I recently had the great privilege of travelling with World Agroforestry Centre Vietnam office Communications staff to the beautiful Ba Be Lake in the northwestern uplands of Vietnam. Ms Nguyen Ngoc Huyen, Communications Officer with the Vietnam office, and I were testing whether it would be possible for non-professional filmmakers, such as ourselves, to make a short video documentary for the RUPES project.

Scientists recommend realistic, conditional, voluntary and pro-poor rewards for environmental services and find that in-kind payments may be more beneficial than cash.

The 3rd South-East Asia Workshop on Payments for Ecosystem Services:Investment in natural capital for green growth. Held in Banda Aceh, Indonesia on June 12-14, this workshop is co-organized the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), the Asian Development Bank-Environment Operations Centre (ADB-EOC), and hosted by BAPEDAL NAD and the ESCAP 3PESA project. The  workshop was part of an international series, with previous events held in Thailand and Vietnam.

Gender is on spotlight, some studies on gender acknowledge the importance of gender aspect. The studies including one from RUPES sites in Indonesia and Philippines which is completed and will be published soon.