RUPES: a step forward

The Rewarding Upland Poor for Environmental Services Program is testing mechanisms to reward the upland poor for the environmental services they provide at a number of sites across Asia. Four years since its commencement, the program has learned numerous lessons in establishing payment for environmental services mechanisms in developing countries with particular emphasis on the upland poor as beneficiaries. A market-based approach for environmental services with potential funding from private sectors delineated the first establishment of this program. As the program has progressed, constraints on operating ‘pure’ payments for environmental services have appeared. This leads to a question of whether or not the market-based system for financing environmental conservation in developing countries will actually benefit the poor or be applicable and effective in the context of Asian developing countries. This paper introduces four approaches that describe the different conditions exercised by two contrasting methods – a market-based payment for environmental services and non- market-based system, in this case, Integrated Conservation and Development Program – in achieving the dual goal of environmental conservation and development. Supported by recent publications by notable authors on payments for environmental services issues, this paper will briefly show the shift of RUPES basic assumptions as a result of lessons leaned from RUPES action research sites and its research. Positioning RUPES and its next step will support the progressive development of a pro-poor payments for environmental services concept in the tropics.

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