View/download the WOCAT newsletter as pdf: WOCATEER12 (430 KB)

THE WOCATEER (No. 12 - Summer 2006)
(WOCAT Newsletter)

The WOCAT Newsletter is distributed by Email to those who are subscribed to the WOCAT-L mailing list (or as hard copy to those without Email).
It is distributed only in English for the time being, but Websites like http://babelfish.altavista.com/ or http://www.google.com/ language_tools offer fairly good translation facilities. The result is not perfect but quite understandable.

Le bulletin de WOCAT est distribué seulement en anglais pour l'instant, mais des sites Internet tels que http://babelfish.altavista.com ou http://www.google.com/language_tools offrent des moyens de le traduire qui sont assez utile. Le résultat n'est pas parfait, mais plus ou moins compréhensible.

Por el momento el noticiario de WOCAT existe solamente en inglés, pero algunos sitios web como http://babelfish.altavista.com o http://www.google.com/language_tools. ofrecen buenas/aceptables facilidades de traducción. El resultado no es perfecto pero se puede comprender.

Announcement: 11 th WOCAT Annual Workshop & Steering Meeting

23- 28 October 2006 , South Africa

Since 1996, WOCAT has organised ten Annual Workshops and Steering Meetings (known as WWSM) with the goal (a) to bring together the main collaborating and funding institutions and the core collaborators, (b) to assess the progress and to exchange experiences, (c) to further develop the programme and (d) to plan for the future and (e) to enhance WOCAT in the host country/region.

As decided during the 10 th WWSM in Belgrade (Serbia) , the 11th Annual WOCAT Workshop and Steering Meeting will take place in Cape Town, South Africa from 23- 28 October, 2006.

Invited for this meeting are those involved in the coordination of WOCAT activities at the global, re­gional or national level, and/or involved in any of the WOCAT Task Forces. Sponsorship to participants for this meeting will be very limited and we do urge participants to find their own funding sources. Possible sponsoring will also be dependent on the amount of activities deployed and feedback provided to the WOCAT Secretariat since the previous WWSM.

A formal announcement and registration form will be distributed later among active WOCATeers. However anyone who is interested to participate may contact the WOCAT Secretariat for more information.

WOCAT Overview Book: Where the Land Is Greener

The long awaited global WOCAT overview book - “Where the Land Is Greener” - is now in its final stages of publication. After the 42 case studies have been completed, analyses of all technologies and approaches were carried out.

The analyses provide an insight into common denominators of what are (for the great majority) successful and/or widespread examples of natural resource management. The intention was to avoid the temptation of merely presenting ‘good-news narratives' in the form of case studies but to provide a balanced critique of these examples leading to solid conclusions and practical policy guidance. What is unique about such analyses of approaches and technologies is that they draw on a very wide range of examples, and are not restricted to one region of the world, to a single land use system - or just to projects that are dedicated exclusively to SWC.

Example of a Technology case study from 'Where the Land is Greener'

While the case studies form the foundation of the book and the analyses help in understanding the various parameters, the conclusions distil the most important issues, like:

• Emphasis on production increase and international issues, such as water, carbon, mitigating poverty.
• Importance of local innovations and adaptations
• Complexity and the need to continuously adapt technologies and approaches
• Knowledge gaps (e.g. on cost-benefits, impacts, spatial extent), which points to the need for better monitoring by specialists in the field and for in-depth, supplementary research
• Many of experiences are not recognized, tapped and used
• Efforts are needed for monitoring and evaluation, and decision support (local, national, global)

From the conclusions, and supported by them, emerge the policy points. We believe these associated policy points are worthy of urgent attention. After fifteen years of working with practitioners and specialist from all over the world, this is now the opportunity for WOCAT to offer pointers to better policy in the field of soil and water conservation - in order to help answer the question: how should money best be spent to achieve sustainable land management and environmental protection – while improving the livelihoods of people in rural areas?

For more information and ordering copies please contact the WOCAT secretariat .

WOCAT Map developments

Just before finishing and sending of this newsletter (26 – 28 June) a Task Force meeting was held in Rome at FAO to discuss the progress with the revision of the mapping methodology which basically is separated into a polygon map (“QM”) with information on land use, degradation and conservation for each polygon on the map, and a point map which indicates the location and brief description of SWC case studies (called “World Map”, but also applicable at more detailed scales). The S. African team working on the revision presented the progress and issues still to be resolved. A strategy on how to give the mapping a big push was also discussed. The mapping methodology and strategy will be a major topic at the WWSM in Cape Town . Much of it is now on-line available, for the time being hosted by the S. African AGIS Website – see under “ WOCAT Dynamic Maps ”. Your comments are more than welcome, but please realise this is still under development.

