Increasing Water Stewardship Responsibility: Water Protection Obligations and the Watershed Management Policy Affecting Farmers in Lucerne, Switzerland

Abstract

Water policy reform in Switzerland has sought to create a watershed management framework to increase personal responsibility for sustainable water management, while simultaneously incorporating all relevant interests and addressing conflicts between them. These watershed reforms are occurring in parallel with a legal regime that has grappled with implementing farmer liability for harm to water resources. A statutory duty of care is viewed as a fundamental element of defining the stewardship responsibilities of farmers. This draws on the role of a duty in increasing personal responsibility through liability. To this end, we have examined the duty of care for water in Swiss Federal law and the body of law and policy associated with its application agriculture in the Canton of Lucerne. This analysis should contribute to an evolving body of knowledge about liability for damage to natural resources and, in particular, developing knowledge about the conception of environmental harm, and effective alignment of farmers' resource stewardship responsibilities with social expectations of environmental protection.