Payments for environmental services (PES) are economic instruments providing incentives to land users for continued and/or improved supply of ecosystem services such as biodiversity conservation, watershed services, carbon sequestration and landscape beauty. In Uganda, most degradation occurs on private forests (50% are degraded) than in protected areas (15% are degraded) due to inadequate incentives to promote sustainable management of the private forests compared to the protected forests mainly due to agricultural expansion, selective timber logging and charcoal burning. A study conducted on the financial profitability, from the perspective of forest land owners managing privately owned natural forests in Hoima and Kibaale districts (prior to and under a PES scheme) given the current PES payment has found that: Private Forest Owners (PFOs) derive more benefit prior to PES than under the PES scheme due to because of unrestricted use of forest land.

The authors continue to state that, ‘maintaining private natural forests under PES scheme currently provide insufficient economic incentives to forest owners compared to the business as usual scenario’. It therefore recommends that, the present PES compensation should be revised upwards so as to attract more PFOs’ participation in the scheme. A minimum PES compensation of about Ush 250,650/ha/yr (US $104.4) is established as the amount that can motivate PFOs to at least compensate their opportunity costs. Thus, revised PES compensation levels above or equal to this amount are likely to better attract and maintain forest owners towards adoption of PES interventions for sustainable forest management in Hoima district, Uganda.

This study’s findings have significance for considerations in future PES design and implementation in Uganda.

Related Reading:

The costs and benefits of a PES scheme to private forest owners in Hoima and Kibaale districts of Uganda - Nasta Babirye, Sara Namirembe and Byamukama Biryahwaho

Kapingazi River. PHOTO: B. Ireri

The Kapingazi River located in the Upper Tana catchment area, originates from Mt Kenya forest and enjoins with River Rupingazi at the confluence in the lower part of the river catchment. It has faced the various water degradation concerns due to deforestation, overgrazing, poor agronomic practices, and uncontrolled upstream water abstraction along the riparian areas, leading to high sediment loads in the river. The Kapingazi river catchment is densely populated and covers an area of 61.23sq km (MKEPP, 2009).

A study conducted by Burnice Ireri¹ in the Kapingazi catchment, Embu monitored a non – payment of environmental services approach in implementation of conservation project implemented by one of the PRESA collaborators; the Mount Kenya East Pilot Project (MKEPP), which partnered with the Kenya Forest service, Focal Development Areas (FDA), Kapingazi Water Resource Users Association (KAWRUA) and Project Management Committees within the catchment. The focus was on trees planted at the riparian area of River Kapingazi by 100 households of smallholder farmers who were provided with trees by MKEPP to compare with a PES approach study conducted in Kapingazi catchment on implementation of land use change leading to enhanced supply of watershed and carbon sequestration services.

By determining the effectiveness of PES approaches over non PES approaches through the current survival rates of trees planted by farmers at the riparian land of the catchment the study ascertained that: most farmers would agree to participate in tree planting projects without payment due to benefits accrued from the trees for example provision of firewood, timber, soil erosion control, river bank protection, provision of shade, increase in biodiversity, foreseen prospects of bee keeping in future and as an income generating project in the farm. Moreover, the gain in knowledge on the importance of trees, conservation of the river and the environment, to control soil erosion which was prevalent in most farms, improving soil fertility and thereby increase in agricultural productivity were the main driving motivations for engagement in the project.

Trees and tea plantation in the slopes Kithunguriri FDA, Kapingazi catchment. PHOTO: B. Ireri

She continues to states that, “over the initial 6 months of the project, a significant number tree survival rate declined due to flooding, attack of trees by pests and diseases the farmers’ subsequent lack of knowledge on how to control them, damage to the trees by people and animals, drought, inappropriate soil conditions (e.g. very steep slopes), lack of training on tree management in farms, lack of time to take care of trees due to other household commitments and lack of motivation in their management”. Although training and capacity building was provided by MKEPP in the management of tress on farms, a significant number of farmers opted to have less number of trees or no trees at all, due to small land sizes /lack of space to plant more trees since they rely heavily on the land for agricultural production for their subsistence.

