1. Propoor Rewards for Environmental Services
In Africa (PRESA)
Brent Swallow and Thomas Yatich
6 October 2006

2. Seminar Objectives and Outline
Our objectives:
Build a broader community of interest within ICRAF around propoor
rewards for environmental services in Africa for:
1. identifying opportunities to link to existing projects
2. strengthening the technical and livelihood components of
“PRESA” activities
3. Identifying opportunities for more integrated projects in the future
that match / take advantage of the complexity of PRESA

3. Outline
1. Background
2. What are the interests for ICRAF?
3. How we use RUPES as the base for an African project
4. Overview of PRESA
5. Opportunities to link with other ICRAF projects

4. Background from CES scoping study
Increasing interest in “payments for ecosystem services”
• Costa Rica forestry case (expanded and replicated in several
countries in Meso America) – a Government programme for
environmental management through financial incentives
• Catskills watershed and New York City case (replicated in several
sites in Latin America and now moving to Africa) – a public to
collective programme
• Biodiversity offset programmes in the United States – a
government programme for efficient environmental management
through tradeable conservation commitments
• Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol (voluntary
equivalents in carbon sequestration projects; interest in other
MEAs (eg Ramsar, CMS, CBD); interest in avoided deforestation)

5. Growing interest in propoor PES for Africa
• Project experience with community-based ecotourism and green labelling
• IFAD support for ICRAF-led project on “Rewarding the poor of Asia for
environmental services (RUPES)” – and extension to Africa
• Ford Foundation linking Indonesia, Kenya & South African experiences in PES
• GEF and World Bank projects on PES (mostly in Latin America)
• WWF / CARE / IIED Programme on Environmental Services
• IUCN partnerships on conservation finance (mostly Asia)
• IISD Development Dividend Task Force; UNDP’s MDG Carbon; WWF
• Katoomba Group meeting for East & Southern Africa (Oct 2005 & Nov
2006). Forest Trends new $6 million GEF project on strengthening capacity.
• UNEP high-level workshop on Pro-poor markets for ecosystem services, plus
followup work on MDG / MEA interface (Nov 2005); UNEP / IUCN / CBD
workshop on international payments for ecosystem services (Sept 06)
• IDRC -- scoping study of Compensation for Ecosystem Services – ICRAF,
Forest Trends, IUCN, CGRR (Ecuador), ISEC (India), ACTS (Kenya

6. Definitions and concepts
Payments for environmental services”: 1) well defined service, 2)
voluntary transaction 3) conditioned on provision of the service or
land use likely to produce the service, 4) minimally comprising one
buyer and 5) one seller (Wunder).
But controversy, question and confusion …
… few pure PES schemes in existence, although several PES-like
schemes (conditionality as a critical gap)
… unclear how to really engage the private sector
… transaction costs may bias toward relatively wealthy people,
… loss of sovereignty (Ecuador Amazon peoples),
… compensation for damage versus rewards for action
… little evidence of the CDM working in Africa
… targeting payments for efficiency and impact
… different types of rewards including monetary, property rights,
public services, alternative enterprises
… different perspectives on payments / rewards for environmental
services

7. Background
Planning perspectives:
• Wildlife conservation -- conservation finance
• environmental management – incentives + regulation (beyond
ICDPs)
• economic planner – more flexible tools for efficiency
• environmental benefits of investments undertaken for other
purposes (eg Working for Water)
• poverty reduction – new stream of income for the rural poor
Social justice perspective:
• rural empowerment – redress social inequities
• threat to rights of already disadvantaged indigenous peoples
• peace and justice – way to manage conflicts over resource use
and benefit sharing

8. Background
Business perspectives:
redressing damage, CRS, complying with regulations,
maintaining sustainable supply
Farmers’ perspectives:
achieve recognition of the legitimacy of land use, enhance
access to government programme, generate a new source of
revenue for a defined service

9. ICRAF and propoor rewards
Why ICRAF?
1. The dominant regulatory approaches to land management focus on
segregation of land uses, with intensive land uses walled off from
protected areas and forests  no place for agroforestry.
2. ASB and other studies show that agroforestry systems that integrate trees
into landscape mosaics often generate good levels of environmental
services and livelihood benefits. Other ICRAF studies clarify cause and
effect relations.
3. Rewards for environmental services can provide extra incentives to
farmers maintain agroforestry land uses particularly useful to
environmental objectives.
4. Combinations of recognition, regulation and rewards will be appropriate in
different contexts.
5. Agroforestry as a nice entry into a complex problem.
6. ICRAF already established as a global leader and the RUPES as a brand.

10. PRESA: Building upon RUPES
Strengths: Weaknesses:
• Network of sites • sites unevenly
• Nested scale distributed across Asia
approach • too long to get to
• Tools and approaches working mechanisms in
• Better recognition of sites
smallholder farmers in • did not link to similar
sites initiatives in the region
• Country-level uptake • inadequate links to
and ownership IFAD loan projects

11. PRESA Objectives
1. Site-level engagement- scope, establish and monitor pro-poor
rewards for ecosystem services
2. Policy and private- sector engagement-facilitate information
exchange and negotiations among key stakeholders
3. Community of practice- support the sharing and sharing of
assessment tools, methodologies and mechanisms among a
community of practice

12. PRESA site-level activities:
1. Develop and adapt assessment methods and approaches from
RUPES
2. Appraise causal links between RES, incentives, resource use,
institutions and environmental services.
3. Determine appropriate targets for enhancing environmental services
and livelihoods.
4. Develop institutions to support reward mechanisms that are
effective, equitable and sensitive to the needs of marginalized
groups.
5. Develop and test prototype reward mechanisms.
6. Establish, implement and facilitate operational reward mechanisms.
7. Monitor, evaluate and assess impacts.

