different
institutional rather than individual levels. Within the Valais, the implementation
phase of the major flood protection project, the Third Rhône Correction (TRC),
(Valais
2009
) is highly participative, with the different segments of each project
having its own local planning commission (
Commission régionale de pilotage
) that
includes the different interested parties. However, the level of participation is highly
dependent on local factors with inclusion and collaboration in some areas function-
ing very well, but not in other communes. Further difficulties have been detailed in
the problems that arise from the participative process, namely in the slow progress
of the project as well as in attempting to align conflicting interests, specifically agri-
cultural stakeholders, who have set up a lobbying group to force the project to fol-
low a more technical approach (Arborino
2009
) , and the environmental considerations
bound by law (WPA) into the project. Other than the TRC, there are not that many
other opportunities for participation or where participation is demanded.
7.2.4
IWRM
The sub-categories of the IWRM indicator suggest that while law and policy are
certainly more integrated today and legal provisions for different element of IWRM
are generally strong, complexity is high in that they are found in a number of sepa-
rate federal and cantonal acts and ordinances.
1
1991 Save our Waterways (
Volksinitiative: Zur Rettung unsere Gewässer
) and 2007 Living Waters
- Renaturalisation Initiative (
Lebendiges Wasser - Renaturierungs-Initiative
). More information
available in Sect.
9.6
(Appendix) at:
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/vi/vis164.html
and at
http://
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