From 5 to 9 of October, forty people from various parts of Indonesia were in Ciawi, West Java, to participate in a training on RHA (Rapid Hydrological Appraisal) and RaCSA (Rapid Carbon Stock Appraisal) organized by the World Agroforestry Centre - Southeast Asia Program.

“They are government officials, NGO staff, researchers and academicians, our project partners from Aceh, Kuningan, Banten, Wonosobo, Padang, and Bogor,” explained Rachman Pasha, RUPES Socio Economic Researcher helping organizing the training.

“The need for assessment tools is increasing in the discussion of environmental services. Stakeholders need reliable and cost-effective tools to assess the hydrological function of their watershed or the carbon stock in their landscape as the basis for negotiation of any environmental service payment scheme,” he added.

Dr. Meine van Noordwijk, the Global Science Advisor of the World Agroforestry Centre, opened the training continued with a presentation on concepts of payment of environmental services (PES) and RUPES Program by Beria Leimona, RUPES Program Manager. Rachman Pasha facilitated a “land use trade-off game” to enhance participants’ knowledge on PES concepts. The participants were later introduced to the concepts and practical knowledge of applying RHA and RaCSA tools.

“On the first day, we introduced the concepts of Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) and Policy/ Public Ecological Knowledge (PEK), as well as the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) for the RHA and RaCSA,” said Diah Wulandari, TUL-SEA Project Officer. TUL-SEA or Trees in multi-Use Landscapes in Southeast Asia Project is a three years project led by the World Agroforestry Centre - Southeast Asia Program and funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Together with RUPES, TUL-SEA provided technical and financial support to the training.

On the second day of the training, the participants were divided into two classes: RHA and RaCSA. This class division was based on the areas of interest of each participant. In the RHA class, the participants discussed topics on RHA scooping, hydrologic modeling, simulation models overview and application examples. In addition, the participants also got a briefing about interview methods and creating questionnaire.

On RaCSA class, they discussed topics on land use system and land use change, climate change, reasons for measuring C-stock, carbon measurements at plot level and C-stock estimation for landscape level.

A field work was organized on the third day of the training to a RUPES research site at Cidanau watershed in Banten Province. The participants practiced the skills they have learned about RHA & RaCSA assessment.

The RHA group started their activity by conducting a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) to discuss and interview villagers in the context of LEK. The activity was continued by a transect walk along a riverbank in order to identify the environmental problems faced by Cibojong village community. At the same time, the RaCSA group practiced carbon measurements at plot level by making plot sample of 20x100m in size (big plot) and 5x40m (sub-plot) and followed by measuring the trees and diameters and/ or height for tree biomass data, measuring under storey weight for under storey biomass and necromass weight in sub sub-plot size 50x50cm, measuring tree necromass diameter and weight, and taking soil samples. At the same time, the team had to identify the tree species they measured.

At the end of the field work, the participants had a discussion with with local stakeholders and policy makers involved in Forum Komunikasi DAS Cidanau (FKDC), the local facilitating the PES scheme in the area. Participants of the training were impressed by the success of FKDC in facilitating PES scheme during the last 5 years in Cidanau watershed.