The case for a publicly-funded payment for environmental services scheme in the heavily degraded Nyando River basin, Western Kenya was discussed at a recent meeting among a consortium of environmental researchers and practitioners in Kisumu.

Coordinator of the Pro-poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa (PRESA) project of the World Agroforestry Centre, Dr. Sara Namirembe, believes a payment and rewards for environmental services (PES) scheme could be successful in addressing environmental degradation in the area.

“Through PES, the beneficiaries or ‘buyers’ of improved environmental services - such as cleaner water - compensate the ‘sellers’; those who have spent their time, labour and resources implementing sustainable land management measures,” said Namirembe.

“The sellers in this case are the local communities but the buyers are not so easy to define. While it may be possible to describe the rice farmers at the lowlands as beneficiaries of environmental services provided by the Nyando, most of them are poor, smallholder farmers without the capacity to pay for such services.”

It is now being suggested that local government authorities and sugar companies could be the potential buyers of environmental services.

The Nyando River flows from the Rift Valley highlands supplying irrigation water to vast rice fields before it empties into Lake Victoria. Intensive agricultural activity is causing excessive nutrient flows into the Nyando River, Soil erosion is causing heavy sedimentation in the river as yawning gulleys eat up farms and separate relatives from each other. Flooding that occurs occasionally after heavy rains, destroys homes and farmland, rendering thousands of people homeless.

Among the measures to combat degradation in the Nyando River basin are: increasing tree cover, water harvesting, de-silting existing water pans, the construction of new dams, rehabilitation of existing dams and technologies to retain water on-farm. But those implementing the measures continue to encounter challenges. For example, in some places where water pans are being constructed, disputes have arisen over their control, in particular where they are located on an individual’s farm. In other areas it has also been difficult to convince communities not to farm along riverbanks as these are often the most fertile and best watered areas. Ethnic tension in recent years between inhabitants of the highlands and lowlands further complicates matters.

The potential for local government institutions, Kisumu water and sewerage cooperation (a parastatal) and sugar companies to become buyers of environmental services was discussed at the Kisumu meeting. Consortium members are now initiating dialogue with the organizations to determine if they have the finances and mandate within a legal framework to use PES as a means of more effectively addressing the Nyando basin degradation.

The Kisumu meeting was also attended by representatives from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), Maseno University, Moi University, the Lake Victoria Institute for Research and Development (VIRED), World Neighbours, government agencies, CARE International, WRUA leaders and community-based organizations.