National and Regional activities

We received the following reports from Ethiopia, Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, South Africa and ICIMOD.

•  Ethiopia
By Daniel Danano

Report on Review meeting / workshop
EthiOCAT has planned to prepare an Overview Book on Technologies and Approaches in SWC in Ethiopia. A large amount of work has already been done and is underway in the process of docu­menting Technologies and Approaches of indigenous or introduced origin. So far about 38 QTs, 25 QAs and 33 QMs have been documented without including the first batch of QTs documented before the establishment of EthiOCAT by various contributors (list to be found in www.wocat.net ). It was thought from this achievement that preparation of an Overview book was feasible and a plan for re­alizing this was set for the year 2006. In the course of preparing the overview book, review work for quality checking and filling information gap was needed, for which EthIOCAT uses a group consti­tuting of major contributors and other experts.

In line with this, a review meeting/ work­shop was conducted from 3-12 April at Nazareth to check quality and fill in gaps in informa­tion collected from Amhara, SNNPR and Harari Regions. The meeting had an addi­tional purpose of identifying whether the docum­ented technologies are representing their regions or not, and if not what next. The number of participants was 12 from SNNPR, 1 from Harari and 13 from Amhara Region. The review meeting was conducted in two sessions and in the first session of 5 days (April 3-7) the participants from SNNPR and Harari reviewed the Technolo­gies, Approach­es and maps from their re­gions. In the second session of 5 days (April 8-12) the participants from Amhara reviewed their work.

Another workshop on the overview book was conducted in June and was attended by WOCAT coordinator Hanspeter Liniger.

1. Achievements: Technologies, Approaches and Maps reviewed, quality checked and gaps filled.

2. Summary of the major issues is prepared for each documented technology which is reviewed.

3. Need for further collection of data on technologies that were not documented but worth it have been defined. The following table provides the list of Additional work needed.

New technologies and Approaches identified per participating region

•  Bangladesh
By Sudibya Khisha

BANCAT activities from September 2005- May 06

1. Reviewing and editing of draft BANCAT Overview booklet are at the final stage and the booklet is expected to be published by June 2006. The unwanted delay has been caused by more additions of technologies and approaches from different institutions.
2. A BANCAT WG meeting was held at Rangamati Parjatan Motel on 17th February 2006 and a revised work plan for BANCAT was approved.
3. Some Best practices on SWC documented by FAO-UNDP with the involvement of the BANCAT National Coordinator were presented at the Inception Workshop of the EU funded Chittagong Hill Tracts Improved Natural Resources Management (CHARM) project held in Rangamati during 16th -17th February 2006.
4. A briefing paper on BANCAT collaboration with HIMCAT (ICIMOD) was presented in the ICIMOD's Partnership Assessment Seminar on 12th April 2006 organised by Dr.Khairul Alam, a BANCAT WG member at the Bangladesh Forest Research Institute, Chittagong.
5. A BANCAT WG member (Dr.S.P.Paul) participated in a training programme on Contour Hedgerow Inter-cropping Technology on 28th March 2006 at Rangamati organized by ADB funded CHT Rural Development Project and on 12 April 2006 in Chittagong organized by CARITAS, Chittagong.
6. BANCAT and WOCAT visions and missions including WASWC were presented in the meetings of the Soil Science Society of Bangladesh in March 2006 at the Department of Soil Science, Dhaka University and in May 2006 at the Soil Resources Development Institute (SRDI), Dhaka .
7. BANCAT and WOCAT were presented at the technical officers' conference of the SRDI in April 2006 at the SRDI Conference room in Dhaka.
8. With the initiation of BANCAT, an erosion and run off monitoring test with the establishment of Natural Vegetative Strip (NVS) of 1 m width at 10 m x 10m (3 replications) plots including one control plot (10m x 10m) was set up in April 2006 at a slope gradient of 15 % at the Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Center at Bandarban with the support from SRDI, Dhaka.

