A Method to Identify and Evaluate the Legal and Institutional Framework for the Management of Water and Land in Asia: The Outcome of a Study in Southeast Asia and the People's Republic of China

Achieving the sustainable use of water and land resources is a major challenge for the world in the twenty-first century. Despite the emerging recognition of their central role in human survival, water and land ecosystems are being degraded at an alarming rate. Of significant concern is the sustainable production of food, maintenance of livelihoods of rural land users and improving the quality and biodiversity of natural resources (World Resources Institute 2000; WSSD 2002a, b, c). The creation of an enabling environment for farmers and agencies to adopt management practices that reduce water and land degradation and improve food security is crucial. It is important to create a legal framework to define what activities are allowed in a particular area and who is responsible for them and for the state of the resources. In particular, rural land users should have the benefit of securing tenure or long-term access to land and assured rights of access to the water resource (Penning de Vries et al. 2002). The benefits of capacity building in environmental, legal and institutional systems to the Asian region in general are widely recognized, especially to the knowledge, understanding and capability of environmental law to improve the quality of the natural environment (Boer et al. 1998; Craig et al. 2002).