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Vol. 2, No. 7: October 19, 2007
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The Ecosystem Marketplace's Community Forum
Connecting people to ecosystem markets
Welcome to the Community Forum, a newsletter dedicated to providing information on community-based payment for ecosystem services from around the world!
In this issue of the Community Forum, we take a look at three organizations from Europe, Eastern and Southern Africa and India that are using scientific research to develop, support and evaluate payment for ecosystem services projects. We also focus on a program from Mexico that has developed a host of different payment for ecosystem services schemes to support integrated conservation and development projects in the buffer zone of a national park. In our Profile section we hear from Philip Fearnside, one of the originators of the “ecosystem services” concept, and in our Viewpoint section, Enrique Inatoy tells us why he thinks indigenous people should have greater control of ecotourism ventures developed in their territories. Finally, in our Resources and Tools section, we review two new websites and a downloadable radio show that should be of great interest to all of us involved in community-based payments for ecosystem services.
We hope you enjoy this edition of the Community Forum! If you do, please forward it to friends and colleagues. We want to be able to share this forum with the many people around the globe who are involved in community-based payment for ecosystem services.
– Elizabeth Shapiro, Community Forum
For comments or questions, please email: communityforum@ecosystemmarketplace.com
Sign up to receive the Community Forum on a regular basis
To sign up to receive the Katoomba Group newsletter on payment for ecosystem services in Tropical America please e-mail Rachel Miller.
To sign up to receive the Katoomba Group newsletter on payment for ecosystem services in East & Southern Africa, please e-mail Alice Ruhweza.
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Africa - The State of Play: Payments for Ecosystem Services in East and Southern Africa
by Alice Ruhweza and Sissel Waage
Over the past two years, the non-profit organization Forest Trends has commissioned a series of country-level inventories of payments for ecosystem services (PES) in select East and Southern African nations. These inventories were designed to highlight the gaps that must be addressed in order to expand PES in the region. One of the most important findings is that ecosystem service payments and environmental markets are already widespread in East and Southern Africa. The study found PES programs currently operating in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Africa. The report catalogues no fewer than 17 carbon projects, 18 biodiversity projects and 10 water projects. Money has already exchanged hands in 5 carbon projects, 2 biodiversity projects and 2 water projects. In addition, there are several projects that are already offering non-monetary compensation, especially in the case of biodiversity-based projects. Read the full report for more specific information on the PES projects, how they have been developed and how they are functioning.
Contact: Alice Ruhweza
– Read the Ecosystem Marketplace summary
– Download the full report (pdf)
Europe – European Union Funds “Tool Kit” for Development of CDM Carbon Offset Projects
As of 2001, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming allowed afforestation and reforestation projects as valid and fundable means of “offsetting” greenhouse gases produced elsewhere. Unfortunately, the application process for these types of CDM projects is both complicated and costly and because of this very few have been approved. The cost and complexity of the process is so great, in fact, that it puts forest-based CDM projects out of reach of the budgets and technical capabilities of most rural communities. In response to this problem, Europe AID, the European Union’s international development assistance agency, sponsored a program to develop a framework for these types of CDM projects that is favorable and “user friendly” for communities. The program, called ENCOFOR (ENvironment and COmmunity based framework for designing afFORestation, reforestation and revegetation projects in the CDM: methodology development and case studies), is currently being tested with some success at sites in Uganda, Kenya, Bolivia and Ecuador. For more information on the project and tools they have developed, see the following websites:
– ENCOFOR website
– View ENCOFOR tools
Europa – La Unión Europea Provea Fondos para una "Caja de Herramientas" para Desarrollar Proyectos de Captura de Carbono Tipo MDL
Desde 2001, el Mecanismo de Desarrollo Limpio (MDL) del Protocolo de Kioto sobre calentamiento global ha definido que proyectos de forestación y reforestación son modos validos y con fondos financieros, por compensar los gases del efecto invernadero liberados por otros lugares. Desafortunadamente, el proceso de solicitación por estas clases de proyectos MDL es tan complejo y costoso que pocos fueron aprobados. El costo y complejidad del proceso es tan grande que la mayoría de comunidades rurales no tienen los fondos ni la capacidad técnica para alcanzarlos. Como respuesta a este problema, Europa AID, la agencia de la Unión Europea de asistencia internacional, ha patrocinado un programa para desarrollar un sistema para estas clases de proyectos de CDM que son favorable y más fácil para comunidades. El programa, que se llama ENCOFOR, actualmente está siendo probado con alguno de éxito en sitios dentro de Uganda, Kenia, Bolivia y Ecuador. Para más información sobre el proyecto de ENCOFOR, el sistema y herramientas que ellos han desarrollados, busque en el siguiente sitio de internet.
