From Principles to Numbers: Approaches in Implementing Payments for Environmental Services (PES) in the Philippines - Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services - page 367

Mt. Kitanglad Range across the extensively cultivated lands to the Manupali River,
and the river then runs into a network of irrigation canals operated by the Manupali
River Irrigation System (MANRIS). Lantapan is wholly contained within the
Manupali watershed, which forms part of the upper Pulangi watershed. In 1992, the
DENR declared the Manupali watershed “critical” making it subject to restricted
development and mobilizing increased conservation efforts.
In 1999, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) initiated the Landcare program
in partnership with the LGU of Lantapan. Landcare is a farmer-centred program
involving farmer-to-farmer knowledge sharing, training, and capacity building on
conservation farming. As an approach, Landcare focuses on formation of farmers
into Landcare groups, to promote rapid adoption of conservation and agroforestry
practices and to link these groups into wider social networks and various service
providers. As a result, a rapid and widespread adoption of agroforestry and conser-
vation practices took place on more than 1,000 maize and vegetable farms (repre-
senting 13 percent of the total agriculture based households, covering 11 percent of
the total cropped area, and 18 percent of the critical portion of the watershed).
Widespread adoption of conservation practices is found to provide positive impacts
on the overall health of the watershed.
The Local Government of Lantapan passed an ordinance to support and encour-
age the adoption of conservation farming practices. An incentive clause in the policy
stipulates that those adopting conservation practices shall be given priority for
government support and extension services. Furthermore, as a form of encourage-
ment and reward for environmental services, the Landcare Foundation of the
Philippines Inc. (LFPI) provided small grants to qualified Landcare groups, man-
aged through the municipal-wide Landcare association. In addition, the manage-
ment of MANRIS has allocated a certain amount collected from the irrigators
association to support the efforts of Landcare farmers in Lantapan. These schemes
are based on a general understanding that collective adoption of conservation tech-
nologies produce significant environmental services and therefore the providers
(farmers) of services can be immediately recognized and rewarded.
Several advantages emerge from the use of Tier 1 approaches. For organizations
and stakeholders in developing countries, Tier 1 approaches provide an entry-level
approach that allows them to test the PES concept. In other words, it allows for
proof of concept testing and learning by doing, while avoiding (or at least delaying)
the costly and lengthy research needed to quantify environmental services pro-
vided. It also allows for “confidence” building among stakeholders, which can be
expected to produce more tangible actions on the ground. It breaks the barrier to
participation in PES where stakeholders are overwhelmed by the need to quantify
and attribute the environmental services provided by an ecosystem. The latter
requires outside experts to assist them - this is why foreign donors fund most of the
existing PES schemes in the Philippines. However, with the Tier 1 approach, the
stakeholders involved need to be in a “learning and adaptive” mode, to allow for
testing of new and better PES schemes.
Tier 1 approaches also have inherent weaknesses, such as becoming a simplistic
approach to more complex issues. For example, simply conserving a forest area