Sweltering Hanoi, the city of a thousand lakes, home to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and the best bowl of Phở you’ll ever eat, this week is hosting the seventeenth Katoomba conference.  I’m here helping out in taking the conference global in reach – through a dedicated conference website: Katoomba Live!

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) is big news post the Copenhagen Summit.  Whatever your views, whether it’s the best thing since sliced bread and the cure to our climate change woes – or if you think it’s another wave of neo-liberal theft of the commons by stealth, it’s a topic that needs signifacantly increased attention, both in the awareness raising stakes and in the scrutiny of PES activity across the board.

The purpose of Katoomba Live is to draw some of this much needed attention to the subject matter and the medium we’ve chosen is video!  Kattomba Live is rough and ready.  No fancy editing and expensive graphics here.  Just basic wordpress scaffolding, volumes of content, a couple of video cameras and some much needed assistance translating into Vietnamese…

Whatever your interest in the subject there will be relevant content being posted onto the website over the next couple of days while the conference is running.  We are also welcoming contributions from people who can’t make it to the event.

It’s very much intended as an experiment as well as a practical resource – so comments, criticisms and suggestions for improvements are very welcome.  Get in touch!