Principles for Fairness and Efficiency in Enhancing Environmental Services in Asia: Payments, Compensation, or Co-Investment?

The term payments for environmental services (PES) has rapidly gained popularity, with its focus on market-based mechanisms for enhancing environmental services (ES). Current use of the term, however, covers a broad spectrum of interactions between ES suppliers and beneficiaries. A broader class of mechanisms pursues ES enhancement through compensation or rewards. Such mechanisms can be analyzed on the basis of how they meet four conditions: realistic, conditional, voluntary, and pro-poor. Based on our action research in Asia in the Rewarding Upland Poor for Environmental Services (RUPES) program since 2002, we examine three paradigms: commoditized ES (CES), compensation for opportunities skipped (COS), and co-investment in (environmental) stewardship (CIS). Among the RUPES action research sites, there are several examples of CIS with a focus on assets (natural + human + social capital) that can be expected to provide future flows of ES. CES, equivalent to a strict definition of PES, may represent an abstraction rather than a current reality. COS is a challenge when the legality of opportunities to reduce ES is contested. The primary difference between CES, COS, and CIS is the way in which conditionality is achieved, with additional variation in the scale (individual, household, or community) at which the voluntary principle takes shape. CIS approaches have the greatest opportunity to be pro-poor, as both CES and COS presuppose property rights that the rural poor often do not have. CIS requires and reinforces trust building after initial conflicts over the consequences of resource use on ES have been clarified and a realistic joint appraisal is obtained. CIS will often be part of a multiscale approach to the regeneration and survival of natural capital, alongside respect and appreciation for the guardians and stewards of landscapes

Sustainable Palm Oil: Dissecting a Global Debate

Palm oil expansion in tropical forest margins captures headlines, primarily out of concern that encroachment to tropical forest causes environmental problem and ignites social issues [1]. Sustainability has to be understood in the wider context of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), rather than as primarily a plot-level ecological concern about persistence of production, to make sense of the debate that has become a very polarized and find ways forward. Cascading ecological and social issues have caused a loss of trust, (threats of) consumer boycotts and multiple standards and certification responses. Diverse sustainability issues have come up as part of a public issue-attention cycle with five recognisable stages [2]: A) Agenda setting, B) Better and widely shared understanding of what is at stake, C) Commitment to common principles, D) Details of devils derailing operations, devolved to (newly created or existing) formal institutions that handle implementation and associated budgets, and E) Efforts to monitor and evaluate effects. In Indonesia two phases of new establishment of palm oil coexist within a forest transition gradient: (i) (industry-led) expansion into new forest margins with many social and ecological consequences; and (ii) (often farmer-led) conversion of existing agroforestry and tree crop (often rubber-based) or pasture economies in mosaic landscapes. External consumer concerns refer to the expansion phase, rather than to production sustainability or issues of smallholder concern. However, certification standards are only partially adjusted to the latter. After a 'voluntary industry standards' phase of differentiation with and shifting blame to non-certified others [3], government involvement in Malaysia and Indonesia suggests that standards and certification can trickle down to enforceable good practice standards for all. This can learn from past ineffective policies that did not address the real issues in local context [4]. On the other hand, subnational jurisdictional entities are the scale at which oil palm production can be balanced with other goals, such as forest conservation and smallholder welfare. This needs a supportive and clear national policy support that combines clarity on forest protection (as in the now permanent moratorium), with support for risk-reducing diversified smallholder oil palm production systems [5,6] and international communication that acknowledges past problems but shows Indonesia is ready to move on, connecting all the dots of sustainable development goals.</p

The effects of scales, flows and filters on property rights and collective action in watershed management:

Research and policy on property rights, collective action and watershed management requires good understanding of ecological and socio-political processes at different social-spatial scales. On-farm soil erosion is a plot or farm-level problem that can be mitigated through more secure property rights for individual farmers, while the sedimentation of streams and deterioration of water quality are larger-scale problems that may require more effective collective action and / or more secure property rights at the village or catchment scale. Differences in social-political contexts across nations and regions also shape property rights and collective action institutions. For example, circumstances in the Lake Victoria basin in East Africa require particular attention to collective action and property rights problems in specific “hot spot” areas where insecure tenure leads to overuse or under-investment. Circumstances in the uplands of Southeast Asia require analysis of the opportunities for negotiating more secure rights for farmers in exchange for stronger collective action by farmer groups for maintaining essential watershed functions.

Crop yield, C and N balance of three types of cropping systems on an Ultisol in Northern Lampung

AbstractThree types of cropping systems, cassava-based intercropping, hedgerow intercropping and legume cover crop rotations, were evaluated in 1994–1997 in Northern Lampung, Sumatra. The purpose of this experiment was to quantify the C and N flows returned within and transported out of plots and crop yields of different cropping systems.Cassava-based systems were not stable and yields declined over time. Intercropping cassava with rice increased cassava fresh tuber weight by 5–48% compared to the monocrop-ping system. The hedgerow intercropping gave lower maize, rice, groundnut and cowpea yields than could be obtained in a crop rotation with legume cover crops. Maize grain yields in the 80–20 rice/maize mixture were about 0.4 Mg ha−1 in the rice — groundnut rotation and about half as much when intercropped with cassava or hedgerows. Rice yields intercropped with cassava or with hedgerows were about 1 Mg ha−1 less in year 2 and 3 than those grown in rotation with groundnut. The rice yield in the first cropping season was only about 1 Mg ha−1, but in the second and third year yields in the rice — legume rotation increased to around 2 and around 3 Mg ha−1, respectively. This increase occurred despite a decline in soil organic matter content.The cassava-based systems removed much more C (7 Mg ha−1 yr-1) than the other systems, while less was returned (about 0.5–2 Mg ha−1) to the soil. In the hedgerow intercropping system about 2.5 Mg C ha−1 yr−1 was returned to the plot as biomass pruning and crop residues and about 1.5 Mg C ha−1 yr−1 was removed from the plot as yield. In the cover crop rotation 2.6 Mg ha−1 yr−1 of C was returned to the plot as crop residues plus Mucuna (only the 2nd year) and Cowpea biomass, and about 1.1 Mg ha−1 yr−1 was removed from the plot. The hedgerow intercropping systems gave an N surplus of about 15–50 kg ha−1 yr−1 returned to the soil; while the balance was 10–20 kg ha−1 yr−1 for the cover crop rotation systems and the cassava-based systems showed a negative N budget of about 60 kg ha−1 yr−1