Welcome to the September 2010 PRESA E-News

Dear PRESA partner,

PRESA (Pro-poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa) is a project run by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). PRESA is working to see hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers get rewarded for ecosystem services coming from their locality. The next question is: what are ecosystem services?

An environment provides ecosystem or environmental services by acting as a watershed, as a home for wildlife and as a forest that absorbs carbon from the air. However, the natural environment is increasingly coming under human pressure.

Reward mechanisms are monetary or non-monetary incentives to providers of ecosystem services made by beneficiaries of those services. Such mechanisms represent a potentially complementary approach for integrating environmental management with human use of the environment.

We encourage you to visit our website to find out why we are excited about rewards for environmental services. Click here for more details.

We wish you a pleasant reading!

PRESA Communications

Review of PRESA to influence Tana River catchment plan

The work of the PRESA project could form the basis of a larger programme by partners in Mount Kenya East who aim at conserving the entire Tana River catchment in central Kenya.

A reviewer from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was in Kenya recently to find out exactly how payments for watershed services could work in such a programme.

Ms Bernadette Neves held exploratory discussions with the PRESA and Green Water Credits teams in Nairobi. She also met officers of the Mount Kenya East Pilot Programme for Natural Resource Management (MKEPP) in Embu.

During her trip, Ms Neves met Kenya government officials and visited local communities in various parts of the Upper Tana catchment.

The Tana is Kenya’s largest river. Apart from providing water to homes, small scale and large scale farms and industry, the Tana drives a series of state-owned hydro electric stations providing more than half of the country’s electricity needs. Therefore, the sustainable management of the watershed area is crucial for adequate, clean water supplies throughout the year.

PRESA, MKEPP and Green Water Credits are already working with communities in Mount Kenya East to conserve the watershed function of the land. These partner organizations are now interested in expanding from Mount Kenya East to cover Mount Kenya west, south and the Aberdare Mountains.

While in Nairobi, Ms Neves visited the Equity Bank headquarters, where she learnt that the bank can join a scheme in which it offers small loans to farmers that agree to implement specific land conservation measures. In the initial phase of such a project, the bank insists on a credit guarantee to shield itself from possible losses by loan defaulters. However, if the loans issued in the first phase are recovered, then a credit guarantee is no longer necessary.

Micro-credit is viewed as a sustainable means of paying for watershed protection compared to cash handouts, whose sources inevitably get exhausted.

During her week-long tour, Ms Neves was accompanied by Delia Catacutan of the World Agroforestry Centre and Dr. Boro Gakuo of Green Water Credits. Meetings with communities in the Tana catchment were organized by officials of the Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA) based in Embu and Kerugoya.

Research work by PRESA and its partners – key findings

The PRESA project is halfway through its life as of August 2010. We have received many inquiries on what PRESA is doing at its sites.

Since inception, PRESA has conducted baseline analysis, socio-economic surveys and assessments of potential environmental services. The surveys were done with the help of site partners and student researchers. This article is a summary of the key findings of that work from the following sites:

• Uganda
• Nyando and Yala river basins
• Upper Tana
• Sasumua

Read the research findings by clicking here >>

Preparing ground for publicly funded ecosystem restoration

Agricultural and industrial activities are polluting Lake Victoria with vast amounts of soil and chemicals. Since fishing is a major business in the lake, interventions that mitigate soil erosion and pollution in river basins are necessary to secure the future of the fishing industry and thus, the livelihoods of millions of people.

The PRESA project is focusing on the Nyando and Yala river basins whose catchments are the cause of the problems mentioned above.

By using reward or transfer schemes for environmental services, PRESA partners intend to connect groups that depend on the lake with groups whose activities influence the lake’s health.

PRESA is currently building the case for a publicly funded reward for environmental services scheme for ecosystem restoration. This is based on a quick appraisal of rewards for environmental service mechanisms. Publicly-funded payments and markets for improved watershed management or ecosystem restoration would mean that farmers will potentially be rewarded for good land management and would therefore get an alternative income stream.

Scoping the potential of ‘rewards for environmental services’ in the Usambara Mountains of Tanzania

The Usambara Mountains are an important source of water for north eastern Tanzania. The towns of Lushoto, Mombo, Korogwe, Muheza and Tanga rely on water from the Usambara Mountains. The Pangani River, which flows from Mt Kilimanjaro, receives significant inflows from the Usambaras. The river is used for irrigating farms and powering a series of hydro electric stations.

Deforestation, poor land management practices and inadequate funds for watershed management pose a threat to the long term supply of quality water from the Usambaras to downstream communities. The direct adverse impacts are immediately seen in agricultural production, municipal water supply and hydropower generation.

The PRESA project is working with site partners to link upland farming communities with urban water utilities, hydro-power generators and downstream agricultural producers. This will result in greater co-operation for restoring and sustaining a healthy catchment ecosystem.

PRESA’s main partner in the Usambaras is the Selian Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) working closely with the African Highlands Initiative (AHI).

Read more about this story here >>

Advocating policy actions for the Fouta Djallon ecosystem

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.

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.

In 2009, PRESA forged collaborative links with the Centre for Environmental studies (CÉRE) at the Conakry University. From this collaboration, a senior researcher was detailed to provide support to PRESA activities.

Using protocols developed in other sites, a scoping study was undertaken with CÉRE.

Click here to read more from the Guinea site.