Endri Martini of the World Agroforestry Centre - Southeast Asia Program shared RUPES experience at a multi-stakeholder workshop last June in Medan aimed to identify potential long term funds for orangutan conservation in the Batang Toru forest of North Sumatra, Indonesia.

Organized by the Orangutan Conservation Service Program - USAID, Conservation International Indonesia (CII) and Yayasan Ekosistem Lestari (YEL), the workshop was to follow up a multi-stakeholder meeting conducted earlier this year mandating the formulation of a collaborative forum to protect Batang Toru.

Batang Toru is a 100,000 ha forest block known as orangutan conservation area in North Sumatra province, Indonesia. Since 2001, efforts to conserve the remaining orangutan in the area have been carried out by a number of local and international conservation organizations.

“Until recently, there is no critical threat to the Batang Toru area. However, in the future, threats to the existence of orangutan and its habitat may occur if all the stakeholders in the area don't have same perception on the urgency in conserving the orangutan and its habitat,” explained Endri introducing RUPES concepts as an alternative mechanism to help protecting the watershed.

 “Participants of the workshop asked many questions on basic RUPES concepts. They were also interested to know whether a PES (payment for environmental services) mechanism can be applied in Batang Toru area, the steps to take, and many others.”

During the workshop, Endri was accompanied by another ICRAF staff, Jusupta Tarigan, to facilitate a group discussion about RUPES and PES mechanism.

Participants of the group discussion agreed that water is a strong environmental service issue that can be developed into payment mechanism in Batang Toru area. It was revealed during the discussion that the concept of rewarding for environmental services has been practiced by the upstream and downstream communities in Tanjung Rompa village, Marancar subdistrict, to maintain the source of clean water.

“With the strong commitment of all multistakeholders in the area, we believe that a RUPES mechanism can help protecting the remaining orangutan habitat in Batang Toru,” concluded Endri.