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The PRESA project engages in a variety of activities to achieve its objectives
1). Ecosystem baseline studies
- Compiling an inventory of baseline information, design and monitoring methods, and institutional innovation in all landscapes.
- Identifying gaps in the information base and priorities.
- Undertaking baseline syntheses that will include documentation of pro-poor rewards and or incentives (existing & potential), mapping & analysing land use/land cover change, characterizing socio-economic-ecological situations/impact analysis and documenting experiences with carbon trading in the Ugandan site.
- Project teams in all landscapes are introduced to and supported in the application of a toolkit of methods for scoping, negotiation support and assessment.
In the different sites, we will build on lessons and experiences from 2008 and also share knowledge, skills, methodologies and approaches with other site-level partners and PES innovators.
2). Capacity building
Partners will be supported in using PRESA assessment and negotiation tools to fill key knowledge gaps and frame the dialog among stakeholders. There will be targeted support to partners for the application of economic analysis, spatial analysis, and carbon accounting tools. In 2009, the PRESA project hosted the capacity building workshop titled, Building Ecosystem Services Research Capacity for Semi-Arid Africa (BESSA).
3). Testing prototype reward mechanisms
Prototype reward mechanisms will be developed and tested with at least 100 farmers as well as conjoint analysis and experimental economics studies of farmers’ preferences for the various elements of environmental service contracts. We will strive to deepen and complete reverse auction experiment conducted in one site as well as exploring other prototypes mechanisms in at least 4 sites.
4). Facilitating workable reward mechanisms
We wish to see workable reward mechanisms operational in at least 4 of the project landscapes, with at least one environmental services demander, one intermediary and 300 households involved in each landscape.
5). Public & private sector engagement
PRESA will deepen its engagement with public agencies concerned with environmental services in the project landscapes. This will contribute to identifying and mobilizing changes in institutions or regulations (statutory or by-laws) necessary to support the establishment of mechanisms in payments for environmental services. In some sites, PRESA and its partners will identify specific regulations or bylaws that affect the establishment and operations of specific reward mechanisms.
This will include, for example, an analysis of how property rights to land, trees, forests and carbon affect the potential for voluntary carbon contracts.
6). Negotiation support
PRESA will support consultations, negotiations and agreements among stakeholders and the establishment of workable mechanisms. The type of negotiation, and the involvement of PRESA in the negotiations, will vary from landscape to landscape depending on the state of reward schemes for environmental services.