Farmers turned Environmentalist in Vietnam

Instead of clearing land for farming, villagers in Lam Dong, Vietnam are being paid not to farm.

According to Al Jazeera, villagers having a hard time making a living on the local coffee plantations are now being paid to be caretakers of the land. More than 400 locals are part of the "payment for environmental services" scheme. Their job description now includes regular patrolling of the land to prevent the very destruction from hunting and logging they otherwise would have been a part of.

Funding for the scheme comes from the local hydro-electric plant that has been required by law to join. The plant itself benefits because the trees and grasses that are now being preserved by villagers are reducing both floods and landslides. What this means is that there is less problematic soil runoff into the stream that the plant relies upon to function. Normally they would have to pay millions of dollars to have the reservoirs dredged. The cost of electricity has been slightly raised to pay for the project but villagers who could once barely afford to feed themselves, now make a decent living.

One villager who was making barely 60 cents a day says he has tripled his monthly income and can now afford to buy clothes for his six children as well as fertilizer for his own crops. The first of its kind in Southeast Asia, the project seems to be one of those common sense win/win scenarios that's sets a great example for how people can work together for economic improvement. 

Photo courtesy Alex.ch via Flickr.