This is implies that, although  PES may seem to favor tree survival rate in Kapingazi it should be should be integrated with other rural development and conservation initiatives as a means to increase incomes with particular emphasis on restoring, or preserving, ecosystems and raising the awareness of the importance of ecosystem services. It is becoming increasingly clear,  that the goals of economic development and conservation must be linked and that ultimately one depends on the other. Without alleviating poverty and providing a means for social and economic development of the communities, the challenge of conservation will be substantially more difficult especially in the Kapingazi catchment.

¹This work is based on a study conducted by Burnice Karimi Ireri , a Research Fellow at ICRAF’s Pro-poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa (PRESA) Project. She draws together evidence of non-PES actions and its impacts on tree survival in Kapingazi catchment as compared to PES actions within the same catchment.

]]> http://presa.worldagroforestry.org/blog/2012/12/06/survival-of-trees-in-kapingazi-is-pes-the-way-to-go/feed/ 2 http://presa.worldagroforestry.org/blog/2012/12/05/cost-effectiveness-of-conservation-auctions-for-outcome-based-and-action-based-pes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cost-effectiveness-of-conservation-auctions-for-outcome-based-and-action-based-pes http://presa.worldagroforestry.org/blog/2012/12/05/cost-effectiveness-of-conservation-auctions-for-outcome-based-and-action-based-pes/#comments Wed, 05 Dec 2012 10:35:12 +0000 Judith Nzyoka http://presa.worldagroforestry.org/?p=3399 Implementation of tree-planting field trial in Kenya

The direct approach of PES has the potential to promote conservation and sustainable use of ecosystem services and biodiversity and at the same time offers spectacular cost-savings relative to less direct approaches – thus making a more efficient use of available conservation finance (OECD, 2010; Ferraro & Simpson, 2000). A significant proportion of the PES schemes implemented worldwide, however, fail to realise their potential cost-effectiveness gains (Ferraro 2008; OECD 2010), which crucially depend on programme design and implementation. Information asymmetries where landholders know more on their opportunity costs of supplying the contracted environmental services than the conservation agent, and inefficient way of managing related to moral hazard problem of action-based conservation contract types are argued to be among the main barriers to potential high cost-effectiveness gains of the PES programmes (Ferraro, 2008, Schilizzi et al. 2011, Matzdorf & Lorenz, 2010).

The information asymmetry can be to much extent mitigated by the use of conservation auctions, which in contrast to fixed payments induce landholders to reveal their opportunity costs and as result reduce overbidding (OECD, 2010; Ferraro, 2008). The moral hazard problem related to payments for compliance with set of conservation prescriptions can be then addressed by the use of outcome-based payments – that offer more flexibility to enhance innovations (Matzdorf & Lorenz, 2010) as well as “do harness the self-interest” of landholders to comply with the conservation goals “by optimizing their stewardship effort” (Schilizzi et al., 2011). However, there is uncertainty problem, which limits the use of outcome-based PES schemes in practice (Schilizzi et al., 2011). Apart from production risks, there is also uncertainty about the possible distortion in the performance indicators (Zabel & Roe, 2009). These additional layers of uncertainty may result in low participation and/or in demand of high risk premiums in return for bearing the risk (Schilizzi et al., 2011), which would unintentionally decrease the cost-effectiveness of the conservation scheme.

A study was conducted with landholders along the Kapingazi River at the Eastern slope of Mount Kenya with the aim of exploring the combined effects of the auction mechanism and the contract types in order to identify which of those effects – higher ecological performance, or higher contracting cost – prevails and whether the outcome-based PES scheme is more cost-effective as compared to the action-based scheme. In addition, social and gender aspects of the pilot PES scheme will be scrutinized. The study area was selected due to: a). Severe soil erosion and river sedimentation problems resulting from agricultural activities at the riparian area, and b). Tree planting is an adequate measure in targeting the environmental services of erosion abatement and increased water quality.

Field trials implementation

The study started in October 2011 with a baseline survey of all residing households having land along the Kapingazi River in the central and lower part of the river catchment. In total 411 households were surveyed in Muthatari, Mutunduri, and Kairuri administrative areas – locally called as Focal Development Areas (FDAs). The surveyed household members were simultaneously given a personal invitation for an informational workshop, where the tree-planting project including the conservation contract types the auction procedure was explained.

