Posted on January, 20 2016

Government of Nepal, Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation is formulating a policy on Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) with the support from WWF Nepal and ICIMOD. Payments for Ecosystem Services is an approach to nature conservation in which beneficiaries of environmental services, from watershed protection and forest conservation to carbon sequestration and landscape beauty, reward those whose lands provide these services.
 
The policy document is prepared with the goal to institutionalize PES for the contribution to economic well-being and sustainable ecosystem management. The document which is in a draft form at present, has been shared with various stakeholders over a half day consultative workshop organized on 19 January. Inaugurating the workshop Honorable Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation Agni Prasad Sapkota urged all the stakeholders to give their honest and valuable comments and feedback so that policy document addresses all its important issues relating to PES.
 
The document has outlined sustainable management of ecosystem services through the promotion of business models, enhance technical skills and capacities of stakeholders, Institutional arrangements and institutional strengthening and ensuring investments and equitable benefit sharing mechanisms as its four major key areas of strategic interventions.
 
The draft policy provides a framework of implementing PES and envisaging a long term vison to sustain ecosystem services. It also outlines opportunities and challenges on the outset that 60-70% of the world’s ecosystem services are degrading as assessed by The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.