13. PRESA policy activities:
1. Conduct a survey of private and parastatal firms to determine
factors motivating and constraining their participation in RES
2. Evaluate the business case for rewards from perspectives of private
sector, parastatals and beneficiaries of watershed services.
3. Review and synthesize site-level results for policy.
4. Identify policy factors that constrain the business case for rewards
and convene consultations among stakeholders.
5. Present results at international fora.

14. PRESA community of practice
1. Disseminate and adapt RUPES Technical Advisory Notes
2. Support application of tools, methodologies and mechanisms
among a community of practice
3. Establish relations with international, regional and national
organizations interested in RES
4. Convene side events at Katoomba Africa or other relevant
international meetings

15. Criteria for site selection
• High probability of a workable reward scheme for
environmental services;
• Geographical priorities of IFAD or regions of its
investment projects;
• Geographical interests of partners;
• Environmental services of interest to agroforestry
and IFAD
• ICRAF’s ongoing or active research programs

16. PRESA core sites
Sites Environmental Possible reward mechanism Collaborators
Services) in
focus
Kasyoha- Bundling Financial payments, input support and extension services WWF-EARPO
Kitomi forest in exchange for carbon sequestration. Ecotrust,
forest ecosystem Nature
landscape services Restricted access to forest reserve resources in exchange Uganda,,
(Uganda) for the protection, restoration and ”co-management” of ICRAF
Biodiversity and landscape level resources
Uluguru Bundling Financial payments, input support, and extension CARE-
Mountains forest services in exchange for improved watershed Tanzania,
(Tanzania) Ecosystem management; TFCG, IIED,
services Financial payments, input support and extension WWF and
services in exchange for carbon sequestration; ICRAF
Restricted access to forest reserve resources in exchange
for the protection, restoration and ”co-
management” of biodiversity

17. PRESA core sites (cont’d)
Sites Environmental Possible reward mechanism Collaborators
Services) in
focus
Mt. Kenya Regular supply Conditional rewards for adoption of Line ministries,
East of clean water better-farming practices leading to KWS, Forest
Catchment for urban, reduced soil erosion, sediments in Department,
(Kenya) domestic, downstream dams and improved MKEPP-NRM,
irrigation, production UNOPS, GEF,
hydropower Katoomba
production and Group
downstream
uses
Conservation Primate Support for tree and forest-based CIFOR,
of Fouta conservation, enterprises in exchange for biodiversity USAID,
Djallon tree diversity and watershed conservation and build Local
highlands conservation, rural communities capacity for government,
(Guinea) and watershed agricultural production
protection

18. PRESA associate sites
Environmental Services) in focus Possible reward mechanism Collaborators
Lake Land restoration for enhancing soil Carbon offsets through either KARI
Victoria fertility, restoring watershed function voluntary or CDM market
Basin biodiversity and carbon sequestration
Aberdares Regular supply of clean water Financial payments, input NCWSC, JKUAT
NCWSC downstream and urban squatter support, and community forest
(Kenya) settlements & biodiversity conservation groups in exchange for
restoration of gazetted forests
Allanblackia Landscape level tree diversity in multi- Financial payments for planting ICRAF, Unilever,
project sites functional landscapes adjacent to and maintaining diverse tree IUCN, NARIs,
in Tanzania protected areas stands on farm SNV, TFCG
Western Biodiversity conservation; watershed Support for community and ASARECA, AHI,
Usambara protection (large drylands in valleys district-level negotiations over Ministries of NR
(Tanzania) supported by Usambara Mountains) NRM, processes for small-scale and Tourism,
irrigation; extension support agriculture, Water
Indigenous tree species; co- and TAFORI
Management of protected
areas; conditional water,
biodiversity, carbon payments.

19. Opportunities for linking to other
ICRAF activities in Africa
• Western Kenya Integrated Ecosystems Management Project
• Allanblackia project
• land degradation and carbon stock / carbon sequestration
assessments
• hydrologic and ecosystem modelling for targeting
• Joint CIFOR / ICRAF biodiversity unit
• ….

20. Conclusions
1. IFAD’s Executive Board reviewed the PRESA proposal yesterday
2. Aberdares / Nairobi water project looks to be on track
3. UNEP project on potential for using reward mechanisms in the
Lake Victoria basin is on track
4. Opportunities to link to other ICRAF projects, recognizing that
not all sites are appropriate

21. Conceptual Foundations
1. Compensation for environmental services – “polluter pays” for
damage that they inflict on others
2. Rewards for environmental services – “beneficiary pays” an
ecosystem resident who foregoes legitimate uses of the ecosystem
or undertakes positive investment in the ecosystem services
3. Markets for ecosystem services also refer to tradeable pollution
or tradeable resource use rights
4. The regulatory environment and distribution of rights define the
baseline viz rewards and compensation.