Kapingazi farmers participating in the auction process in Embu. PHOTO: L. Andeltová

Contract types

Both contract types required planting of 30 indigenous trees at the riparian area and the contract period was six months, i.e. until June 2012. However, the monitoring and pay-off conditions were different for each of the two contract types. Action-based contracts required farmers to keep the soil around the trees moist, and the payment was conditional on monitoring results of this tree-watering requirement. Outcome-based contracts, on the other hand, did not subscribe any actions to farmers, and the payment was conditional exclusively on the tree survival rates after the six months contract period.

Conservation auction conduct and contract allocation

The auction was conducted in December 2011, whereas 234 farmers out of the 411 surveyed households participated. Both auction treatments were conducted at the same time, and landholders were assigned to either the auction for action-based or outcome-based conservation contracts using stratified random sampling method based on income levels and gender – in order to capture these characteristics equally. Following, landholders were required to submit bids indicating the payment they are willing to accept for the specified conservation contract, and the lowest bids were accepted – subject to our target constrains. Out of 117 participants in each of the two auctions, 60 participants were selected in the action-based auction, and 59 participants in the outcome-based auction. Consequently, 45 and 54 action-based and outcome-based contracts, respectively, were signed and the contracted farmers received trees for planting.

Monitoring and pay-offs of farmers

The monitoring was conducted in collaboration with the Kenya Forest Service and each farmer had to endorse the monitoring results. Whereas the farmers with action-based contracts were monitored twice during the dry season on the compliance with the tree-watering requirement, the landholders with outcome-based contracts were monitored only once – in June 2012 – on the tree survival rates. The conservation payments were then adjusted for each farmer according to his/her monitoring results. Finally, the pay-offs were conducted for all contracted farmers after the end of the contract period in July/August 2012, simultaneously with a project evaluation survey.

On-going research

The on-going cost-effectiveness analyses of the two different contract types include bid levels, tree survival rates, action-compliance, socio-economic characteristics and attitudes with particular focus on gender as well as the evaluation data on innovations and intrinsic motivation.

About the author:

Lucie Andeltová, Department of Economic and Technological Change, Centre for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn
Supervisors: Joachim von Braun, Tobias Wünscher:Department of Economic and Technological Change, Centre for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn and Karin Holm-Müller: Resource and Environmental Economics Institute for Food and Resource Economics, University of Bonn
Field supervisors: Delia Catacutan, Sara Namirembe, Oluyede C. Ajayi: World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF)

References
Ferraro, P. J. Asymmetric information and contract design for payments for environmental services. Ecological Economics. 2008, no. 65, p. 810-821.

Ferraro, P.J., Simpson, R.D. (2000). The Cost-Effectiveness of Conservation Payments. Discussion Paper 00-31. Resources for the Future. Washington, D.C.

Matzorf, B., Lorenz, J. (2010). How cost-effective are result-oriented agri-environmental measures?—An empirical analysis in Germany. Land Use Policy 27: 535–544.

OECD (2010). Paying for biodiversity. Enhancing the cost-effectiveness of payments for ecosystem services.

Schilizzi, S., Breustedt, G. and Latacz-Lohmann, U. (2011). Does tendering conservation contracts with performance payments generate additional benefits? Working Paper 1102, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.

Ecological dynamics of forested landscapes are driven by land use decisions made by many forest managers, from state institutions, private corporations, and nonprofit organizations, or individuals, communities, or families with smallholdings (or smallholders). The behavior and decision-making of small-scale actors and their diversity of characteristics and motivations make landscape-scale predictions and management difficult. The aggregation of many management decisions can drive large-scale negative impacts such as carbon emissions, invasive species risks, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. Many policies and programs for these forest owners have low subscription and success rates due to land rights and tenure issues, market incentives working at odds with programmatic goals, and the logistical difficulty of disseminating programmatic information (and the trust in the information if received). Increasingly, market-based instruments (e.g., payments for ecosystem services (PES)) and eco-certification programs (e.g., FSC or PEFC) are promoted as effective and efficient tools to address these complex dynamics and fragmentation of land management. The conditions influencing the effectiveness of these tools remain unclear, and many smallholders manage their forests sustainably without (or in spite of) market and program incentives.

