Development of policies that ensure institutionalization of thePayment for Environmental Services (PES) at governance and household levels isnecessary to facilitate its (PES) implementation in ECA region for conservationof productive landscapes and improvement of agricultural productivity. Keyfindings from the field surveys conducted indicate that: (i) there is nogovernment agency in Kenya, Uganda or DR Congo that exclusively regulatescompensation or restitution for ecosystem services at the moment and (ii) thatgovernment legislation mandates institutions to manage the resources withintheir areas of jurisdiction and rarely provides opportunities for joint actionswithin other government institutions or other players in resource conservation.

Policies should be put in place to provide mechanisms for riskmanagement of PES or natural resource related projects in the countries andprovide government standards/guidelines related to sales of ecosystem servicesthat are home-grown rather than relying on the international standards. Thiswill allow for implementation of PES at local levels involving local producersand users of environmental services. This innovation was developed in 2011 inUganda and Kenya.

This is a plausible initiative given that PES has potential toimprove agricultural productivity and household income through payments tosuppliers of Ecosystem services. This initiative will foster PES and itstranslation into better management of natural resources, and conservation offorest landscapes thus mitigating effects of climate change.

Most PES programmes involve contractsbetween consumers of ecosystem services and the suppliers of these services.This brings about gender disparities between men and women, especially since inmost cases men own the land resource and are the major suppliers of ecosystemservices. It’s for this reason that we need policies as well as the need (tothe extent possible) to ensure that PES programmes are funded by the governmentand involve intermediaries such as NGOs.

Anderson Kipkoech;

Scientist, International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology(ICIPE);

P. O. Box 30772;

Nairobi, Kenya.

Email: akipkoech@icipe.org

Byamukama Biryhawaho;

Scientist, Nature Harness International (NAHI)- Uganda;

P. O. Box 25286;

Kampala, Uganda.

Tel: 256-392821141

Email: bbyamukama@natureharness.or.ug 

Ecosystem services have no standardized definition but may bebroadly called “the benefits of nature to households, communities or, moresimply ‘the good things nature does’”. Twenty-four (24) specific ecosystemservices were identified and assured by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,according to the 2005 UN-sponsored report that was designed to assess the stateof the world’s ecosystems. The “big three” among the 24 services include:climate change mitigation, watershed services and biodiversity conservation.The demand for the latter service in particular is predicted to continue togrow as time goes on.