A PES approach in the Barbara Watershed was incorporated in the conservation policy of the Tunisian government It promoted adoption of conservation measures such as building stone walls and planting acacia in gullies in watershed area. The Office for Sylvo- Pastoral Development of North Wet subsidized 80% of investments for the conservation measures. However as the compensation was below opportunity cost, farmers didn’t adopt new practices. The lesson learnt from this case are the following:
- pay for trees that survive instead of trees planted
- pay should be sufficient to make the practice attractive for farmers, between TDN 100-200/ha/ year
- payment every 5 years rather than a one-time payment in the beginning,
- introduce a PES scheme to convince water users to pay for the services that they are already receiving for free;
- strengthen the user rights over lands in gullies to ensure that benefits from acacia are not collectively owned.
User-financed PES mechanism could be established where the downstream users pay to the upstream farmers for conserving the watershed. The project provides useful and practical recommendations/guidelines.
