A number of themes and questions emerged from the Katoomba meeting. The following points are drawn from the various presentations by PES practitioners from Africa and globally

• PES markets are young and it is our responsibility as architects of PES concepts to build a new language and common understanding of PES
• REDD and carbon markets are not silver bullets, although PES is a silver lining. These markets can work together in a matrix
• Large funds for carbon projects (i.e. from Norway) are key but we need to make sure these initiatives and pilot projects work together
• there has been a shift in how we think about development systems moving from conditional aid to contracts and deliverables
• there are many regulatory challenges when working in developing countries and a good framework needs to be in place to facilitate PES mechanisms
• good information and data is still lacking à payments are built on information and markets are built on payments. We need to fill in the gaps and our technological capability to do that is good.
• Education: we need to communicate information and data effectively, to a diverse set of audiences
• Equity: there are challenges regarding equitable distribution of payments i.e. carbon take place at the global level, so how to link this to local settings?
• Partnership: for these markets to work you need partnership between public, private and civil society – you cannot have fair and effective payment mechanisms without all three being involved

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Ulugurus Mts, Morogoro, Tanzania

From 15-20 September, PRESA staff and collaborators were active at the East and Southern Africa Katoomba Meeting, Taking Stock & Charting a Way Forward: Payments for Ecosystem Services in Africa, in Dar es Salaam. The meeting was an excellent opportunity for learning about the latest PES developments in Africa and beyond, catching up with our collaborators, and making new connections with researchers, students and the private sector. We also shared our own research and insightsa at the pre-conference training, during the public meeting and at the private meeting in Morogoro, with the following presentations… (more…)

The PRESA team at ICRAF is excited to be attending the meeting entitled Taking Stock and Charting a Way Forward for Payments for Ecosystem Services in Africa, in Dar-es-salaam, Tanzania from September 16-18, 2008.
We will have a booth at the “PES Trade Fair”  where sellers from the region will exhibit the ecosystem services at their sites, and potential buyers will be invited to meet with the sellers and explore potential PES deals. There we’ll be distributing information, tools and resources, and also officially launching this website.

PRESA is working at two sites in Tanzania — in the Ulugurus and Nguru mountains, and the West Usambaras — and we will be using the Katoomba meeting to officially launch the project in Tanzania. If you’re going to the meeting please come and say hello.

Lastly, we plan to blog live from the meeting, posting about our experiences and insights during this event. Please keep your eye on this blog — or subscribe to our RSS feed to receive blog updates directly!