Payment for ecosystem services pilot project in Lake Naivasha, Kenya: equitable payment for watershed services scheme in Naivasha

Abstract

Context: The need to reduce sediment load in rivers is linked with livelihood improvements in the upper catchment of Navaisha Lake. Hydrological studies are carried out to determine most seriously degraded areas with highest amount of silt load. The project addresses siltation as a result of unsustainable land-use practices. Researchers worked with smallholders to design a business case in order to change current practices in a feasible manner. The costs and opportunity costs of conservation interventions to the farmer were considered alongside the ability to recover those costs over time. The farmers are rewarded for planting trees and changing upper catchment practices by downstream beneficiaries. Women and children do the majority of family agriculture therefore the project considered innovative benefit-sharing to extend benefits to the family.

Interface: Researchers, members of local water associations and farmers were brought together in this project to define the parameters and conditions of appropriate and relevant soil and water conservation measures and the business case and financing measures needed for implementation. Community members were identified through the local water association, helping to identify degraded farms/sites, mapping farms, selecting soil and water conservation methods presented from options. Local farmers, including women, from the upper catchment were invited to join the scheme and the decision-making provided they were willing to undertake innovations proposed.

Learning: Farmers required practical training in order to track the benefits associated with changing practices. This training included record- keeping on crop types, yields, inputs, sales and overall water and soil management strategies.

Women were included in decisions with men, about crops to be grown, fodder crops for livestock and contributed insights about how to increase in-situ benefits. For instance, instead of growing trees, it was decided that fruit trees would be grown near the homesteads, becoming an additional crop for the household and the market.

It was agreed, by both men and women, that vouchers would be used, rather than cash, in order to prevent discretionary spending by the men of the households and to promote broader household and farm benefits. The vouchers paid for by downstream beneficiaries and are redeemable for agricultural supplies, including access to good seeds that can be used both for food security and agricultural production.

Channel: Farmer-to-farmer learning was encouraged through site visits.

ICRAF is now participating with WWF in another PES scheme in the Kana watershed. This partnership development will ensure that farmers get the ideal seeds for their bio-ecological zones and accounting for possible extreme climatic conditions (wet/dry).

There is a hope that inclusion of ICRAF and national-scale partners, will build these pilots into a national program.

Outcome: Initially farmers were not convinced they needed to make changes. Now different households are experiencing different benefits, including increased agricultural productivity, better fodder contributing to greater milk supply in cows, and additional funds to pay school fees for their children.

Farmers are performing their own on-farm accounting, making adjustments to inputs and outputs where necessary and are now supplementing the data for researchers by doing their own water monitoring.