Public participation on dam building in South Africa: a case study of the Berg Water Project

This paper examines the participatory processes which led to the building of the Berg River Dam in South Africa’s Western Cape province. The government-led formal participatory processes stand in contrast to the mobilisation of environmental activists against the building of the dam. In this case, the creation of formal participatory forums both subverted and neutralised resistance of the environmental movement and civil society against the building of the dam, largely through the mobilisation of policy discourses on water ‘scarcity’.