Esther Mbugua (right), a researcher at the Kapingazi survey, interviews a farming couple in October 2009. PHOTO/M. Makela

PRESA is currently evaluating data from the Kapingazi River Basin, following a socio-economic survey done in October 2009.

The survey will contribute to the design of a river care programme that will enhance watershed services from the upper Tana River basin. The Tana, Kenya’s largest river, powers a series of hydro electric power stations as well as supplying towns and farms with fresh water.

“From the survey, PRESA and partners will facilitate a negotiation support mechanism between sellers and buyers of environmental services and help them reach a compromise,” says Thomas Yatich of ICRAF.
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Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into biomass. PHOTO/V. Meadu

Amidst worldwide concern over climate change largely blamed on emissions from fossil fuel, there is an appreciation of the role of trees in absorbing carbon dioxide from the air (carbon sequestration).

Ongoing destruction of forests is, however, reducing the carbon sequestration services of trees and thereby accelerating climate change.

Coffee trees provide income to farmers from the sale of coffee beans but an added benefit is that coffee trees sequester atmospheric carbon. In recent decades, though, farmers have suffered from low coffee prices and have reduced the acreage under coffee.
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Click on the logo to access the template contracts

Is your organization ready to begin drafting contracts for ecosystem services between a community and a potential buyer?

PRESA and partners have produced template contracts to help organizations create legal agreements between buyers and sellers of environmental services. The guides can easily be downloaded from the Katoomba Group website and will soon be available on CD.

The guides are a series of templates for payments for environmental services (PES) contracts. There are drafting notes for watershed services, biodiversity services and carbon sequestration and storage. There is also a short guide for building equity into PES contracts.

All these are aimed at PES entrepreneurs, PES project managers and local lawyers who may not have much experience in making contracts but have already ascertained the presence of valuable environmental services, sufficient property rights and willing buyers and sellers. “The contents of the CD will help you move a PES concept to an early draft PES agreement which can then be amended to comply with local law,” says lead author Mark Ellis-Jones of CARE International.
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Part of the highlands of western Uganda. PHOTO/V. Meadu

Carbon offsetting in south western and western parts of Uganda is a relatively new approach to mitigate climate change in the region. It is implemented by the Environmental Conservation Trust of Uganda (ECOTRUST) under the Trees for Global Benefit Program, but has received additional support from ICRAF through the Pro-poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa (PRESA) project.

PRESA’s overall goal is to have “hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers and residents living in the highlands of East and West Africa benefiting from fair and effective agreements between stewards and beneficiaries of ecosystem services.”

The carbon offsetting scheme implemented by ECOTRUST is unique in that it targets small scale farmers who, by virtue of their holdings, are poor. In Africa, such initiatives are not common. It should be noted that prior to initiation of the project, scoping studies ensured that the project was designed to fit and address community needs and challenges.

In Uganda, the carbon offset scheme is operational and it involves rural communities planting trees on their land for carbon sequestration but with a management objective based on their land holdings and needs. The benefits accruing from this initiative are both direct and indirect.
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This picture of the Kapingazi taken in June 2009 shows water flowing despite the 2008 - 2009 drought in Kenya.

This story describes how a river that had dried up was revived through an integrated intervention approach by four government ministries. The river basin can now support the people living in it.

The concept employed is the bottom-up approach. The community analyzed the problem through a participatory rural appraisal exercise and the Government of Kenya intervened immediately afterwards with the support of Mount Kenya East Pilot Project on Natural Resources Management (MKEPP-NRM). The programme is funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The Kapingazi river basin is in Kenya and draws its water from one of the country’s most important water towers – Mt. Kenya. The Kapingazi basin is divided into three zones: the upmost area being forest zone, followed by the tea zone then the coffee zone which is part of the municipality. Each zone had a different type of intervention which MKEPP-NRM employed to counteract the basin degradation as recommended by the appraisal document.
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A section of participants at the World Congress on Agroforestry held in Nairobi in August 2009. PHOTO/ICRAF.

