PES Scheme motivates farmers in three Northern Regions to adopt sound SLWM practices

By Samuel Akapule, Bolgatanga.

The Sustainable Land and Water Management Project (SLWMP), has introduced the “Payments for Environmental Services(PES) Scheme” for farmers and landowners to encourage them to adopt sound Sustainable Land and Water Management practices.

Payments for Environmental Services, also known as payments for ecosystem services, are payments to farmers or landowners who have agreed to take certain actions to manage their land or watersheds to provide an ecological service as a means of ensuring the conservation of natural resources.

Under the project, four hundred and fifty farmers in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions who are undertaking specific sustainable land and water management interventions are being paid under the PES concept on pilot basis. This is to enable such beneficiaries manage their land sustainably, protect the riparian vegetation of rivers, improve the vegetal cover to provide ecological services .

The Sustainable Land and Water Management Project is being sponsored by the World Bank and being implemented by the Ministry of Science, Environment, Technology and Innovation through the EPA in collaboration with other stakeholders including the Ministry of Food and Agriculture .

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga on Wednesday, the Upper East Regional Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) , Mr Asher Nkegbe, explained that the scheme which had begun in earnest in the three Northern Regions would contribute to land degradation neutrality as well as help address climate change issues.

The Asasong Community in the Kassena-Nankana West District in the Upper East Region is one of the communities benefiting from the PES scheme.

The Regional Director who is also the United Nations’ Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)-Focal Person for Ghana, expressed worry in instances where most community members engage in negative practices such as the indiscriminate and illegal logging, cutting down of trees for charcoal production, rampant bush burning among others for their livelihoods

He expressed optimism that with the PES scheme which is a market based mechanism and offers incentives in the forms of supplementary incomes to the farmers and landowners for protecting , preserving and conserving the ecological zones in the areas , such negative practices would be stopped.

“ In the Payment for Environmental Services , people managing natural resources , typically forest owners or farmers are paid to manage their resources to protect watersheds , conserve biodiversity , capture carbon dioxide through tree planting , natural regeneration to ensure sound Sustainable Land Management”, he explained.
Mr Nkegbe , who stated that the concept had garnered substantial international interest as a cost-effective means to improving environmental management and livelihoods, cited Chile, France, Costa Rica, Brazil, Vietnam and Uganda as some of the countries which had reaped a lot of benefits from the concept.

He stressed that the approach which recognises the important role the environment plays to the general wellbeing of people would be replicated in other communities depending on the success story of the pilot base.

Mr Nkegbe urged the beneficiary farmers and landowners to put up their best to ensure that other communities also benefit from the project and indicated that the PES scheme apart from conserving the natural resources for future posterity, it also empowers the lower income communities to earn money to help improve upon their livelihoods.

He assured the beneficiary farmers and landowners that once the project had signed a contract with them , the money would be lodged at the Rural and Community banks and said they would surely be paid based on the performance contract.

He cited for instance after six months of the assessment of the farmers work by the project and seeing that they have achieved 70 per cent of the earmarked results, they would be paid one third of their contract sum and upon another six months of assessment and seeing that they have lived up to expectation they would be paid the rest of their money. He said farmers could also forfeit the contract sum if they bridge the contract.

“This is a critical rallying point because many rural people depend largely on the natural resources to make a living. The scheme is a powerful tool for providing additional employment and supplementary income for the rural community members”.

Mr Nkegbe said the new scheme also has the greatest potentials in increasing agricultural productivity since the ecosystem could help improve upon the fertility of the soils and the rainfall patterns which could further lead to good harvesting to improve upon household food security of the rural poor.