Community forestry in the Philippines: a country report

摘要

The paper reviews the different reasons that led to the emergence of community forestry as an approach to forest resources development and management in the Philippines. It then traces the evolution of community forestry from the time it started as a bottom-up approach (1970s) mainly to stabilize individual upland farms to one that covers different forest land areas and land-use mixes (1990s). As to the status of the programme, the paper noted a shortfall in the forest land area between what the programme envisioned to be placed under community management in 1998 and what is presently under the communities' care. Notwithstanding this difference, the area managed by forest communities is very much wider than what is now under the management of timber operators (5.3 million ha against 1.4 million ha). This indicates a significant shift in the government's forest management approach in favour of forest-dependent communities. However, the issue is whether the forest communities can manage the forest areas in a sustainable way. The paper then looks briefly at the measures that are being undertaken by some forest communities. Issues that confront the implementation of community forestry in the Philippines constitute the last topic of the paper.