PRESA’s mapping specialist, Miika Mäkelä, went to the Coyah site in Guinea in November 2010 to assess the potential for watershed payments for environmental services (PES).

During the visit, he collected geographical data and visited the Coyah water treatment plant and the Coyah Water Bottling Company. From his subsequent discussions with the local PRESA team and site leader Serge Ngendakumana, there is potential for developing watershed environmental services payments in the site.

PRESA is currently examining mapping data and conducting land use change analysis. Other objectives of the trip included finalising research design, agreeing on a research methodology and training enumerators on data collection tools.
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PRESA recently held a workshop in the Republic of Guinea that brought together Fouta Djallon stakeholders for a discussion on policy issues, tools and research results.

Representatives of the Government of Guinea, UNDP and the private sector during the workshop's opening session.

The one-day workshop held in the Guinean capital, Conakry, had 25 participants from international development organizations, the private sector, the Centre for Study and Research in Environment (CÉRE), Guinea Water Company and the World Agroforestry Centre.

The aim of the workshop was to provide an overview of tools for managing payments for environmental services (PES) schemes and a detailed analysis of current international discussion on PES. The event analysed willingness to pay by beneficiaries of ecosystem services and the readiness of communities to maintain ecosystem services under their stewardship. There was also a follow-up on the resolutions of the first event held in 2009.
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The Fouta Djallon highlands in the Republic of Guinea are the source of West Africa’s most important rivers: the Senegal, Gambia, Niger and Mano rivers.

A meeting with a Fouta Djallon community. (PHOTO: S. Ngendakumana)

These rivers provide drinking water, irrigation and hydroelectric power to millions of people in Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia, Mali, Niger and Nigeria. They are critical for sustaining livelihood systems which are now affected by ecosystem degradation.

Policymakers across Fouta Djallon countries are interested in adopting reward schemes for environmental services. For instance, Sierra Leonean forestry authorities have highlighted the need to develop rewards-based initiatives as a strategy to better manage the country’s classified forests.

PRESA partners intend to build upon these regional initiatives to lay a social foundation for the design, piloting and scaling up of transfer schemes for environmental services.
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Serge Ngendakumana of ICRAF (standing at left) making a presentation on pro poor reward mechanisms for ecosystem services in Africa. Serge is the PRESA site co-ordinator at the Fouta Djallon highlands.

The Fouta Djallon highlands are a core site of PRESA. Critical environmental services offered by the Fouta Djallon ecosystem are water quality and quantity for more than eight countries, biodiversity conservation and trees for carbon sequestration.

For the past two years, ICRAF has been involved with other key stakeholders in advocating policy related issues in the sub region. Working with the ICRAF office in Guinea, PRESA organized a multi-stakeholder meeting to analyse payments for environmental service issues and develop a road map for future developments in the areas of ecosystems.
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