The objective of the locally-based organisation Programa de Manejo Integral de Cuencas (PROMIC) is to involve land users in the control of soil erosion in the catchments above cochabamba city. While erosion here is largely a natural process, it is aggravated by inappropriate agricultural practices. PROMIC receives funds from national and international governments and works in an interactive manner. Together with local farmers, erosion processes in the context of the human environment were analysed to identify the needs of the agriculture population and to plan a conservation and development programme. The aim was to convince farmers of the necessity to protect their agricultural land and stabilise the gullies below and of the overall importance of implementing technologies to combat erosion.
The farmers were involved in the process through regular community meetings organised by the PROMIC, in which they could adjust PROMIC's catchment intervention plan to their own requirements through an interactive process. PROMIC considered that the sensitisation work and the interactive process were essential to ensure long-term sustainable land use. In the short term however it will be mainly the city downstream - cochabamba - that benefits from the implementation of erosion control technologies. For that reasons farmers were paid to carry out construction of the measures (through cash for work). The farmers should however profit from the technologies in long term. They were taught how to build and maintain check dams, cut-of drains and biotramps. The implementation in the watershed started in 1996 and took six years. When the implementation phase was over farmers no longer received financial subsidies. The long period of sensitisation should help to ensure that farmers incorporate erosion prevention technologies into their cropland above the gullies.
PROMIC still monitors the state of the structure from time to time but most of the maintenance is left to the farmers themselves. PROMIC continues, however to provide technical support and some transport of materials. Both internal and external evaluation followed the end of the implementation phase.
