RUPES - Rewarding Upland Poor for Environmental Services

Action research is occurring at sites throughout Asia to identify ways of Rewarding Upland Poor for the Environmental Services they provide (RUPES).

Communities living in hilly and mountainous areas of Asia are among the poorest and most marginalized people. They receive few of the benefits from national and local investments in economic development. Yet, many of these communities manage landscapes that provide environmental services to outside beneficiaries.

The services they provide include clean and abundant water supplies from watersheds, biodiversity protection, stocks of carbon that may alleviate global warming, and landscape beauty for recreation and tourism.

The RUPES project is testing mechanisms that can enable upland communities to share in the local and global benefits that these services provide, thereby enhancing their livelihoods and reducing poverty.

RUPES operates in six sites; in the Philippines (Kalahan Reserve & Ancestral Domain and Bakun), Nepal (Kulekhani) and Indonesia (Bungo, Sumberjaya and Singkarak).

Through a partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) as a major donor, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) is coordinating a wide-ranging consortium of research organizations, non-government organizations and national partners interested in contributing and being a part of RUPES.

The RUPES project is building working models of best practices for successful environmental transfer agreements adapted to the Asian context. Targeted action research is identifying the environmental services and how can they be measured. It is looking at who the rewards should go to, who will pay the rewards, how and in what form they would be collected, and what amount or form is appropriate.

The action research is defining appropriate methods with the beneficiaries of these services for best practice in environmental transfer payments. RUPES provides simple, practical examples of how innovative, institutional arrangements and reward mechanisms can be applied to foster local development, while at the same time preserving and restoring the environment.

The emphasis is on easily understood, sound and financially and institutionally sustainable approaches.

There is a strong focus on the development and strengthening of local institutions associated with environmental transfer payments. Networking at global, regional and national levels is a key element of the RUPES project.

RUPES is addressing the urgent need to support a process of self-empowerment so that poor upland people can take the necessary decisions to build a sustainable future based on their resources, on improved technology and centuries of accumulated wisdom.

World Agroforestry Centre
ICRAF Southeast Asia Regional Office
Jl. CIFOR, Situ Gede
Sindang Barang, Bogor 16115
PO Box 161 Bogor 16001, Indonesia
Ph: +62 251 8625415, fax: +62 251 8625416
Email: icraf-indonesia@cgiar.org