•  The Philippines
By Jose D. Rondal

PHILCAT Reorganized
The inter-agency Committee (PHILCAT) that is responsible for the work of WOCAT in the Philippines was reconstituted early this year with the issuance of a Special Order signed by the Secretary of Agriculture. This is necessary since some of the original members of the Committee are now engaged in other types of work not related to soil and water conservation. It should be recalled that the Committee was first formalized in 1999 when WOCAT took a foothold in the Philippines. There are 10 members of the reconstituted Committee with nine coming from the line agencies of the government and the academia. The tenth member is the World Agroforestry Centre, formerly, ICRAF. The chairperson and co-chairperson of the Committee are the Bureau of Soils and Water Management and the Forest Management Bureau, respectively. In its latest meeting in April, the Committee agreed to meet once every quarter.

In a related activity, Dr. Jose D. Rondal made a WOCAT presentation in an international conference on watershed management organized by the Institute of Agroforestry and Watershed Management of the Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University in La Union province on May 16-18, 2006. The conference is an output of a EuropeAid supported project entitled “Strengthening the Institute of Agroforestry and Watershed Management”. There were about 100 participants from various sectors involved in watershed management including the private sector. In his presentation, Dr. Rondal emphasized that the WOCAT data base provides several options in terms of technologies and approaches for watershed management. The Conference proceedings were compiled digitally and distributed to the participants. Many participants indicated interest for the WOCAT CD-ROM. Other state universities showed interest for a formal lecture or presentation on WOCAT to their staff.

WOCAT PR materials presented in CSSP and PSST
By Romeo Labios

A WOCAT poster, pamphlets and CD's were presented by Romy Labios during the 36th Crop Science Society of the Philippines (CSSP) Annual Scientific Conference held 9- 12 May 2006 in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan. The conference was attended by about 254 researchers, faculty, scientists, local government leaders from dif­ferent academic, national and international research institutions, private industries, national and local govern­ment agencies, and non-government organizations.

The same materials were also presented during the Philippine Society of Soil Science and Technology (PSSST) Annual Scientific conference on 1- 2 June 2006 in Central Luzon State University, Muñoz, Nueva Ecija.

•  India
By G.B. Reddy

WOCAT initiatives in Orissa in 2006
Orissa Watershed Mission is currently implementing activities in approximately 2500 watersheds. The objective of watershed development is to conserve and manage natural resources for livelihood improvement of the watershed dwellers.

There is a wealth of traditional and improved management practices in soil and water conservation and natural resources management in Orissa. These need to be documented and disseminated to the wider audience to improve decisions on identifying an appropriate technology and approach based on the local condition and requirements. This will provide a basket of options in the context of watershed development aiming to provide sustainable livelihoods to the poor and vulnerable through participatory natural resource management and institution building.

The Watershed Development Mission has initiated the documentation of technologies and approaches using WOCAT tools. Watershed Programmes under DANIDA assisted Comprehensive Watershed Development Project (CWDP) and Western Orissa Rural Livelihood Project (WORLP) have already documented some technologies and approaches in the project districts of Malkangiri, Nuapada and Bolangir in 2005. These are:

Ts and As documented in CWDP Orissa:

• Integrated Farming System technology
• Runoff management structure technology
• Participatory watershed development approach
• Farm pond with contour bund technology
• Participatory sustainable rural livelihood approach
• Contour Trench cum bund technology
• Participatory sustainable rural livelihood approach

Based on the experience of the previous year, actions have been taken to further institutionalize the process in WORLP watersheds. Accordingly, action has been taken on:

• Briefing the WOCAT working group (WWG) members on the progress and process
• Reconstitution of the WOCAT working groups in WORLP districts in Bolangir and Nuapada
• Preliminary identification of technology and approaches by the WWG members

Further actions in 2006:

• Internal CB Workshop to be organized for the working groups from Bolangir and Nuapada in June'06 on WOCAT tools.
• Development of action plan for documentation of the technologies and approaches
• Screening of Watersheds and technologies with project partners
• Documentation in hard and soft copy
• Share the documents with WOCAT
• Consolidate the learning
• Organizing sharing workshop with other project partners in the State of Orissa.

•  South Africa
By Dirk Pretorius

A Soil Protection Strategy For South Africa
The Department of Agriculture in South Africa initiated the development of a Soil Protection Strategy in August 2005. With its major focus on soil erosion the strategy includes the identification of priority areas where soil erosion is a high risk on high to moderate potential agricultural land. Best available data on the extend of soil erosion by water was derived through a GIS modeling process using the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) and long term NOAA satellite data. Map 1 indicates areas subjected to high and very high erosion risks as derived from above mention model.

