Background
The three villages/barangays of San Rafael, Tanabag, and Concepcion in Palawan, Philippines, have been the home of our ACM project since 1999. At the end of the ACM project in 2002, positive outcomes were observed. Nevertheless, many challenges remained and we found learning processes needed to be facilitated longer before they could be truly institutionalized. This prompted us to continue our work in Palawan in 2004. The project has been managed implemented under EU-funded “Levelling the Playing Field” (LPF) by the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD) and CIFOR. It runs for four years, 2003 – 2007.
Project Approach, Methods, and Research Questions
The LPF project aims to improve renewable resource management by facilitating coordination, communication, negotiation, and collective action among relevant stakeholders at different levels, from village to provincial. The project applies action research methodology to encourage active engagement of stakeholders throughout the project.
The project facilitates collective action and learning among community members at the village level in addressing their pressing local issues. In parallel with this are the activities to facilitate the community and provincial stakeholders to come up with a long-term management plan based on proper considerations over several possible management scenarios, taking into account their implications for people’s livelihoods and the environment.
The project attempts to understand how long-term forest management goals can be achieved in a context where various multi-stakeholders with different interests, views and power exist. The project will address four research questions:
- Can local livelihood be improved through increased empowerment in forest management?
- Under what conditions the project will produce impacts on local livelihood and forest management?
- What are the most appropriate mechanisms (multi-stakeholders forum, etc.) and tools (modeling, future scenario, etc.) to facilitate negotiation among stakeholders?
- Under what conditions multi-stakeholder will be encouraged to manage forest in sustainable way (market condition, collective action, policy framework, etc.)?
Expected Impacts
We expect that the project will produce positive impacts on forests and forest stakeholders. New opportunities to improve the real prosperity of local households and communities, based on sustainable forest and natural resource management, will be explored. The project will target key stakeholders in order to maximize impacts on local beneficiaries over time. Expected impacts include improved capacities of local institutions, in forms of improved skills, knowledge, and awareness, to communicate, enforce rules and sanctions, monitor, and improve their management. Stakeholders will coordinate and collaborate better with each other due to improved understanding of their roles, responsibilities, and functions. Costs and benefits from the forests will be shared more fairly. The project will also pay attention to marginalized and minority groups, such as women, indigenous community and the poor, and ensure that they can participate in the decision-making process. Other expected impacts include production of decision-making tools and policy recommendations to policy-makers, and the production of tools, processes, and guidelines for multi-stakeholder negotiation that can be used in other parts of the world.
Project partners and Sites
CIRAD and CIFOR are managing and implementing this project with three partner universities in the three participating countries. They are: University of the Philippines Los Baños (Philippines), Gajah Mada University (Indonesia), and Universiti Putra Malaysia (Malaysia). Apart than Palawan, other sites include Perhutani’s teak plantations and Jepara (Java), Musi Hutan Persada-managed forests (Sumatra), Matang mangrove forests and
Pahang (Malaysia).
Contact persons
Herlina Hartanto
Philippine Country Coordinator
Email: h.hartanto@cgiar.org
Philippe Guizol
Project Leader
Email: p.guizol@cgiar.org
More details about project activities, outputs, and publications can be found at Levelling the Playing Field (LPF) website