El Salvador Environmental Services Project

closed

The Environmental Services Project will focus on reducing land degradation, conserving forested areas, reverting marginal agricultural areas to forest, and encouraging more sustainable land use in agriculture. It would create payment for environmental services (PES) mechanisms to provide incentives to hillside farmers and other land users in at least two pilot areas, and could be expanded to three more sites. The objective of the Design and Implementation of a Program of Payments for Environmental Services component is to implement an environmental services fund, create several pilot mechanisms to implement the approach in two to five priority watersheds, and, develop procedures to replicate the approach widely. Payments will be provided for activities such as agro-forestry, forest management and conservation, reforestation, afforestation, and sustainable agricultural production to generate valuable environmental benefits such as improving water quality, regulating groundwater and surface flows, maintaining or enhancing biodiversity, and increasing carbon sequestration. Key outputs include establishing a functioning environmental services fund - FONASA, designing a program of payments for environmental services, and providing technical assistance and monitoring contract compliance by the environmental service providers. The second component - Institutional Strengthening - will strengthen the capacity of all market participants, including national institutions, market intermediaries, community associations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to support long-term development of environmental service markets. The Project Management and Monitoring and Evaluation component will focus on project management mechanisms, including planning and monitoring and evaluation (M&E).