Authors are invited to submit original research or review articles that will increase the understanding of how forested landscapes change through time through the individual actions of thousands of smallholder forest managers.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Land management policy comparing state-owned systems to systems of privately owned forests, and land rights and tenure issues
• Empirical studies of land use/land cover change in forested landscapes dominated by smallholders, using remote sensing imagery, field surveys, or sociological data
• Modeling simulations of smallholder decision-making and impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem services, and forest product revenue
• Policy and program analysis for small-scale forest managers, including PES, FSC, and PEFC, information dissemination to or among small-scale managers, or analysis of external drivers, and market incentives for land use change

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The Centre’s headquarters are located in Nairobi, Kenya, and research is conducted in 23 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We are supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and receive funding from over 50 different donors.

About the position

The scientist will be an integral member of the CGIAR Research Programme on ‘Dryland Systems: Integrated Agricultural Production Systems for the Poor and Vulnerable in Dry Areas’ (CRP1.1) and will contribute to closely linked aspects of the ‘Smallholder Production Systems and Markets’ component of CRP6 (Forests, trees and agroforestry: livelihoods, landscapes and governance). This position is jointly funded by ICRAF and ICRISAT, thus giving the scientist a key role in linking research on trees to agricultural production systems. The position will be administered through ICRAF and will be based at ICRISAT’s Sahelian Centre at Sadore, near Niamey, Niger. The focus of research will be on the extensive and intensive production and livelihood systems in southern Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and northern Nigeria, the target areas for CRP1.1 in this part of West and Central Africa.

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership in research on the integrated tree-crop-livestock systems of the West African drylands. The scientist will focus on understanding systems in relation to improving livelihoods and productivity.
• Convene and contribute to interdisciplinary research teams involving ICRISAT, ICRAF and other CGIAR Centres, and with National Agricultural Research Institutes and development partners.
• Contribute to resource mobilization by writing research proposals, strengthening partnerships and liaising with donors.
• Contribute to capacity strengthening amongst partners in the region, including co-supervision of postgraduate students.
• Disseminate results of research through production of high quality journal publications and other media, to various stakeholders, e.g. national researchers, policy makers, etc.

Requirements

• PhD degree in agriculture, natural resource management, agroforestry or ecology, or a related agricultural discipline, with 5 to 10 years’ experience.
• Proven ability to think strategically about systems and research for development.
• Innovative, energetic individual with demonstrated contributions to the field of agriculture and committed to seeing measurable impacts at farm level.
• Strong statistical skills, knowledge of computer applications and software for data management and analysis.
• Ability to work professionally in English and French.
• Good publication record, as evidenced by research papers in refereed journals.
• Proven ability in attracting project funding and writing project reports.
• Experience in working with a wide range of stakeholders and interest to work in an interdisciplinary and multicultural team.
• Interest in or familiarity with the West Africa Sahel and Dry Savannas region
• Willingness to travel as necessary in West Africa Sahel and Dry Savannas region.

Terms of offer

The World Agroforestry Centre is an equal opportunity employer and offers a collegial and gender-sensitive working environment. We believe that staff diversity promotes excellence and strongly encourage applications from qualified women. This position is on international terms and will be for an initial period of three (3) years, renewable subject to nine (9) months’ probation period, assessment of performance, continued relevance of the position and availability of resources.

How to apply

Applications for the position must include:

• A cover letter illustrating your suitability for the position against the listed requirements.
• Detailed curriculum vitae.
• The names and addresses of three referees, including telephone, fax numbers and email addresses.

All correspondence should be sent via the following email: icrafhru@cgiar.org. Applicants should indicate “Application – Joint Agroforestry Systems Scientist for the Sahel” on their application letters and email submissions. Applications will be considered until 30^th December 2012 or until a suitable candidate is identified and selected. Please note that only short-listed applicants will be contacted.

To learn more visit the website: www.worldagroforestry.org

Special Issue on Safety Issues for Carbon Capture and Storage

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is now recognised and increasingly promoted as part of a mix of solutions to global warming. Chemical Engineering Research and Design has published special issues on CCS to highlight the technical challenges and research and development activities, with a focus on design for efficient and cost-effective CCS. However the purpose of this special topic issue of Process Safety and Environmental Protection is to cover safety issues at any point in the CCS chain of capture, transportation, injection and storage. While safety is an important aspect of design, there are specific safety aspects which are currently being investigated by international projects. The scope of the special issue will be to address safety aspects rather than the environmental aspects of long term storage. However papers that seek to balance safety, environmental and other risks would be welcome.

