Hello there!

In 2009, a lot was accomplished in laying the foundations for implementing reward mechanisms for environmental services in Africa. Last year, we reported on activities taking place across sites in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Guinea. We also reported on related work at Malawi.

In this first edition of the PRESA e-news for 2010, we are glad to report of a private sector organization that has joined a reward scheme for reforestation. Ecobank Malawi will provide US$2,500 a year to over 170 small scale farmers enrolled in a reforestation project in Malawi’s Ntchisi district. Read the story to find out why and how Ecobank got involved.

At last December’s United Nations Climate Change Conference at Copenhagen, Meine van Noordwijk of the World Agroforestry Centre shared experiences from the Sasumua site in Kenya. We have a feature story about that learning event with links to the PRESA website, where you can download presentations that Meine and others made at Copenhagen.

PRESA partners and scientists are actively advocating policy approaches that encourage communities to live harmoniously with nature. Of course, rewards for environmental services is key in motivating communities. We have an article on policy debate at the Fouta Djallon highlands in Guinea.

We have began posting PRESA research papers online. These are the products of work carried out by partners and students at various sites. By sharing these research outputs, we can provide useful lessons to those interested in rewards for environmental services. Your feedback is important on how best we can present such work in future.

PRESA e-news is published every three months. You can read previous editions by clicking here .

Do have a pleasant reading!

Vanessa and Godfrey
PRESA Communications.

Ecobank Malawi, a pan African Bank present in 31 countries, has pledged continued support to over 170 small holder farmers to plant trees in Ntchisi District, central region of Malawi. The project, where farmers will be receiving cash in exchange for investing land and labor, is aimed at promoting the planting of the indigenous M’bawa trees – one of Malawi’s flagship species – on half an acre of their land.

The program will capture and store harmful carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Together with similar programs all over Africa, this initiative will help slow down the rate of climate change across the globe. The trees will eventually serve as a source of fuelwood and timber for these rural families.

Ecobank has pledged $2,500 a year for the first three years of the project. The first Ecobank-supported payment to farmers was made in December 2009. The small incentive payments are based on the number of surviving trees and will encourage farmers to invest the necessary energy into protecting and nurturing the trees while they are young. 

“The farmers are enthusiastic about the program and survival rates of seedlings to date are high,” says Kelsey Jack who is a Harvard University researcher analyzing the project’s outcomes to generate lessons for future tree planting programs for carbon sequestration in Malawi and to draw important lessons for the rest of Africa.

The project is implemented by ICRAF Malawi and Ntchisi District Departments of Forestry and Agriculture Extension.

The agreement with Ecobank is part of an ongoing research and development project that explores the different approaches to allocating and pricing land use contracts associated with payments for environmental services.

More on this story here: http://presa.worldagroforestry.org/blog/2010/01/22/ecobank-funding-farmers-in-malawi-carbon-project/

Conserving natural ecosystems is one of the most cost-effective and equitable measures for fighting climate change and ensuring the resilience of rural livelihoods. This was a key message at the “Landscape approaches to mitigation and adaptation” learning event at Forest Day 3 on 13 December 2009.

While Forest Day aimed to ensure forests are high on the agenda for future climate outcomes, and making these outcomes work beyond Copenhagen, panelists and participants in this learning event called for a broader, “whole-landscape” approach to ensure carbon, biodiversity, water, food and income benefits.

The learning event, which was co-hosted by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), The Nature Conservancy, and the World Bank, brought together tools and experiences for ecosystem management that can be applied in the context of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD), a hot topic at the Copenhagen climate conference.

Trevor Sandwith of The Nature Conservancy showed that healthy ecosystems do not obey governance boundaries, and generally support a complex balance between different ecosystem services such as carbon storage, biodiversity, watershed functions and providing fuel and food. Current REDD approaches still largely look at individual sectors (i.e. forestry) but could be more effective if considered within an adaptable landscape solutions.

Meine van Noordwijk of the World Agroforestry Centre shared experiences from the Sasumua catchment in Central Kenya, where water is the biggest question that affects the local farmers as well as the thirsty city of Nairobi. In a place like Sasumua, it’s clear that local-level costs and benefits must be achieved before global objectives can be met. People are not interested in carbon, but rather the water co-benefits that would come with improved land management.

“When dealing with farmers,” said van Noordwijk, “consider carbon a co-benefit, and talk to them about water, about trees they can use, about profitability.” He stressed that Locally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (LAMAs) must be linked with Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) as well as global targets (GAMAs) (more on this).

The work in Sasumua is part of a larger World Agroforestry Centre project on Pro-poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa (PRESA), which aims to facilitate African participation in markets for environmental services including carbon.

The story continues at the PRESA website on this link: http://presa.worldagroforestry.org/blog/2010/01/13/healthy-ecosystems-first-carbon-benefits-second-presa-in-copenhagen/

It is now possible for PRESA site partners to have profile pages within the PRESA website. Apart from describing partner organizations, the profile pages will make it easier for visitors to find out specific activities that each partner is implementing at PRESA sites.

The profile pages will contain the details of each partner, the people behind the organization and the activities they are carrying out. Research work emanating from site activities will be a useful addition to the profile pages. The work can be posted either in part or in whole, depending on the preferences of the author.

The PRESA website gets over 1,000 visitors a month and some of these could visit the websites of site partners through hyperlinks in the profile pages.

In order to build the partner profiles, it will be necessary for link persons in each organization to send us details that they feel will boost their presence on the PRESA website. The PRESA communications team will assist partners in building their profile pages.  Call or write to us today.