Taking root

Taking root

I n India, forest evaluation is an emergent practice. And those that have done so have realised its immense utility: the benefits from Himachal Pradesh's (hp's) forests, Verma's evaluation shows, are 2.61 times the value of the growing stock, 980 times the total expenditure incurred by the state's forestry sector and 2,607 times the revenue realised by the forests annually. Armed with this knowledge, in 2002 -- before the Supreme Court began to considering the need to levy a price on forests lost to development projects -- hp began to charge an environmental value tax, levied on each hectare of forestland diverted for private and industrial purposes, at the rate of Rs 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh per ha. The state is now demanding compensation from the Centre for being an important carbon sink. Its forest sector is undergoing a sea change; hp 's draft environmental policy now speaks of developing ways to provide incentives to local communities that protect forests.

Is this feasible?
Elsewhere, too, evaluating forests is an established practice (see box: Real conservation). In the late 1980s, New York, usa, realised it had to act to safeguard the quality of its drinking water. They could set up water filtration plants, at a whopping us$4 billion to us$6 billion, and spend another us $300 million annually in maintenance costs. So they went for another option: paying a mere us$1.4 billion to protect the forests the water came from.

New York's nine million residents get 90 per cent of their drinking water from the Catskill and Delaware watersheds close by. The smaller and more industrialized Croton watershed supplies the rest. The quality of water they provided was historically very good but subsequently concern arose about microbial contamination. In 1989 the United States Environmental Protection Agency said that all surface water supplies had to be filtered, if not treated naturally.

This led the city water authority to address the changing agricultural practices of farmers in the Catskill/Delaware catchment, the cause of the problem. A Watershed Protection and Partnership Programme was created. It pays landowners to introduce soil and water conservation practices. People are given incentives to 'retire' buffer areas near streams from production through cost-sharing agreements; farmers are paid us$100 million a year to minimise water pollution -- a pittance compared to the treatment plant option. Within five years, 93 per cent of farmers in the watershed had chosen to participate.

It is feasible
When there is a direct link between providers of services and those who benefit from them, the reason for paying and receiving incentives is very clear. The International Institute for Environment and Development and Winrock have been working on setting up such systems in India, focusing on hp and Madhya Pradesh, to facilitate arrangements for payments for watershed services in three sites -- two at the micro level and one at the macro level -- by mid 2006.

Another example of where a new system could be established is the Greater Himalayan National Park (ghnp), which comprises the catchment of four rivers and numerous downstream hydroelectric project beneficiaries. Hydropower companies are aware of the link between upstream catchment protection and silt flowing into their systems. They incur huge expenses in de-siltation. Control of silt flow and sedimentation, which considerably reduce the life of projects, can be an essential watershed service for them. The Bhakra Beas reservoir in hp silted up in nine years instead of the projected twenty-eight; the Larji project would have to spend over Rs 50 crore on desilting; for Nathpa-Jhakri it is 200 crore. Thus, their interest in forest protection upstream is high.

gnhp also has high recreational and ecotourism value. hp has adopted a new ecotourism policy in 2001 with the forest department as the nodal agency. It aims to involve local people in tourism, create a direct stake in the park's conservation.

Bhopal: for supply's sake
In recent years, Bhopal has been facing an increasing water crisis with the drying up of the Upper lake, a part of the Bhoj wetlands, during summer. Winrock has undertaken a study of Bhopal, where over 200,000 households depend on water mainly from this lake and the Kolar dam. Increased siltation of the lake was traced to intensification of agriculture in the catchment area -- which comprised almost entirely of forests about 30-40 years ago. The Bhoj Wetlands project attempted to tackle the problem of siltation and eutrophication of the lake, but nothing was done to change the land-use practices of poor farmers.

The Kolar dam supplies nearly 60 per cent of Bhopal's water. The dam itself receives water from the Kolar river, which originates from a thickly forested area 70 kilometres upstream. About 60-70 villages in this catchment area put significant biotic pressure on these forests -- they are largely poor tribal communities dependent on the forests for their fuelwood, fodder and non-timber forest produce.

Municipal water supply agencies depend on upstream catchments for water supply. To maintain watershed protection services in the long run, an incentive-based system is what would motivate the communities in the catchment areas to protect the forests. Also, providing incentives to farmers to shift from pesticide based farming to horticulture and organic farming, for example, would be so much cheaper than bringing water to Bhopal from the Narmada. Bhopal currently makes no payments at all for the watershed protection services it receives from these forests. Water tariffs in the city are highly subsidised.

Madhu Verma, in her valuation of the Bhoj wetlands, found that consumers were willing to make additional payments if reliable water supply was ensured. Potential beneficiaries in Bhopal were the water supply agencies, fisherfolk, boatmen, washermen and the people of the city. Livelihood benefits were calculated using incomes or the market price of products. On the other hand, it costs Rs 9.5 crore to supply drinking water -- this is how much is being paid for lack of forest services. She estimated the value of preventive measures people use to avoid water borne diseases: Rs 12 lakh, borne for cost of illness, and Rs 1.24 crore for purification. Verma's study shows Bhopal was willing to pay Rs 4.8 crore to enjoy better recreational facilities from the Bhoj Wetland. The presence of the Upper Lake was found to increase property values by 50 per cent for lake front homeowners. 12jav.net12jav.net