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The World Agroforestry Centre is an independent research institution which generates science-based knowledge about the complex role trees play in agricultural landscapes and rural livelihoods. As part of the Centre’s work to bring tree-based solutions to bear on poverty and environmental problems, researchers – working in close collaboration with partners – are developing new technologies, tools and policy recommendations for increased food security and ecosystem health.

The Centre’s headquarters are located in Nairobi, Kenya, and research is conducted in 23 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We are supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and receive funding from over 50 different donors.

Main purpose of the job: Lead the Decision Analysis Activity within the Information Systems Strategic Research Portfolio of the CGIAR Programme on Water, Land & Ecosystems (WLE), in close partnership with other WLE research portfolios.

The job specifically includes the following duties and responsibilities:

• In partnership with WLE scientists and stakeholders, develop probabilistic decision analytic models (such as risk-return and cost-benefit models) for identifying high value information needs for key development decisions at multiple scales in the area of Water, Land and Ecosystems
• Directly assist in a project to implement a probabilistic analysis method already identified by WLE
• Work with the WLE Programme Director to provide decision analysis at the programme level, identifying outputs at regional or global scale that support the business plan of WLE
• Build the capacity of CGIAR scientists and stakeholders in probabilistic decision analysis methods and assist implementation programmes to use the models to help prioritize plans and cost-effective design monitoring and impact assessment systems
• Develop collaborative links with centres of excellence in decision sciences
• Publish results in journal articles
• Develop funding proposals to support the Decision Analysis Strategic Research Portfolio.

Qualifications and experience 

• MSc, MBA or PhD in a quantitative field
• Sound knowledge of Bayesian theory, Monte Carlo simulation, risk-return analysis
• At least 3 years’ experience in applied probabilistic decision modelling, risk analysis or related field
• Demonstrated aptitude for building Monte Carlo simulation models.

 Terms of offer

 We offer a collegial, diverse and gender-sensitive working environment, and strongly encourage applications from qualified women. This position is remunerated on international terms. The appointment will be for an initial period of three (3) years, subject to a nine (9) months’ probation period.  The preferred duty station is Nairobi but other CGIAR locations may be considered. The job requires extensive travel, working with CGIAR scientists and stakeholders in developing countries across the tropics.

How to apply

 Prepare: 

• A cover letter illustrating your suitability for the position, and your salary expectations.
• Detailed and up-to-date curriculum vitae.
• The names and addresses of three referees, including telephone numbers and email addresses, and fax details, if available.

Address these to:
The Human Resources Unit, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), P.O Box 30677, 00100, Nairobi, Kenya OR send via email to: icrafhru@cgiar.org. Indicate “Application for Senior Scientist – Decision Analyst” on the application letter. Applications will be considered until 31^st December 2012. Please note that only short-listed applicants meeting the above requirements will be contacted.
 

To learn more, visit the website: www.worldagroforestry.org

Many important ecosystem services have been degraded as a result of human activities. Even services derived from so-called protected areas are not immune to these threats. Indeed, much debate surrounds the topic of the most effective approaches to conservation. One approach has been to provide compensation to the parties protecting them in the form of payments for ecosystem services (PES). To counteract forces of degradation, governments, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations worldwide invest billions of dollars each year in PES programs that provide incentives to resource users to take actions that sustain ecosystem services (or to refrain from taking actions that threaten ecosystem services). Despite reported successes in restoring and preserving ecosystems and their corresponding services such as clean air and water, food, soil fertility, forest resources, and eco-tourism, long-term PES program sustainability remains uncertain. PES lack of sustainability can arise from many reasons, one being that PES participants may return to their previous behavioral patterns when payments end.

The call particularly encourages review and research articles to address theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues related to (but not limited to) the following topics:

1. Land use or land cover change associated with PES programs
2. Ecological effects of PES programs (e.g., wildlife habitat or behavioral change)
3. Potential mechanisms for success/failure observed in current PES programs
4. Socioeconomic, demographic, and political consequences of PES programs
5. Methodological issues: collection of qualitative and quantitative data related to PES, data analysis and modeling, application of GIS techniques and spatial statistics, integration of multidisciplinary and multi-scale data, etc.
6. Complexity in coupled natural and human systems (CNH) arising from PES programs (e.g., feedback, nonlinearity, time lags). Analyses using similar integrated frameworks including coupled human and natural systems (CHANS), social-ecological systems, or social-environmental systems are also welcome.

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