The Philippines’ Payments for Environmental Services Technical Working Group, also known as PES-TWG, held a last meeting for 2009 early this December at the office of Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau (PAWB) at Diliman, Quezon City. The meeting was focused on the finalization of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for strengthening collaboration among PES stakeholders in the country.

An MoU is considered vital for PES-TWG institutionalization to meet future challenges. It is also needed to formalize collaborative activities among partners, most notably government institutions.

“The MoU draft is now being circulated among members for final review. We expect to receive all comments or inputs before the year ends and the MoU can be formally signed by the middle of January next year,” said Emma Abasolo, RUPES Program Officer for the Philippines.

Other than the MoU, the meeting also discussed a concept paper for the 3rd PES National Conference-Workshop planned to be held on February 4-5, 2010.

“The theme of the conference is "PES for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation" with primary objective to assess how PES can be utilized as a financial instrument for climate change mitigation and adaptation.”

Through the conference, PES-TWG also expects to demonstrate PES as a conservation and/or poverty alleviation tool and how it can contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation.

“We plan to invite more than 100 participants from all environmental research and development agencies in the Philippines. We hope to be able to identify any information gaps and research agenda on PES in the Philippines,” explained Emma.

RUPES Program will act as the conference secretariat responsible for logistical and administrative concerns related to the conference.