ABSTRACT
What happens in a valley with clear blue skies and an idyllic landscape when new crops are introduced, a fish-farming operation expands and the population swells? The Achamayo River watershed's famous blue valley in Peru's central highlands is renowned for the beauty of its sky contrasting with the golden heights, the green eucalyptus foliage and the multicoloured patchwork fields of potatoes, artichokes and kitchen gardens. It is also the setting for an intense social conflict over water involving farmers, fish-farming operations, populated areas that are urbanizing, and even a hydropower plant. In theory, all of these disputes are covered and regulated by official water legislation that is binding on the authorities and all water users in the country. Therefore, conflicts ought to be processed by the bureaucratic system for water management, and users ought to abide by the dictates of official norms. However, an ethnographic approach to water conflicts reveals severe limitations and distortions affecting both the bureaucracy in charge of water management and the official regulations.
