 |
Vol.
1, No. 4: October 31, 2006
|
The Ecosystem Marketplace's Community Forum
Connecting people to ecosystem markets
In this issue of the Community Forum, we feature four projects from around the world that challenge the definition of community-based payment for ecosystem services. Each varies a bit from the norm in either the kinds ecosystems included or in the type of compensation that is offered: from projects in Ecuador, the United States and Mozambique that recognize the value of services produced by natural and managed ecosystems other than forests to a project on the island of Java in Indonesia that offers access to land instead of direct payments. We have also chosen to profile a study from Costa Rica that employs ground breaking methods for valuing services provided by biodiversity. Two of the most difficult challenges of implementing community-based payments for ecosystem services can be to organize the many small producers and to link them to markets for the services they produce. In our Viewpoint and Resources & Tools sections, we summarize and provide links to two reports that provide valuable insights and resources for overcoming both of these difficult obstacles. We hope that you enjoy this issue of the Ecosystem Marketplace’s Community Forum!
See Your Project Featured in the Community Forum
Link the communities you work with to the community of people around the globe involved in implementing payment for ecosystem services projects. The Community Forum is looking for projects to feature in our Around the World section of the newsletter and on our website. Gain recognition for your project and join in a dialogue with others world wide by sending a short paragraph describing the project and some of the issues faced in implementing it to: communityforum@ecosystemmarketplace.com. We will then ask for a more detailed description from those projects we select to feature in the Community Forum.
– The Community Forum Team
For comments or questions, please email: communityforum@ecosystemmarketplace.com
|
|
|
|
Ecuador – Paying for Páramo Yields Water for Municipality
by Marta Echavarria, Joseph Vogel, Montserrat Albán and Fernanda Meneses
Until 2001, the citizens of the town of Pimampiro in northeastern Ecuador only received water service in their homes for two hours a day, two times a week. With the implementation of an innovative municipal program, water now flows much more freely from their taps. An important component of this program was a payment for ecosystem service project that pays members of an upstream farming cooperative for hydrological services rendered. The PES program is notable for the direct link created between downstream users with upstream producers, but also because it recognizes the ecosystem services of more than just forested land. Payments are also made for the conservation of a type of native, high altitude grassland called "páramo" for its role in producing greater quantities and better quality of water down stream. A report sponsored by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) on this and a similar program in the Ecuadorian town of Cuenca tells more.
– Link to Summary (pdf)
– Download the Full Report
Indonesia – Land Grants are Medicine for Poverty and Biodiversity
Meru Betiri National Park on the Island of Java is a place of incredible levels of biodiversity. A program started in 1996 attempted to help the communities surrounding the park benefit from that biodiversity by teaching them to grow in home gardens, process and sell some of the 330 species of medicinal plants in the region. However, the program was so successful that home gardens could no longer meet growing demand. Community members began to cross into the park to gather the plants they needed. Inevitably, this led to a further degradation of a park already hurt by illegal logging and encroachment by settlers. With help from a regional university and non-profit organization, community members and park administrators found a compromise. The park would grant land use rights for the buffer zones of the park to the communities. In turn, the communities would establish food producing agroforestry systems in the buffer zones that, as they matured, could be used to produce medicinal plants. With this program, community members will continue to have rights to the medicinal plants in the newly created forest in the buffer zone areas as long as they refrain from harvesting from within park boundaries. An added benefit, from the park managers’ perspective, is that as community members claim the buffer zone land as their own they also monitor and protect the park from loggers and other settlers.
– Link to Case Study on the Meru Betiri Project (pdf - see Appendix 1)
– Link to additional information on communities and natural resources
United States – Global Fowl Weather Can Bring Benefits to Farmers
One of the greatest challenges for farmers and small landowners who wish to sell the ecosystem services produced by their land is to make the necessary links with markets. In 2003, the non-profit organization, Ducks Unlimited, initiated the Carbon Sequestration Program for Landowners. The program serves as an intermediary between farmers and landowners who wish to conserve wetlands and associated habitat, like prairie grassland and bottomland hardwood forest, on their property with buyers of carbon produced on that land. The organization helps landowners to complete the initial baseline measure and monitor carbon sequestration, set-up conservation easements on their land, and then works to find buyers for the total carbon offsets produced by landowners in the program. Dick Kempka, the director of the Ducks Unlimited program, says that initially most carbon credits were purchased by utility companies and energy corporations, but more recently speculative investors (i.e. private equity and hedge funds) have expressed interest after watching the regulated carbon market in Europe grow rapidly. The Chicago Exchange’s recent decision to accept carbon offset credits produced by restoring seasonal wetlands is likely to stimulate interest in Ducks Unlimited's program even further. Currently the program is only available to landowners in the United States, but may be offered by affiliated Ducks Unlimited offices in Canada and Mexico in the future.
