Payment for watershed services: Focusing on socioeconomic – environment linkages in Lake Naivasha landscape
Dec 22, 2009 by gkimega
Farmers (ecosystem stewards) prepare Napier grass seed cane for planting in the upper catchment. PHOTO/CARE Kenya staff
The Lake Naivasha basin is located in the Great Rift Valley of Kenya and has a total area of 1,700 square kilometers, with altitude ranging from 1,887 to 3,906 metres above sea level. The lake is one of the few fresh water lakes in Kenya’s Rift Valley as most of the rest are saline.
Economic activities around Lake Naivasha include small scale agriculture, horticulture, ranching, tourism and geothermal power production. Over 50 square kilometers of land around the lake is under large scale commercial horticulture and flower farming. These activities are a livelihood for over 500,000 people living within the basin.
Major threats to ecosystems in the Lake Naivasha landscape emanate from watershed environmental degradation, unregulated and excessive water abstraction for domestic and agricultural use, poor land use practices, weak policy enforcement, water pollution and high poverty prevalence. The trend leads to significant environmental degradation, biodiversity losses, economic losses and worsening poverty.
About Lake Naivasha’s upper catchments
Naivasha basin upper catchments comprise of several upland forests: Mau, Eburu, Kipipiri, Kinangop and Aberdares. These forests form essential catchments providing water that supports diverse habitats, livelihoods and economic development. Important rivers draining into Lake Naivasha are the Gilgil, Malewa, Karati (seasonal) and their tributaries. River Marmanet drains into Lake Naivasha from Eburu ranges.
The Aberdare Mountains reach a height of 4,000 metres and are among the critical watersheds of Kenya. This mountain range supports important biodiversity conservation areas: Aberdare National Park, Aberdare Forest Reserve, Lake Naivasha Ramsar Site and its associated riparian system.
There are three main eco-systems within the Aberdare Mountain ranges; rain forest, dense bamboo forest and moorland. The Aberdare ranges are an important watershed for Lake Naivasha, the Rift Valley basin and the Uwaso Ngiro, Tana and Athi river basins.
The lake’s upper watershed, too, supports both small and large scale agricultural activities and different flora and fauna.
Payment for environmental services scheme
The Worldwide Fund for nature (WWF) and CARE have entered into joint global partnership for implementing an environment rewards scheme where those who benefit for environmental stewardship reward land managers whose land use interventions provide quality water.
Downstream water users in the Lake Naivasha basin depend on upstream communities who are charged with the protection of the watersheds to ensure enough flow of good quality water for downstream use. Since upstream communities forego some land use activities for the sake of conservation, the downstream communities are expected to give incentives to the upstream communities to motivate them in their services. A payment for watershed services project is currently linking the down stream and upstream users for better management of water resources.
Payments for environmental services scheme promises to give new lease of life to Lake Naivasha, its tributary waters and agricultural ecosystems to conserve fragile basin biodiversity and improve peoples’ livelihoods.
The ecosystem in the Lake Naivasha landscape provides a wide range of services including;
- Provisioning services (climate moderation, carbon sink, water quality and quantity)
- Regulatory services (soil erosion and flood control, maintenance of aquatic habitats.)
- Cultural services (recreational, aesthetic, spiritual benefits) and
- Supporting services (soil formation, and nutrient cycling).
Payments for environmental services scheme process in Naivasha Landscape
The process of initiating the scheme started with professional studies and surveys (feasibility assessment):
- The studies determined project viability in terms of potential ecosystem services for sellers and buyers
- Analysed land use and its impact on water quantity and sediment load
- Identified and recommended sub-catchment target hot spots suitable for a payment for watershed services project.
Selection of target areas was based on two objective functions;
- Buyer maximization of return on investment
- Wealth creation for the poor and equitable distribution of benefits that would accrue from the payments for watershed services scheme.
