Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

200 • Herlina Hartanto stakeholders in the two ACM sites. It was expected that increasing committee members’ awareness of the fundamental problems would lead to better policies and programmes. The ACM team worked ‘inside’ the community forestry system in the Philippines in anticipation of achieving significant impacts. This strategy, however, may also have reinforced two weakness of the programme. First, the granting of forest management rights to people’s organisations can sideline other forest users and push them into marginal economic niches (Li 2002); by working directly with the POs and increasing their social capital, the ACM team may have compounded the power imbalance between the POs and the marginalised groups. Second, by helping the POs meet DENR’s technical, legal, and administrative requirements, the team may have inadvertently reinforced these constraints. Conclusion Community forestry in the Philippines was initially designed to engage local communities in rehabilitating degraded forests. The emphasis therefore has been on technical forestry and management for productivity, with little attention on local institutions within the community, their political and social dynamics and their economic needs. Large areas of forestland have been devolved, but the management of community forests by people’s organisations was not sufficiently supported by conducive policies, economic opportunities and capacity building. Furthermore, DENR staff were hesitant to share power and engage in partnerships with local government and local communities, as indicated by their bureaucratic requirements. Our three-year project showed that the ACM approach can address those challenges. Stakeholder analysis identified the relevant players, and engaging them in community forest management improved collaboration among the PO members and other local people. By putting the POs at the heart of ACM processes, ACM enhanced their members’ skills, capacities, awareness and confidence in communication, networking, proposal making, recordkeeping, and management of small enterprises. The POs have exercised a more democratic process of forest management planning and decision making. ACM made collaboration and learning intentional and deliberate. The cycles of reflection, planning, action and reflection encouraged people to observe and monitor the outcomes of their decisions and adapt subsequent actions accordingly. These have improved the capacity
Chapter 6: Facilitating Change from the Inside in the Philippines • 201 of the POs to better deal with changing conditions and uncertainties in forest management. ACM concept and processes are not without limitations. To produce positive outcomes, the processes have to be facilitated skillfully. This requires experience, time and resources. ACM also depends on the willingness of community, government and nongovernmental institutions to communicate, treat one another as equal partners, collaborate, learn and improve their forest management strategies along the way. Given all these key ingredients, however, ACM could substantially improve community forestry in the Philippines. Acknowledgements The implementation of ACM project in the Philippines was financially supported by the Asian Development Bank. I would like to thank the ACM Philippine team members, Ma. Christina Lorenzo, Cecil Valmores, Lani Arda-Minas, Erlinda M. Burton and Azucena Estanol, for their commitment in making the project a success. The views and opinions expressed in this chapter are solely mine. My thanks also go to Ravi Prabhu, Bob Fisher and the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive input and feedback. Endnotes 1 This figure refers to the official category of ‘forestland’ that the state government classified as public domain or state property. Some of the forestland, however, does not contain any trees. 2 These programmes provided a short land tenure of two to three years for the recipients, except for Communal Tree Farm, which has a renewable 25-year contract. 3 Based on Letter of Instruction No. 1260, issued by the Office of the President. 4 Based on the Presidential Executive Order No. 263. 5 DENR (1998) specified that to qualify, the community must till a portion of the area within that forestland, traditionally depend on forest resources for livelihood and reside within or adjacent to the area. 6 Based on the Presidential Executive Order No. 192, Section 5. 7 Republic Act No. 7610 of 1991. It should be pointed here that the Legal Government Code was implemented long before CBFM became a national programme.
Page 1:
Adaptive Collaborative Management o
Page 4 and 5:
Copyright © 2007 by Center for Int
Page 6 and 7:
iv • Contents Chapter 5. Muddling
Page 8 and 9:
vi • Foreword problem solving. Th
Page 10 and 11:
viii • About the Contributors God
Page 12 and 13:
Acknowledgements In early 1999, two
Page 15 and 16:
Chapter 1. Introduction: People, Fo
Page 17 and 18:
Chapter 1: Introduction: People, Fo
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Chapter 2: Adaptive Collaborative M
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
Page 51 and 52:
Page 53 and 54:
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Chapter 3: Adaptiveness and Collabo
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Chapter 4. Shaping Opportunities fo
Page 107 and 108:
Chapter 4: Improving Forest Quality
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
Page 137 and 138:
Page 139 and 140:
Page 141 and 142:
Page 143 and 144:
Page 145 and 146:
Page 147 and 148:
Chapter 5: Muddling Towards Coopera
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Page 153 and 154:
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
Page 159 and 160:
Page 161 and 162: Chapter 5: Muddling Towards Coopera
Page 175 and 176: Chapter 6: Facilitating Change from
Page 211: Chapter 6: Facilitating Change from
Page 221 and 222: Chapter 7: Discussion and Conclusio
Page 241 and 242: CIFOR is a leading international fo
show all

Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?