Investing in landscape stewardship: rewarding upland communities in Indonesia for river care

Probably, few people living in the lowlands of the Indonesian island of Sumatra realize that the reliability of their hydroelectric power supply depends on the actions of communities living upstream. If the upland areas are managed unsustainably, increased sedimentation caused by soil erosion may clog up the power generating turbines. This problem is aggravated by farmers increasingly moving into more profitable, but environmentally less sustainable, monocultures of rubber or coffee that cause more erosion. How can this process be reversed World Agroforestry Centre scientists decided to look at ways of rewarding the people living in the area for the environmental services they provide. In collaboration with the Hydroelectric Company they set up an experiment to reward poor communities living in the upland areas for environmental services, as part of an international programme called RUPES. (Rewards for, Use of and shared investments on Pro-poor Environmental Services). The aim was to reduce the sediment flows in the river, while building local capacity and emphasizing reciprocity. The project agreed with the community on a performance based contract for river care. The researchers helped to analyse where the sediment originated from and the partners jointly established how to monitor progress. But local communities were allowed to decide on the best way of achieving the sediment reduction goal. They started by repairing collapsed riverbanks that caused soil to flow into the river and reduce erosion in coffee plots. After one year the river was cleaner and the hydroelectric company rewarded the community with a small- scale hydroelectric installation to provide power for the local community. The pilot project was later selected as a ‘best practice’ for a United Nations environmental programme in Indonesia.

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