– Sitio web ENCOFOR
India - Non-Profit Organization Combines Research with Community Development
The Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), established in 1996, works to curtail the rapid loss of India's biological resources and natural ecosystems, and to address the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of this decline. They combine research on the social and natural aspects of environmental issues with community development projects in the areas they study. In a number of these communities they have established programs to produce non-timber forest products as alternative income sources to harvesting firewood or lumber. This integrated approach – research and community development – is very evident in their recently published book entitled "Hydrology and Watershed Services in the Western Ghats: Effects of Land-cover and Land-use change." It unites studies from a number of disciplines on the effects of land-use change on the production of hydrological services in the mountainous Ghatts region of western India. ATREE presents an example of the kind of integrated approach necessary to develop successful payment for ecosystem services programs: first research the production of environmental services and then help the communities that manage the land on which they are produced to protect and market them.
Contact: Dr. Jagdish Krishnaswamy
– Read the full article on ATREE's programs
– ATREE website
Mexico - Rainforest-2-Reef Helps Bring Back the Rightful Stewards of the Calakmul Reserve
The Rainforest-2-Reef program in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico finds many ways to use payment for ecosystem services to promote sustainable development in the buffer zones of the Calakmul National Park. The first is a very well-established ecotourism program. The non-profit organization has partnered with the tourism operator, EcoColors, based in the tourist center of Cancun. USD $300 from every eco-tour reservation goes as a donation to Rainforest-2-Reef. More recently, the NGO developed a program in which individual donors can, with just a click of a mouse, pay to protect a hectare of rainforest or buy carbon offset credits. The money raised is used to "lease" this forest land for conservation from the owners of the land in the buffer zone or to pay them to participate in conservation activities such as reforestation projects. Rainforest-2-Reef also works with the Mayan indigenous group that are the legal and traditional owners of part of the Calakmul National Park buffer zone to reclaim and restore their land after being pushed out by settlers who migrated into the region and cleared it for farming.
Contact: Heliot Zarza, Program manager
– Rainforest-2-Reef website
– EcoColors ecotourism website
– View a video on a Rainforest-2-Reef reforestation project
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Phillip Fearnside, Climate Change Thinker
How did the idea of environmental services spring into being? Dr. Phillip Fearnside was one of the people to bring the concept that we rely directly on the healthy functioning of ecosystems to the attention of the world at large. He worked for over thirty years in the Amazon region of Brazil and was one of the early researchers to make the connection between deforestation in the tropics and global warming. Most recently, he has become one of the most outspoken supporters of allowing avoided deforestation to be credited as a legitimate form of carbon sequestration under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism. Dr. Fearnside continues to work to promote the concept of our reliance on the products and services of healthy ecosystems. As he says in the interview linked below, "My research is organized around making the value of the environmental services of tropical forests into a practical alternative to the current destructive economy." Read the full interview for more of Dr. Fearnside’s insights on the steps we need to take in order to promote the idea of ecosystem services to the world.
