Criteria and mechanism for rewarding upland poor for the environmental services they provide

As agriculture evolves from a pure production focus to considerations of the multifunctionality of the rural landscape, the rationale and possible mechanisms need attention for internalizing the environmental services that have largely remains externalities in the dominant decision process. While this discussion in developed countries is politically linked to the acceptability of 'agricultural; subsidies', the concerns in the developing countries are directly linked to poverty reduction and millenium development goals. This paper derives from an effort to synthesize current experience across the developing world of what is broadly described as compensation and rewards for environmental services (CRES), and is focussed on criteria and indicators, and typologies of situations. Two main classes and four main criteria were formu-lated. The first class relates to the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of the CRES institutions, with the environmental services as the primary target and criteria that relate to three questions (Would rewards be realistic Will they be voluntary What conditionality will apply) that predominate in the scoping, stakeholder analysis and negotiation + implementation stages, respectively). The second class is aimed at the equity dimension with also three main questions (Is poverty linked to ES issues Who is/will be excluded Are the rewards 'pro-poor') for the three stages. A total of 12 sub-criteria with a range of possible indicators is proposed within the overall headings of realistic, con-ditional, voluntary and pro-poor. A number of prototypes have been recognized for ES reward mechanisms and experience is currently obtained as part of the RUPES project (Mechanism for Rewarding Upland Poor for the Environmental Services they Provide). *) This paper is in large sections derived from a draft 'Issue paper' Criteria and indicators for ecosystem service reward and compensation mechanisms: realistic, voluntary, conditional and pro-poor prepared as part of a scoping study for IDRC's future programmatic investment in the Poverty & Environment domain; comments are welcome in this stage, but for quotation please refer to the final text.

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