Working Paper No. 06-07 August 2007
Watershed-based Payment
for Environmental Services in Asia
Authors:
Marjorie Huang and Shyam K. Upadhyaya, Winrock International
Prepared by:
Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative
Research Support Program (SANREM CRSP)
Office of International Research, Education, and Development (OIRED),
Virginia Tech
E-mail: oired@vt.edu
On the Web: www.oired.vt.edu
August 10, 2007
Acknowledgements:
The authors would like to give special thanks to the staff of the ICRAF-Southeast Asia
regional office that devoted time during the authors’ trip to Indonesia in May 2007 to
share their views and experiences in developing payment for environmental services
schemes in Asia. In particular, the authors would like to thank Meine van Noordwijk,
Beria Leimona, Fauzi Aunul, Bustanal Arifin, Suyanto, Andini Desita, and Yosi Tapjani,
and others for their technical and logistical support. The authors would also like to thank
Theo Dillaha, John Kerr, and Douglas Southgate for reviewing this assessment
internally.
Introduction
Across much of Asia, rapid transitions to market-based economies alongside
demographic changes are creating an increasingly high demand for watershed services.
In urban Asia alone, an estimated 700 million people lack adequate water supplies
emanating from upland areas (Dudley and Stolton, 2003). Traditional approaches to
watershed management have largely failed to reverse widespread watershed
degradation and protect the hydrological services they provide. Consequently, efficient
and effective watershed management approaches are being actively sought and/or
introduced.
The past few years have witnessed a surge of interest in the development of payments
for environmental services (PES) programs in Asia. A number of donor-driven scoping
assessments and action research pilot sites are underway – primarily in Indones