In the strategy it is recommended that the WOCAT map questionnaire be used as part of the monitoring phase of the project. This will assist policy makers to determine the effectiveness of the programme. Three tertiary catchments have been identified as a priority for phase one of the project. The WOCAT database on technologies and approaches will also be used for the identification of suitable rehabilitation methods.

Results from phase one of the project would probably be presented at the 11th WOCAT workshop in Cape Town during October 2006.

•  ICIMOD – HKH region
By Sanjeev Bhuchar

News from HIMCAT

Himalayan Conservation Approaches and Technologies (HIMCAT) initiative was started by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD; Nepal ) in 2003. Support from People and Resource Dynamics Project (PARDYP) and WOCAT core was instrumental in setting up this network. The HIMCAT network consists of soil and water conservation and watershed management practitioners from the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region. Most of the members have been trained on WOCAT methods and tools and many of them have already applied the learning for evaluating and documenting their SWC activities. ICIMOD has also set up a HIMCAT extranet to enable virtual exchange of information among the network members. Information about the HIMCAT achievements and challenges can be collected from the WOCAT website and the HIMCAT extranet - http://extranet.icimod.org.np/himcat .

Dr. Isabelle Providoli from Switzerland has joined ICIMOD as an Associate Professional Officer (with SDC support), and she will be an active member of the ICIMOD team that coordinates and promotes HIMCAT-WOCAT activities. She is now helping in the updating of the online database rehabilitation work from PARDYP Nepal watershed at Dhotra. Polythene lined Fish Pond – successful Water harvesting technology in PARDYP India watershed, is also ready to be included in the WOCAT database. PARDYP has also prepared a poster “Don't forget the cold dry mountains” for the International Year of Deserts and Desertification, and the poster has been sent to the WOCAT core team at Bern.

ICIMOD is also trying to involve more institutions in the Himalayan region in WOCAT-HIMCAT initiatives. The Director of the North Eastern Regional Institute of Water and Land Management (NERIWALM) at Tejpur ( India ) has found WOCAT useful for their purpose of documenting SWC practices in the North-Eastern states of India . The Swiss-supported Sustainable Soil Management Programme (SSMP) in Nepal is also using WOCAT methods for documenting good soil management technologies and associated approaches under the lead of Dr. Juerg Merz. Mr. Madhav Dhakal and Dr. Isabelle from PARDYP-ICIMOD are helping the SSMP team in using the WOCAT questionnaires. A Pakistan training for the earthquake area on land degradation and rehabilitation, including WOCAT, is planned.

Finally, the good news is that recently a full-time Training Support Officer has joined ICIMOD. She is advising PARDYP on developing and running training courses on watershed management, including WOCAT, in the Himalayas.

WOCAT participation in “external” projects

SOWAP

The Soil and Water Protection in Europe ( SOWAP ) project which focuses on the demonstration and dissemination of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in Europe entered its third year. It is now active in four countries: UK , Belgium , Hungary and Czech Republic . It addresses the effects of Conservation Agriculture on erosion, terrestrial, aquatic and avian ecology and of course on farm economics. The impacts of (increased) pesticide use are also investigated. Though the results are not entirely unequivocal, they generally point towards positive effects on the issues considered. Yields do not show a significant increase (nor a decrease in most cases), but more timely and economic farming operations do increase farm income. The WOCAT questionnaires are used to document the SOWAP demonstration sites. Though not foreseen in the original project activities, plans for mapping the extent of CA are also in preparation as part of the dissemination strategy.

Alastair Leake , manager of the SOWAP site at Loddington (UK) sent us the following contribution:

Simple Soil Management techniques which reduce soil erosion whilst minimising impacts on production costs.

