Nowdays, watershed function and carbon sequestration are becoming important issues in providing environmental services. Some debates or questions on how to assess the hydrological function of watershed and carbon stock in a landscape have been raised among stakeholders. Rapid Hydrological Appraisal (RHA) and Rapid Carbon Stock Appraisal (RACSA) approach that developed by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) is a rapid, cost-effective and integrated tool to appraise the hydrological function of watershed and carbon sequestration. These tools can also assist in bridging the communication gap between the three important components of a watershed functions and carbon trading schemes; they are local communities, researchers/ scientist/ academicians and policy makers. Furthermore, these tools can be considered as the initial phase of environmental services development in creating communication between the ‘sellers’ with ‘buyers’.

As there the many interests of various parties in Indonesia to learn about how to assess the hydrological function and carbon stock, ICRAF conducted RHA and RaCSA training on 5-9 October 2009 that located at Rumah Luwuk Jambu, Bogor. With supports from Rewards for, Use of and Shared Investment in Pro-poor Environmental Services (RUPES) Project funded by International Foundation for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and Trees in multi-Use Landscapes in Southeast Asia (TUL-SEA) Project funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany, this training is aimed to improve the skills of RES intermediaries in assessing the environmental services that are marketable for any RES implementation. Forty participants with different background, such as government officials, NGOs, researchers and academicians, from different regions (Aceh, Kuningan, Banten, Wonosobo, Padang, and Bogor) joined the training. These people have committed to implementing the PES scheme in their respective regions..

The training was opened by Dr. Meine van Noordwijk as ICRAF SEA representative and continued with the explanation of Payment of Environmental Services (PES) concept and RUPES Project by MS. Leimona Beria. Participants were invited to understand more on PES concept by the “land use trade-off game” that was facilitated by Rachman Pasha. Before entering the core training, Dr. Meine presented a general explanation in related to the RHA and RaCSA concept. After lunch break, the training went to the deeper aspects for both RHA and RaCSA, they are explanation on Local Ecologycal Knowledge (LEK) and Policy/ Public Ecologycal Knowledge (PEK) with interview practices by MS. Elok Ponco Mulyoutami. This first day training was ended with a presentation on the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) for the RHA and RaCSA by Mr. Andree Ekadinata.

The second day the participants were divided into two classes for RHA and RACSA. This class division was based on the areas of interest of from each participant. The resource persons for RHA class were MS. Elok and MS. Ni'matul Khasanah. They were presenting some topics about the RHA scooping, hydrologic modeling, simulation models overview and application examples. In addition, the participants also got a briefing about interview methods and creating questionnaire. The resource persons for RaCSA class were MS. Subekti Rahayu and Mr. Andree. They presenting some topics about the introduction of Land Use System and Land Use Change, Introduction of Climate Change, Why Measuring C-Stock?, Carbon Measurements at Plot Level and C-Stock Estimation for Landscape Level.

A Field work activity was conducted on the third day by visiting one of RUPES site at Cibojong village, Serang District, Banten Province. In this activity each group should practice the RHA & RACSA material which has been given on the previous day. The RHA group started their activity by conducting a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) to discuss and interviews the local villagers in the context of LEK. The activity continued with transect walk along a local riverbank in order to identify the environmental problems that faced by Cibojong village communities. At the same time, the RaCSA group practicing the carbon measurements at plot level by making plot sample of size 20x100m (big plot) or 5x40m (sub-plot) and followed by measuring the trees and diameters and/ or height for tree biomass data, measuring under storey weight for under storey biomass and necromass weight in sub sub-plot size 50x50cm, measuring tree necromass diameter and weight, and taking soil samples. At the same time, the team had to identified the tree species they measured.

At noon time, both RHA and RaCSA team continued the activity by meeting with local stakeholders and policy makers who involved in Forum Komunikasi DAS Cidanau (FKDC) in the context of PEK material. The FKDC represented by local NGO of Rekonvasi Bhumi, Forestry Department of Serang and PT. Krakatau Tirta Industri (KTI). This discussion ran smoothly and communicative since the participants were interested and enthusiastic with FKDC’s success in facilitating the PES schemes within the last 5 years in Cidanau watershed.

On the last day of training, each group had to present their results of conducting RaCSA and RHA during the field work. From this session we could see that most of participants understand and could perform the RHA & RaCSA methods except some parts in the interview process and carbon measurement need to be sharper and more detail. At noon time, each team from each regions had chances to present their action plan that related with RHA and RACSA implementation after the training. In addition, few teams also presented various PES schemes that have been done or will do in the future.