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CARE International in Tanzania in partnership with WWF Tanzania Programme
Office is in a process of establishing a new project entitled “Equitable Payment for
Watershed Services (PWS) in the Uluguru and East Usambara Mountains focusing
on Ruvu and Sigi river basins. The central premise of this project is to establish an
equitable payment mechanism between buyers and sellers of the watershed
services. The PWS mechanism will actually promote equity in the distribution of
benefits so far as this can be achieved without significantly undermining the financial
viability of the initiative.
The proposed Equitable Payments for Watershed Services (PWS) initiative which is
the subject of this study entails the major users of water from the Ruvu river and Sigi
River (“the buyers”) making a long term financial investment in modifying land use
within the river basin to improve “watershed services” – specifically the reliability, and
quality of their water supply. This financial investment (“the payments”) would be
used to provide benefits to communities that act as an incentive for them to make the
changes in land use and/or natural resource management (NRM) needed to deliver
the improved watershed services, and to sustain these changes over time.
The major aim of this assignment was to undertake detailed hydrological analysis of
the Ruvu and Sigi River basins in relation to land use/cover change to provide
guidance on what and where the PWS initiative should be focused within the upper
catchments based on maximizing the buyers’ return on investment in terms of their
particular interests in improving watershed services. In other words where will the
buyer get “the best bang for their buck”. This will also within the focal areas address
poverty of the poor farmers or people in general.