Soil trap in upper pond field north 2

Many consider that changes in cultivation and crop production techniques to reduce soil erosion may also increase production costs. Yet there are a number of targeted but easily implemented techniques which farmers could readily adopt given the correct guidance and advice. These techniques include the following:

1. Placing field margin strips at the bottoms of slopes vulnerable to run-off. These can be done under several environmental schemes or on set-aside.
2. Chopping straw and surface incorporation to reduce rainfall impact and creating a more stable soil structure.
3. Switching cultivation techniques to less intensive tillage. Over 40% of farmers are now using these techniques routinely.
4. Repairing broken field drains which reduce yields and cause erosion problems.
5. Re-direct tramlines from running up and down slopes to running across them.
6. Diverting run-off from tracks into settlement ditches to reduce the transport of soil particles into water courses.
7. Installing mini-silt traps at the bottom of vulnerable slopes.
8. Grassing down strips particularly in natural depressions in sloping fields which are liable to carry water and soil.
9. Carrying out a Visual Soil Assessment to ascertain the appropriate level of soil disturbance required for good crop establishment.

Tramlines in Barrow Hill

These techniques used in isolation or, preferably, in combination can have significant impacts and simply require the farmer to be in a position to consider them.

Conservation Agriculture in Europe

‘Conservation Agriculture in Europe ' is an easy-to-read assessment of and set of guidelines to Conservation Agriculture in European agriculture. It contains contributions from SOWAP , ProTerra (SOWAPs “sister project on perennial crops in S. Europe) and other projects. The target audience is policy makers and advisors; it is not directly intended for farmers. It contains a general overview of Conservation Agriculture (not an overview WOCAT-style), a section on soil and water issues in Europe, on the policy framework (Soil Thematic Strategy, Water Framework Directive, CAP Reform), crop guidelines for arable and perennial crops, horticulture and grassland, and of course some conclusions. ‘Conservation Agriculture in Europe' was officially launched at a special event with many high-level participants on June 29 2006 in Brussels.

DESIRE

Both CDE and ISRIC participate in a large integrated research proposal, entitled DESIRE, which is in the contract negotiation phase at the EU currently. The anticipated project budget is more than 8 million Euro, and the project duration 5 years. The proposed project aims to establish promising alternative land use and management conservation strategies in sixteen degradation and desertification hotspots around the world, based on a close participation of scientists with local stakeholder groups.

DESIRE employs a bottom up approach, as favoured by the UNCCD:

• degradation and desertification study sites (18 in total) and stakeholder groups have been identified in countries surrounding the Mediterranean , and in 6 external nations facing similar environmental problems,
• desertification indicator sets will be defined and a harmonized information system will be constructed to organize socio-economic and geo-information data,
• new and existing conservation strategies will be defined with the stakeholder communities;
• these strategies will be implemented in the field, and monitored and modeled to quantify their effectiveness at various scales,
• the results will be extrapolated using indicator sets, geo-information data, and integrated modeling systems combining socio-economic and environmental aspects, and
• finally the results will be translated to a series of practical guidelines for good agricultural practices and environmental management, which will be disseminated to practitioners, agricultural extensionists, governmental authorities, policy makers, NGOs, land users, land owners and local communities.

In order to achieve the goals mentioned in the introduction, the DESIRE IP has been divided into a logical series of interrelated Working Blocks (see Figure below), each with specific goals, tasks and deliverables. ISRIC is the coordinator of WB I, with major inputs in WB III, which is coordinated by CDE and which contains many WOCAT elements.

Green Water Credits (GWC)

Green water is the water held in soil and available to plants. It is the largest fresh water resource but can only be used in situ, by plants. Blue water is groundwater and stream flow, supporting aquatic ecosystems, that can be tapped for use elsewhere: for domestic and stock water, irrigation, industrial and urban use. Green Water Credits (GWC) is a form of payment for ecosystem services. It is a mechanism for transfer of cash to rural people in return for water management activities that determine the supply of green and blue water at source. These activities are presently un-rewarded.

In 2006 the first phase of a GWC Proof-of-Concept project started with support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The project aims to demonstrate the viability and feasibility of the GWC concept as a sustainable environmental service mechanism; to improve local resilience to external shocks by asset building (Green water resource, stable soils, shortening the hunger gap, diversified rural incomes); to deliver enhanced blue water resources and to reduce the hazards of flood and landslip downstream.

The GWC Proof-of-Concept will be undertaken in the upper Tana river basin in Kenya . Given a favourable outcome to the proof-of-concept, pilot operations of the GWC mechanism will be established.

Implementing institutions are: ISRIC – World Soil Information (lead), Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI), International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Agricultural Economics Research Institute (LEI), a financial management institution, and national partners. WOCAT will contribute to the project through the identification of appropriate soil and water management measures.