RUPES Singkarak Site Profile: RUPES Singkarak

4 RUPES Singkarak Site profile: RUPES Singkarak Next Steps Scaling Out: Making sustainable impacts on the Institutionalizing Lake-Centricity: Through environmental functions of the lake requires extending Linking rewards and governance to effects of RUPES facilitation, local stakeholders in Singkarak's involvement outward by engaging more stakeholders. environmental services have already succeeded in the RUPES Singkarak needs to: land use on environmental services at the first steps toward restoring environmental functions of the lake catchment area forming a “lake-centric” ! Secure the participation of more Nagaris from around scale of the lake forum and implementing criteria that enhance the lake in the governance structure. environmental services for allocation of royalties. ! Extend the trust and social capital created among Singkarak Nagaris. Right now, some Nagaris have more For long-term success, stakeholders must develop a trust in formal institutions, other in traditional The Context land use plan for the area. This is already in process institutions. with steps moving forward for a participatory ! Spread more knowledge about environmental Lake Singkarak is a beautiful, dramatic water body process at the Nagari level with the involvement of functioning and payments conditional on environmental in the heartland of the former Minangkabau traditional leaders. One example of the challenges performance. Many community members still are kingdom, well-known for its culture of blending a the plan must resolve is that to minimize the confused on the effects of land use on landslides and matrilineal society, Islam, entrepreneurship and a potential of conflict between the community and the water flows, and years of 'propaganda' have left their strong tradition of village government systems. The hydropower company during droughts, water mark. lake takes in water from five streams and rivers regulation processes may need to be set up and ! Organize for optimum effect on policy makers. More with the Lembang/Sumani River draining the climate forecast information used to improve the government and parliament members need to become intensively used rice fields around Solok town as regulation. Different water regulation or familiar with the project so they can learn of needs for major source. For centuries, the lake has bountifully compensation systems should be created for normal policy changes in the water tax distribution systems and supplied the people living on its shores and slopes and extreme drought years to equitably, transparently in other areas affecting environmental services. with resources needed for a good life. The lake and sustainably allocate the water among users. harbours an endemic fish species (Mystacoleucus padangensis or 'ikan bilih') that is an acclaimed delicacy. The RUPES Project: Throughout the world, upland people, many of them poor, earn Now, more than 400,000 people live on its slopes effectiveness of local community systems in resolving and their livelihoods from lands and landscapes that, when properly and shores. Their use of the lake and surrounding avoiding conflicts. In Singkarak, thirteen Nagaris line the managed, provide valuable environmental services to others. landscape risks destroying it. The forests of the area were lakeshore. While Nagari boundaries tend to coincide with However, management practices that maintain or increase depleted during the colonial era to provide wood for coal hydrological subcatchments, the lake itself belongs to two environmental services often have a cost to the upland people in mines and never recovered. Government reforestation time or income. Regulations and prescriptions of land use aimed at different districts within the province of West Sumatra. securing the services are often ill-designed and enhance rural programs within delineated protection forests had little poverty. RUPES aims to work with both potential users and success. People throughout Indonesia benefit due to the producers of environmental services to find conditions for positive lake's hydropower contribution to Indonesia's stretched- In the 1990's a hydropower plant was developed that incentives that are voluntary (within the existing regulatory thin electrical power supply, but erratic water supplies lead brought major changes to the lake's outlet river and framework), realistic (aligned with real opportunity costs and real to shortfalls especially in years with long dry spells. Fishers modified the pattern of water rise and fall in the lake. To benefits) and conditional (linked to actual effects on environmental maximize water storage for electricity production, the services), while reducing important dimensions of poverty in catch and eat or sell the ikan bilih, but experience declining upland areas. stocks. The fallow cultivation systems used on the slopes project used a technical design that increased the periods under community and clan controlled land management when water overflowed the lake banks. Then in low At each of the 6 RUPES action sites, local institutions partner with have degraded towards a grassland/fire climax dominated rainfall months, water levels dropped significantly with the the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) to implement action research aimed at developing effective reward mechanisms in by alang-alang (Imperata cylindrica). The productivity outflows for electrical production. These alternating the local context. The sites are Kulekhani in Nepal; Sumberjaya, Muara Bungo, and Singkarak in Indonesia; and Kalahan and increase in paddy rice fields could not be copied in the patterns have caused lake banks to collapse, which forces Bakun in the Philippines. National policy dialogues are aimed at making policy frameworks more conducive to positive electrical production to stop and disrupts the livelihood incentives. upland cropping systems, although a mixed tree garden (agroforestry) system developed along part of the lake activities of people who depend on the lake. RUPES is financially supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and various other donors. shore. A Satellite images of the lake's current condition show many denuded grass-covered hills around the lake, as Indonesian law obliges the state-owned company to For more information, please contact: well as healthy forest cover on the west-facing slopes of distribute royalties to both the national and local Rizaldi Boer and Alimin Djisbar the Bukit Barisan range. governments. The 35 percent of total royalties that must Nagari Paninggahan, Solok, West Sumatra, Indonesia go to local areas are channeled to the districts via the Phone: +627557381001; Mobile: 0811117660; Email: [email protected] The governance system over land-use and resource rights provinces. These royalties might be seen as payments for RUPES Program in the basin is multilayered and complex. Post-Soeharto environmental services but only in a crude and The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) political changes re-established the languishing Nagari or embryonic form. In the past they did not Jl. CIFOR Situ Gede, Sindang Barang, Bogor Barat, West Java, Indonesia 16680 village system of government as a move toward reach the people directly Ph: +62 251 625415; Fax: +62 251 625416 involved with the Email: [email protected] decentralization that also recognized the traditional Http://www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/sea/Networks/RUPES/index.asp 2 3 Site profile: RUPES Singkarak Site profile: RUPES Singkarak lake who suffered the impacts of electricity In the 1990's a hydropower plant was developed that healthy environmental conditions. Because the amount of production on their livelihoods. Also, allocations brought major changes to the lake's outlet river and royalties available depends on the amount of electricity were not structured to work as incentives for modified the pattern of water rise and fall in the lake. To produced, all players have a strong interest in the good enhancing environmental conditions, nor were maximize water storage for electricity production, the performance of the hydropower company. allocation methods transparent to local project used a technical design that increased the periods communities. Finally, no process existed for when water overflowed the lake banks. Then in low rainfall Multiple perspectives on forest, water and land forming consensus over what could be done to months, water levels dropped significantly with the degradation improve local livelihoods as well as outflows for electrical production. These alternating At the start of the project, many stakeholders identified environmental services, and there was no 'lake- patterns have caused lake banks to collapse, which forces erosion as the key problem and reforestation of the centric' view on the management of local electrical production to stop and disrupts the livelihood grasslands as the priority for enhancing environmental resources. activities of people who depend on the lake. services, particularly increasing water supply. However, exploring water-balance models and local ecological The RUPES-Singkarak team set out to make the Indonesian law obliges the state-owned company to knowledge of the landscape in conjunction with the hydropower royalty money flow to the upland distribute royalties to both the national and local perceptions and preferences in the local policy discourse Farmers harvesting coffee in old gardens that they want to communities, to clarify the link between land use governments. The 35 percent of total royalties that

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