Suchergebnisse

In this issue we cover the topic on effecting a full devolution of environmental management functions to LGU's by creating the local Environment and Natural Resources Office

The concept and practice of governance and natural resource management is emerging as a popular debate in the Philippines, as in many countries in the region. It is now widely accepted that Local Government Units (LGU) play a critical role in the management of resources within their jurisdiction. This debate is constructed from a combination of people, processes and structures under a diversity of circumstances. Hence, its pluralistic nature, necessitates participation more widely by various civil society sectors, including the scientific community.

Watershed management is one the focal issues in the debate about sustainable development. Contemporary innovations in watershed management focus on involving community people in the protection and conservation of these resources, using a variety of participatory approaches. Use of participatory watershed management began in the Philippines after passage of the decentralizing, devolving Local Government Code (LGC) in 1991, which provides the legal framework for local governments to initiate institutional innovations. Although the number of LGUs proactively responding to environmental and resource degradation issues is increasing, the majority remain complacent about their devolved responsibilities in NRM. This led us to search for ways of understanding the methodological and policy hurdles impinging successful watershed management.

Local Government Units (LGU) play a critical role in the management of resources within their jurisdiction. Our collaborative work with SANREM/seeks to understand better the methodological, institutional and policy hurdles impinging the success of local natural resource management. The experience started in Lantapan in phase 1 of SANREM, with the aim to better integrate environmental knowledge in planning and decision-making at the watershed level. SANREM supported an LGU-led planning process for the development of a five-year Municipal Natural Resource Management and Development Plan (NRMDP). The NRMDP was recognized as a national model for locally led and research-based NRM planning by the Philippines' National Strategy for Watershed Management. Inspired by the Lantapan experience, a scaling-up process was pursued in four municipalities in northern Bukidnon. We concluded that there are socio-political and technical factors affecting the sustainability of local NRM. Four sustainability factors to successful NRM emerged from our study. These are: clear local financial investment, enhanced local technical capacity, sound political culture conducive to NRM, and a supporting National Mandate. To ensure that these conditions are met will require pressures for a virtual overhaul of programmatic areas of effective governance, as well as, setting a national level policy direction, and local level enforcement of such policies. We aim to translate these factors into policy statements communicated at the national level for wider impacts.

The Agroforestry Tree Seeds Association of Lantapan (ATSAL) in Bukidnon province, southern Philippines was organized in 1998, facilitated by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). Farmers were trained on germplasm collection, processing and marketing of agroforestry tree seeds and seedlings. ATSAL has been marketing various tree seeds and seedlings with apparent success, and has provided training on seed collection and nursery management to farmers, government technicians, and workers from non-government organizations (NGOs). This paper reports on the initial results of an on-going study to assess the effectiveness of ATSAL's marketing strategy, including group dynamics, and the issues and challenges the group faces. It was found that during the first two years, ATSAL's market share of greatly demanded timber tree species increased significantly, thus helping to disseminate widely these important species among farmers. ICRAF's technical back-up was an advantage, increasing the Association's market credibility. Subsequently, ATSAL extended its market to the central Philippines, but failed to meet the demand for seeds due to organizational limitations. Market competition exists, where a nonmember was able to take a larger market share than was the group. Nonetheless, ATSAL has established its name as a viable community-based seed and seedling producer, maintaining a stronghold in local and regional markets. Collective action is important for smallholders to break in, and gain market access, but is unlikely to sustain without effective leadership and some facilitation (in some cases even ongoing), thus requiring expenditures on repairs and maintenance through continuous technical and leadership training for the collective, and technical back-up and facilitation by an intermediary. Finally, facilitating smallholder collective action is essentially an arduous task, requiring the supporting agency to hold a firm grasp of market realities, to invest in the maintenance of collective action, to provide continuous technical back-up, and to ascertain the conditions that make collective action succeed. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; Theme 3; CAPRi ; EPTD