Interviews with key informants The standardized interview

In order to meet the objectives of investigating what the current situation with regard to ICM in the Gamtoos River Catchment is, semi-structured interviews with key informants where used as a means of gathering information. According to Henning et al. (2004) the interview has been dominantly viewed as a mechanism or a technology that will yield information that represents reality more or less “as it is” through the response and filters of an interviewee. The conception of an interview in this light is grounded on the condition that the interview is used methodically according to strict principles of objectivity and neutrality (Kitchin and Tate, 2000). There is a myriad of kinds of interviews in existence of which the content will vary depending on the nature of the intended information. For example, a phenomenological interview as Flowerdew and Martin (2005) explain would be comprised of an individual‟s articulation of their lived experience or deeply felt emotions whereas a survey interview, which is based mostly on facts, would consist of a more or less open-ended oral questionnaire. Henning et. al (2004) are of the opinion that whatever the nature of the interview is, the data are regarded as credible and believable so long as the data were forthcoming without pollutants in a standardized procedure of non-interference from the interviewer. The only proviso to this being that the interviewer should guide the interview, should not ask leading questions, should prevent contamination of the data and should not force the interviewee into confessional mode if the person is not ready for it. The same authors term this conception of an interview as the standardized interview and this is the conception that has been adopted for the purpose of the current study amongst others. On the basis of this understanding of what a standardized interview is, the researcher has identified the semi-structured interviews employed as a method of data collection in the current study and detailed in the proceeding section as having the characteristic of being standardized interviews.

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Semi-structured interviews

Flowerdew and Martin (2005) define the semi-structured interview as a qualitative method of inquiry that combines a pre-determined set of open questions (questions that prompt discussion) with the opportunity for the interviewer to explore particular themes or responses further. This type of interview is used to understand how interventions work and how they could be improved while allowing respondents to discuss and raise issues that the researcher may not have considered (Kitchin and Tate, 2000). The advantages of semi-structured interviews in the context of the standardized interview as discussed above are that the interview does not limit the interviewee to a set of pre-determined answers such as in the case of a structured questionnaire.

Henning et al. (2004) explain that the use of pre-determined questions provides uniformity and the responses given provide valuable information from the context of the stakeholder‟s experiences.

In the context of the current study upon addressing the second objective which was outlined in chapter one as follows: to utilize available information on the Catchment in order to describe and develop both a holistic and contextual understanding of the research situation of the catchment, the work of the Gamtoos Irrigation Board (GIB) was identified as being instrumental in the management of the water resources in the catchment area. The GIB was thus selected as the first stakeholder to enquire from. The board has a website which details its activities and provides contact details of all board members. The contact details of the CEO of the board were sourced from the website and used to make an appointment for an interview with him. The interview date was scheduled to take place at the office of the GIB which is based in the town of Patensie in the Eastern Cape. Upon confirmation of the interview appointment, a set of questions were prepared to be used as a guide for the interview which can be seen in Appendix 1.Questions were phrased in a way that would require respondents to provide detailed answers rather than „yes‟ or „no‟

answers. Interview responses were recorded through taking notes. This method was selected over the choice to audio-record responses based on the advice provided by Flowerdew and Martin (2005). It is suggested by the sited authors that note taking can be viewed as more preferable to audio recording for the following reason: taking notes is generally seen as less threatening to audio-recording as one of the constraints of the latter is whether the respondent will feel at ease

46 answering questions whilst being recorded. Taking notes also allows the interviewer to highlight key points to probe further and may also make the production of the final notes and their evaluation quicker as there is no need to wade through large files of transcripts. The interview guide included a question that asked who the other stakeholders involved in the management of the catchment were and these were provided by the CEO of the GIB, thus a snowballing technique was used to identify all stakeholders involved in order to make further investigations.

These key stakeholders were identified in the interview as follows:

 The GIB

 The Department of Water Affairs (DWA)

 The Algoa Water Study Group

 The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality

 The Farmers of the Gamtoos Valley

The CEO of the GIB gave contact details of the appropriate individual to contact from the DWA.

This was a representative who serves in the Directorate for Water Use Regulation. The offices of this directorate are situated in the town of Cradock in the Eastern Cape Province and the researcher was unable to conduct this follow up interview in person. The questions for the interview were therefore sent to the representative electronically via email and responses were emailed back to the researcher. Areas that required clarity or further explanation were followed up on telephonically. The representative from the DWA further recommended that another individual from the same department be approached in order to gather more in depth information from the perspective of the DWA as a stakeholder. The researcher was referred to a female representative from the Regional Directorate of Institutional Establishment which also serves as the office of the Regional Catchment Management Authority. The offices of this directorate are situated in city of East London in the Eastern Cape Province and due to the same reasons stipulated above; a physical interview was not possible therefore a similar approach as used in the interview with Mr Geldenhuys was utilized. A complementary template for responses Appendix 2 was designed in order to organize the information gathered in a more manageable way.

47 Based on the interview responses and insights obtained from the stakeholders thus far listed, it was found that the CEO of the GIB, also being a member of the Algoa study group was able to give details of the role of the group as a stakeholder and thus served as a representative of this particular stakeholder. Based on the referral of the CEO of the GIB, a representative from the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality was also identified as an informant who could be approached for information on the role of Municipality as a stakeholder. An appointment was set for an interview at the office of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality and the interview was carried out in the same way as detailed in the first interview with the CEO of the GIB.

Finally, in order to gain insight from the perspective of the farmers of the Gamtoos valley, two farmers were identified through the referral of the CEO of the GIB, a dairy farmer and a citrus farmer who both own farms that operate within the Gamtoos Valley. Although visits to both farms were not possible due to time constraints, a brief visit to the farm of the dairy farmer was made and he was willing to provide a tour of the farm detailing its functionality and to also answer some questions regarding how he deals with water allocation and management.

Information regarding the perspectives of other farmers in the region was sourced from the work of Jansen (2008) in a Land and Water resources assessment in the Baviaanskloof Mega Reserve.

The researcher considered the large farming population in the Gamtoos Valley, approximately 250 farms (WIN-SA, 2011) and noted that it would be difficult to come up with a suitable size that would be representative of the entire farming population. Given this regard, the CEO of the GIB affirmed that the work of Jansen (2008) and the information documented by (WIN-SA, 2011) would be adequate secondary data to inform this area of required information. These were utilized by the researcher in order to inform findings. All other information obtained from interview responses and discussions was used as primary data.