– Read an interview with Phillip Fearnside
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Why Indigenous Peoples Should Have Autonomous Management of Ecotourism Projects
In this interview by Nuria Bolaños of Rainforest Alliance, Enrique Inatoy, Director of the Foundation for the Promotion of Indigenous Knowledge, Panama, discusses the importance of ensuring that indigenous people are allowed control over tourism developed within their territory. Indigenous people often suffer from the erosion of their culture and their environment that comes with the influx of tourism, but most receive little of the benefit. The Kuna of eastern Panama are known for not having much patience with this type of imposition – in the 1970s, and up into the 1990s, they consistently kicked out external tourist operators who tried to develop in their territory without permission. Unfortunately, they were also barraged with yacht and cruise ship tourism which is much more difficult to control. Inatoy’s organization collaborated with the Kuna to develop a sustainable plan for the growing tourism trade in the area that is adapted to their cultural laws and traditions and also serves to limit environmental impact. Read the full interview to find out how.
– Read the full interview
Los Grupos Indígenas Deben Manejar los Proyectos de Ecoturismo de Manera Autónomo
En esta entrevista hecha por Nuria Bolaños del Rainforest Alliance, Enrique Inatoy, director de la Fundación para la Promoción de Conocimiento Indígena, Panamá, habla de la importancia de asegurar que grupos indígenas puedan controlar los proyectos turísticos desarrollados dentro de sus territorios. Muchas veces los grupos indígenas sufren por la erosión de su cultura y su medio ambiente cuando llega el turismo, y normalmente reciben poco de los beneficios. Los Kuna del oriente de Panamá son conocidos por no permitieren este tipo de imposición – desde 1970 hasta los años de 1990s, ellos consistentemente expulsaron los negocios turísticos que intentaban establecerse dentro de su territorio sin permiso. Desafortunadamente, comenzó una inundación de turismo del tipo "yacht" o de crucero que son mucho más difíciles de controlar. La organización de Inatoy colaboró con los Kuna para desarrollar un plan sustentable para el negocio turístico en la región que es más adaptado a las leyes y tradiciones de su cultura y también funciona para limitar el impacto ambiental. Lea la entrevista completa para aprender más sobre este plan turístico.
– Link a la entrevista completa
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The Equator Net Listserv for Community-Based Biodiversity Initiatives
The Equator Net is an email based list serve of the UNDP Equator Initiative whose mission is to inform community-based organizations engaged in biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction about potential funding and development opportunities. The newsletter encourages dialogue between civil society, business, governments and communities to highlight and promote grassroots efforts that help improve local livelihoods through the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. By joining the free list serve, you receive emails on upcoming events, calls for proposals, best practices, and other relevant information targeted to the interests and needs of community-based organizations who work in the field of biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction. Contact Gaby Tobler to request to be added to the listserv.
– View the backlog of messages from the listserv
IIED Launches New Website on Payment for Watershed Services
The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has launched a new website that will be an invaluable resource for anyone involved in promoting water-based PES projects. Along with a searchable database of case studies on country-specific payment for watershed service programs, a number of very insightful reports that analyze the impact and effectiveness of these types of programs are also available for download. One particularly helpful component of the site is a glossary of the terms. Be sure to look on the "Resources" page for the contact information, organized by region, of organizations involved in PES throughout the world.
– IIED Watershed Markets website
Radio Program Makes Climate Change Politics Crystal Clear
Public Radio International has recently released the radio program "Feeling the Heat: The Global Politics of Climate Change" on their American Abroad Radio website that does a great to deal to clarify this very complex and confusing issue. The program first gives a short history of how climate change was discovered and some of the science behind what is happening and why. It then discusses the international politics behind the agreements, or lack of agreements, over climate change mitigation. Though the first segments are largely centered on the United State’s influence on climate change policy, the latter half takes a much broader look, including interviews with climate change policy makers and activists in India. You can access the program in multiple formats: by listening to it directly from the website; downloading it as a podcast; or downloading a transcript of the program in a pdf file format.
– Feeling the Heat radio program
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