Participants to a forum on payments for environmental services have proposed looking at other ecosystem services beyond carbon markets in order to encourage small scale farmers to engage in sustainable land practices.

Various approaches and tools were presented at the technical session to show how a variety of ecosystem services can be bundled, for example REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) combined with forest carbon markets.

Eco-labeling environmentally friendly products was presented as another viable option.

The session titled, “Rewards for the environmental services of Agroforestry” was held during the just concluded World Congress of Agroforestry in Nairobi, Kenya. Over 1,200 people attending the Congress participated in rigorous scientific discussions on up-scaling agroforestry to meet development challenges.

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Acacia tree on a farm in South Africa. PHOTO/Kim Sarah Bernard

The role of agriculture in biodiversity conservation is getting special attention from an online newsletter by the Ecoagriculture Partners.

“The goal of this newsletter is to facilitate information exchange among a global community of practitioners who are developing the agricultural payments for environmental services (PES) sector,” says the organization.

Ecoagriculture is working to revive the concept of ecoagriculture, which has been lost within the past a hundred years.

“Ecoagriculture describes landscapes that support both agricultural production and biodiversity conservation, working together to improve the livelihoods of rural communities,” says the organization, “Ecoagriculture recognizes agricultural producers and communities as key stewards of ecosystems and biodiversity and enables them to play those roles effectively.”

You can subscribe to the newsletter at the Ecoagriculture Partners website or view past and current editions here.

Beatrice Ahimbisibwe from Uganda makes a presentation during the Katoomba Meeting of September 2008.

There is enormous need for information and capacity building in West Africa as opportunities emerge in payments for environmental services. For these reasons, the Katoomba Group will meet in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, from October 6 to 7.

Over the past 15 years, West Africa has lost 1.4 million hectares or 26% of primary ‘old growth’ forest, leaving about 1.5% of the area under primary forest cover. The rate of deforestation has significantly increased since the 1990s. Alternative solutions to traditional approaches are therefore urgently needed.

Interest in payments for environmental services in the region is fast increasing while the region’s forests are under immense threat. Ghana, Liberia and Cameroon have obtained initial funding from the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) to submit national plans for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD).
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Three PRESA partners are currently in Finland, attending a course titled, “Environmental Services in Forest Management.” By the end of the course on 20th August, the three will have acquired new skills in managing environmental services.

Gerald Kairu from Ecotrust Uganda, Ndeshi Munisi from the Horticultural Research Institute -Tengeru, Tanzania and Miika Mäkelä from the PRESA office in Nairobi are at the University of Helsinki Summer School with other students from 50 countries worldwide. The Environmental Services Forest Management Course which the PRESA partners are taking has about 20 participants, majority of whom are from Africa.

There’s not much opportunity to enjoy the rather pleasant Finnish summer, but it hasn’t been all work and no play either! The course organizers have planned several field trips to enliven the educational experience.

Gerald, Ndeshi and Miika will be updating the larger PRESA community on their experiences in Finland, and will be sharing learned lessons through this blog posting. (more…)

Boundary agents straddle the multiple and varied boundaries between stakeholders, facilitating linkages between knowledge and action. PHOTO/V. Meadu

There is a wealth of scientific knowledge regarding environmental services that needs to be linked with the knowledge and actions of policy makers and resource users.

Under real life circumstances, knowledge does not flow as easily as it should and policy makers make crucial decisions affecting vast populations without the benefit of accurate data. It is therefore important to bring the right knowledge to the right people for purposes of informed policy making.

A new policy brief published by PRESA demonstrates the usefulness of boundary organizations in bridging the gap between knowledge and action. Boundary organizations provide both training and “safe spaces” where politically or scientifically sensitive matters are pursued.

Successful boundary work is often attributed to boundary agents who straddle the multiple and varied boundaries between stakeholders: translating, communicating and facilitating linkages between knowledge and action.

The policy brief is titled, “Key activities and guiding principles for linking science and policy for PRESA.” You can download and read it through the link below (527KB):