Browsing by Author "Leimona, Beria"

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Can Rewards for Environmental Services Benefit the Poor? Lessons from Asia
(2009) Leimona, Beria; Joshi, Laxman; van Noordwijk, Meine
"Rewards for environmental services (RES) link global priorities on poverty reduction and environmental sustainability and are designed to balance effectiveness and efficiency with fairness and pro-poor characteristics. Yet, emerging RES approaches tend to focus primarily on the efficiency in provisioning the environmental services and often neglect the perspectives of various actors involved in natural resource management, their livelihood strategies and the multi-dimensional nature of poverty. This paper assesses some key issues associated with the design and implementation of RES in various Asian pilot sites by developing and exploring two propositions related to conditions required for RES to effectively contribute to poverty alleviation, and to preferred forms of pro-poor mechanisms. Our first proposition is that only under specific circumstances will actual cash incentives to individual RES participants contribute substantially to poverty alleviation in ES provider communities. The second proposition is that non-financial incentives to ES providers will contribute to reducing poverty by linking the community (participants and non-participants) to access to various types of capital (human, social, natural, physical and financial). A review of key ratios of relative numbers and wealth of service providers and beneficiaries supports the first proposition and rejects the notion of widespread potential for reducing upstream rural poverty through individual cash payments. Results of community focus group discussions support the second proposition through context-specific preferences for mechanisms by which RES can help trigger conditions for sustainable development."
The Conditions for Functional Mechanisms of Compensation and Reward for Environmental Services
(2010) Swallow, Brent M.; Leimona, Beria; Yatich, Thomas; Velarde, Sandra J.
"Mechanisms of compensation and reward for environmental services (CRES) are becoming increasingly contemplated as means for managing human–environment interactions. Most of the functional mechanisms in the tropics have been developed within the last 15 years; many developing countries still have had little experience with functional mechanisms. We consider the conditions that foster the origin and implementation of functional mechanisms. Deductive and inductive approaches are combined. Eight hypotheses are derived from theories of institution and policy change. Five case studies, from Latin America, Africa, and Asia, are then reviewed according to a common framework. The results suggest the following to be important conditions for functional CRES mechanisms: (1) localized scarcity for particular environmental services, (2) influence from international environmental agreements and international organizations, (3) government policies and public attitudes favoring a mixture of regulatory and market-based instruments, and (4) security of individual and group property rights."
Conflict, Cooperation, and Collective Action: Land Use, Water Rights, and Water Scarcity in Manupali Watershed, Southern Philippines
(2012) Piñon, Caroline; Catacutan, Delia; Leimona, Beria; Abasolo, Emma; van Noordwijk, Meine; Tiongco, Lydia
"Sustaining the environmental, social, and economic development in Manupali watershed in southern Philippines is highly dependent on equitable allocation of water use rights and judicious utilization of water as a scarce resource. There are many stakeholders and water users: smallholder farmers, indigenous people, multi-national companies, the local government, the National Irrigation Administration, and the National Power Corporation (Pulangui IV). As demand for water outstrips supply, conflict arises between different user groups over who can use water and how much each one can use. This paper reports initial results of an ongoing study that examines water rights and land use change to better negotiate for greater investment in watershed management. A key issue in Manupali is overall water scarcity, compounded by conflicting water rights of different users. To avoid hostile confrontation between different user groups and to manage competition of water use, some user groups have instituted voluntary agreements for water rights sharing. Viewed in terms of cooperation and collective action, these voluntary agreements facilitate conflict management of a disputed resource, but the fairness and equity of such agreements are in question, as the cooperating user groups extract benefits from non-cooperators who may have incurred the costs of protecting the upper watershed to maintain water supply. Supported by watershed hydrological data on water balance and its land use patterns, this paper argues that water rights sharing through voluntary agreements alone can only mediate short-term conflict but will not solve water scarcity in the longer term. The problems of water scarcity, allocation, and land use, require collective action beyond the current level if equitable distribution of benefits, sharing of responsibilities, and co-investments in watershed management are the goals."
Poverty and Environmental Services: Case Study in Way Besai Watershed, Lampung Province, Indonesia
(2007) Suyanto, S.; Khususiyah, Noviana; Leimona, Beria
"Local communities in developing countries are often forbidden to earn their livelihood from state-owned forests, but nonetheless local people commonly manage these lands and depend on them to survive. In these places, community participation is the key to successful conservation programs intended to rehabilitate environmental functions and produce environmental services for beneficiaries outside the area. This paper reviews the relationship between poverty and environmental services and briefly discusses the main ways in which approaches that rely on payment for environmental services are thought likely to alleviate poverty. It also discusses the poverty profile and inequality of upland dwellers in the Sumberjaya watershed in Indonesias Lampung Province, using income, education, and land-holding indicators. Data related to these three indicators were collected from intensive household surveys and interviews and used via Gini decomposition to measure inequality. In addition, analysis of data on stem at breast height and horizontal root diameter of coffee and other noncoffee trees planted on coffee farms showed that index of root shallowness could be used as an estimator of environmental services. This study revealed that state forest land in Lampung Province, Indonesia, not only provides important income for poor farmers but also leads to a more equitable distribution of income and land holdings. These farmers have also successfully rehabilitated degraded land by establishing coffee-based agroforestry. As found in other recent studies, these findings show that coffee-based agroforestry can perform watershed service functions similar to those of natural, undisturbed forests. This supports the argument that poor farmers who provide environmental services through their activities in state-owned forests should be rewarded with land rights as a policy to alleviate poverty."
Principles for Fairness and Efficiency in Enhancing Environmental Services in Asia: Payments, Compensation, or Co-Investment?
(2010) van Noordwijk, Meine; Leimona, Beria
"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."