A Policy Analysis of Shimen Watershed Area Management---An Environmental Governance Perspective (I)

This study examines the implementation of the policy and management plan of the Shimen Reservoir area from the perspective of environmental justice, particularly focusing on the special budget initiated by the government since 2006. There are three main questions concerned by the study. Firstly, how is the budget distributed and used? In other words, is it targeted towards the policy goal? Secondly, who gets the benefit from the implementation of the plan? Thirdly, is there any alternative for reducing the impact of drastic climate change other than the current and major techno-bureaucratic measures? The study is a long-term project concerning the sustainability issues of Shimen Reservoir area. In the past, the research questions are related to the budget allocation and local communities’knowledge and responses to the natural disasters. In this year, the emphasis of the study is focused on more official statistics and institutional arrangement about the implementation of the policy. The study employs methods including a fixed point digital and visual recording of engineering reconstructions, readings of satellite images, official statistics, and local people’s in-depth interviews. The findings can be shown from two major perepctives. Firstly, it is a quantitative analysis of the categories, numbers, and locations of reconstruction engineering sites in the period of 2006-2010. Secondly, there is a thorough case study from Smangus about the interaction between the community and the official executive units on the issues of reconstruction. These analysis show the government relies heavily on the operation of a complex technocratic system in which the critical budget usage is through a process of estimation, negotiation, distribution, and control which is to safeguard the fairness of the public money. In fact, the is about governing matters that could be called as “governmentality”. However, the “govermentality”, when facing a drastic environmental change and increasing multi-cultural communities, seems to be limited in its own traditional political and economic structure and can only provide solutions for resolving temporary situations.