– Link to information about the Carbon Sequestration Program for Landowners
– Link to Website
Mozambique – Community Harvests Mangoes, Honey and Carbon Offset Credits from Park Buffer Zone
On the face of it, the Nhambitha Project appears remarkably similar to many other social forestry projects around the world. Funding is given to a community in the buffer zone of Gorongosa National Park to restore lands that have been degraded by war, illegal logging and overly intensive agricultural use. It is in fact notable that restoration plans include the planting of not only forest species but also of fruit trees and bee-fodder trees that will help restore the landscape as well as contributing to people’s livelihoods. However, the most remarkable innovation of this project is that it is funded in great part by the sale of carbon offset credits. The project is sponsored in part by Plan Vivo, which has worked to provide technical assistance and has served as a broker for similar community-based carbon sequestration projects in Mexico, India and Uganda.
– Link to project report
– Link to Plan Vivo website
– Link to Ecosystem Marketplace coverage
Costa Rica – The Buzz on Valuing Pollination Services for Biodiversity Conservation
by Taylor H. Ricketts, Gretchen C. Daily, Paul R. Ehrlich, and Charles D. Michener
Coffee is the fifth most valuable agricultural export from developing countries. It is also grown in some of the most biodiverse regions of the world. But when the habitat that houses that biodiversity is destroyed, coffee production can suffer. Forest fragments shelter the bees that are the primary pollinators of the coffee flower. But bees can’t fly far. Researchers have found that coffee production from one plantation in Costa Rica was 20% greater, and of higher quality, in areas within 1km of forest fragments than in areas farther away. They concluded that the pollinator services provided by having forest in close proximity to coffee plantations provided much greater economic return than what could be gained by the alternate uses if the forest were cleared, such as sugar cane production. Surprisingly, they also concluded that the pollination services provided by these forest fragments far exceeded the current value of the per hectare payment for ecosystem services program of the Costa Rican government. Both the message and the innovative methods of this study are good news for anyone interested in demonstrating the economic value of biodiversity!
– Link to research methods and in-depth results (pdf)
– Link to Marketplace report on PES program in Costa Rica
|
|
|
The Role of Collective Action and Property Rights in Pro-Poor Payment for Ecosystem Services
by Brent Swallow, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, and Meine van Noordwijk
Can the poor be successfully linked to markets for ecosystem services? A number of barriers exist, including the high transaction costs of marketing the services of many small producers and their often weak property rights over the land on which those services are produced. In this very thoughtful and clearly written Working Paper from CGIAR, the authors explore the roles of collective action and property rights in determining the conditions under which pro-poor payment for ecosystem service programs can be successfully implemented. They use these insights to make recommendations for how PES programs can be designed in order to effectively target poor resource managers.
– Link to the full report (pdf)
|
|
|
Exploring the Market for Voluntary Carbon Offsets
by Nadaa Taiyab
You know that the reforestation project you want to do will be taking carbon out the atmosphere and that there are people out there willing to pay for that service, but how do you connect the carbon that will be sequestered with buyers? One of the most difficult aspects of establishing a new PES program is to find markets for the ecosystem services produced by communities or conservation projects. This is especially true in the case of markets for carbon sequestration in which the buyer and sellers are often half the globe apart. In this very clear and well-researched report, Ms. Taiyab answers such questions as: where to find buyers of carbon credits; how much they are willing to pay; and the protocols available for verifying amount of carbon sequestered.
– Download the complete report
|
|
|
|
|
|
Know someone who might be interested in the Ecosystem Marketplace and this newsletter?
|
|
|
|
|
