Institutional arrangements for managing the great lakes of the world: Results of a workshop on implementing the watershed approach

The conceptual framework for lake management has evolved at an accelerating rate in recent years to include the basic principles of a watershed approach: (i) citizen and stakeholder involvement is important throughout the planning and management process; (ii) the geographic focus for management activities includes the lake and its entire watershed; and (iii) mechanisms need to be in place to promote cooperation among different government jurisdictions and organizations in the watershed. Creating effective institutional arrangements for implementing this watershed approach in lake regions is perhaps the most challenging and important issue facing the world’s lakes. LakeNet organized a workshop at the 8th International Conference on the Conservation and Management of Lakes in May 1999. This article is a synthesis of the results of the workshop and the eight case reports prepared by the workshop participants published in this special issue. Seven major threats to lakes were identified: (i) accelerated eutrophication; (ii) invasive species; (iii) toxic contamination; (iv) overfishing; (v) water diversion, (vi) acidification; and (vii) climate change. Institutions and institutional arrangements for addressing these issues and for implementing a watershed approach are just beginning to emerge on lakes around the world. All of the institutions described in the case reports were established or formalized during the 1980s and 1990s. The legal mechanisms creating these institutions range from cooperative agreements among jurisdictions for purposes of policy and planning to national laws and international treaties with full regulatory powers. The knowledge base, political will and financial resources for these activities were very small in comparison with the complexity of the task at hand.