Bolivia

ICE BV in Bolivia:

ICE BV is excited about getting involved in its first project in South America. Mr. Gijsbert Nollen, Principle Consultant at International Consultancy Europe BV, recently visited the 780,000 hectare watershed in the Rio Grande Watershed in Bolivia, where ICE BV will be involved in a conservation project involving Payment for Watershed Services (PWS).

ICE BV is working with Fundación Natura Bolivia, an environmental non-governmental organization, and the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), an international research institution, to design compensation systems to protect the water supply for downstream agriculture.

The Rio Grande Watershed has become vastly depleted due to land use change upstream, such as deforestation. Devastating floods occur regularly downstream, in which people and the economy are severely affected. By creating a system in which upstream residents are economically compensated for conserving the land which provides services to residents downstream, people on both ends will be rewarded economically, and the biodiversity of the region will benefit as well.