Potential buyers identified downstream were; Nakuru Water and Sewerage Company, Naivasha Water and Sewerage Company, commercial flower growers, Kengen geothermal electricity generation plant, Kenya Wildlife Services, the tourism industry in Naivasha and the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association.
Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was applied to predict the impact of land management practices on water over long periods of time. Other important activities in the process were livelihood assessment, cost benefit analysis, marking and mapping of hotspot farms and survey of the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment.
Progress
WWF and CARE Kenya have sensitized the potential sellers and buyers on the payments for watershed services concept, prepared a draft contract with the two parties and facilitated dialogue between buyers and sellers. Developing a common understanding between the two groups will ensure and build trust. All input comments from both sides have been incorporated into the draft contract pending endorsement by the sellers (land owners) and the downstream buyers that include the Lake Naivasha Growers Group (LNGG) and Lake Naivasha Riparian Association (LNRA).
The programme is currently supporting land managers to implement the recommended land use interventions and livelihood improvement activities.
The joint project involves three Water Resources Users Associations, Lake Naivasha Growers Group, Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources Management Authority, Kenya Forest Services and the Provincial Administration. An area of 360,000 square metres is under conservation (grass strips and trees, especially agroforestry species). 510 farms were marked (300 farms in Geta/Wanjohi and 210 farms at Upper Turasha/Kinja) with 475 mapped. Distribution of conservation materials for planting has began to the farmers whose farms were marked and mapped.
The way forward to make payments for environmental services a reality in the Lake Naivasha landscape.
Payments for environmental service schemes have been successfully implemented globally. The WWF – CARE collaboration can successfully implement such a scheme through the cooperation and commitment of all important stakeholders; local communities, government, private sector and civil society organizations. Legalizing payments for environmental services is critical to its success in Kenya, and it is necessary to integrate such schemes in important natural resource policies. Community sensitization on policies and legislation governing natural resource use and management needs to be a collective responsibility of all partners.
Capacity building on conservation practices (terracing, grass strips, tree planting and protection of the riparian land and forests) should be continuous to realize any meaningful impact in the long term.
Conclusion
Understanding socio-economic linkages is a prerequisite to sustainable management of Lake Naivasha landscape ecosystems. Equitable payments for watershed services has the potential to address livelihood improvement and environmental sustainability. The scheme needs to be strengthened through economic policies and by stakeholders committed to partnership. Success of the scheme will protect fragile ecosystems and protect the rich but vulnerable biodiversity.
Payments for environmental services sites in Lake Naivasha landscape:
- Wanjohi/Geta water resource users association (WRUA)
- Upper Turasha/Kinja WRUA
- The lake’s shoreline
About the Author:
Nyongesa Mukele Josephat works as Project Natural Resource Economist with World Wide Fund for Nature-Eastern Africa Regional Programme Office (WWF-EARPO), Lake Naivasha – Malewa MFS Project.
Email addresses: nyongesajm@yahoo.com, nyongesan4@gmail.com, Jnyongesa@malewa.wwfearpo.org
Hello,
Thanks for the PES in Naivasha.
However, i am really concerned about the extent of involvement of the buyers, the downstream users of the lake.
As much as we want to help the upstream community, we must first start with saving the lake from the malicious downstream users.
Lake Naivasha is one of the most researched and most endowed with conservation funding, dating as early as 1980s, yet,its the lake thats most threatened in Kenya.
Just last week, the fishermen had to loose their only source of livelihood- fishing -after dead fish (including fingerings) were found floating on the lake. This was a case of lake pollution. I mean simply, the lake is already dead, and we cannot attribute this to the upstream community, can we?
There is a urgent need to deal with the problems caused by the downstream users before paying the upstream users to conserve the watershed.
In my views,and from my experience while working and conducting research in the region, we may help the upstream users to continue safeguarding the water shed, so that there is always enough water in the lake for the downstream users to misuse, pollute and continue to degrade the lake…..is this sustainable?
This is not the objective of this project, but it will eventually affect the project results by the close of the project.
Hope to hear from the team.