Payment for Environmental Services Program Launched

In January 2011, the Florida Ranchlands Environmental Services Project saw its vision realized when the South Florida Water Management District issued a Northern Everglades -- Payment for Environmental Services (NE-PES) solicitation offering to pay cattle ranchers for documented services of water retention and nutrient load reduction. The FRESP team is proud to have been instrumental in launching one of the most ambitious operational PES programs in the nation. Project update »

FRESP Vision Volunteer ranchers enter into fixed term contracts with state agency buyers to implement modifications to existing ranch water management infrastructure and strategies in order to provide increased water related environmental services, above and beyond regulatory requirements, creating a new profit center for ranch enterprises.

The potential benefits of dispersed water management services are far-reaching:

• Modifying the phase and timing of water delivered to Lake Okeechobee achieves more natural fluctuations in the lake level, and lessens the need to release harmful discharges to Florida's St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries.
• Dispersed water management t can also contribute to reductions in nutrient loading to the Lake, Estuaries and the Everglades National Park.
• And increasing ranchers' profitability means that ranchland can remain in ranching—a more sustainable option than intensive agriculture or other uses that require greater water use and control and or agro-chemical use.

Since 2005, FRESP has taken a collaborative, entrepreneurial approach to addressing some of Florida's toughest environmental challenges. The focus in the pilot phase has been on learning by doing. Eight volunteer FRESP ranchers - designed, constructed and are now implementing water management alternatives on their ranches. These demonstration projects are informing the design of a PES program so that it will be feasible to administer, generates needed water management services, and provides ranchers with a new source of income.

Our coalition includes:

• Cattle ranchers in the Lake Okeechobee watershed
• Environmental partners
• Research scientists
• State and federal agencies

FRESP partners have raised over $6 million in funding for the design and field-testing phases. Funding has been provided by: two Conservation Innovation Grants from the USDA NRCS; the South Florida Water Management District; Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.

Learn more

• Restoring the Northern Everglades
• Payment for Environmental Services
• Water Management
• Pilot Projects