The Botanza Wetlands Group

Botanza, like much of sub-Saharan Africa faces overwhelming challenges. It is a small, newly-democratic, country whose workforce is depleted by HIV-AIDS. Abject poverty is the norm, wealth the exception and there is no significant middle class. The working population lacks education and skills - most being only one generation removed from the life of a tribal villager.

The government is beset with overwhelming challenges. One response has been to use government as an employment engine - creating government jobs to provide both employment and training for a population desperately in need of both.

One example of the job development initiative is the Environmental Protection Workforce (EPW). Their mission - create jobs while protecting the environment.

One small section of EPW is the Wetlands Group (WG) - a two-year experiment charged to protect the valuable wetlands of the country. Their concern is the increase in commercial agriculture, the cultivation of formerly pristine wildlife grazing lands and the impact of agriculture on the surrounding wetlands. The wetlands are a valued natural resource and a necessary element in the natural life-cycle for most of Botanza’s flora and fauna.

The program requires commercial farmers (as opposed to subsistence farmers) to seek WG approval before expanding their land under cultivation. Application to increase cultivated land stimulates a State Environmentalist (SE) to visit. The SE examines the site and prescribes protections for any nearby wetlands from flooding, erosion, contamination (e.g. fertilizer runoff) or other harm that could result from expanded farming operations.

There are five SEs employed by the WG. Typically they visit a farm, and assess risk. If risks are noted, the WG withholds permission to expand the cultivated land until appropriate steps are taken.

• The farmer then has to hire an environmental engineer to design a series of canals, dams, ditches, retention ponds and other surface changes needed to protect the wetlands.
• The farmer then pays the WG for the implementation - where dozens of governmental laborers set to work building and creating the improvements, under the supervision of the SE.
• Finally, the SE examines the work and certifies that it meets the WG standards.

Two missions accomplished - environmental protection and jobs creation.

But there is a problem. There are very few environmental engineers. In fact the best of the lot are the five SEs employed by the WG.

Given the shortage of resources, the SEs have been moonlighting - developing the plans necessary to build the needed protections. Thus they:

• Establish the need for modifications,
• Design the modifications,
• Oversee implementation of their design, and
• Certify the effectiveness of the solution they designed, once it is implemented.

This is problematic on several fronts.

The SEs are an honorable group so they sought the recommendations of the Botanza National Ethics Office (BNEO). The SE’s position is that:

• There are no other resources - nobody can do the design job as well as the SEs
• They need to be proficient and the design exercise keeps them sharp
• They need to keep their relationships with the agricultural community current - since they are on a two-year contract - and their future is uncertain
• They would be fools to train a new generation of environmental engineers given their own uncertain positions
• The government knows about this arrangement and has tacitly approved it - as evidenced by their silence on the issue
• It still makes them uncomfortable - they feel like they may be doing something wrong - but they are just not sure what it is.

Questions

Is there something wrong with this arrangement?

Is yes, what is the nature of the problem?

What remedy would you suggest?