scholarly journals REDD+ Implementation in Community-Based Muyong Forest Management in Ifugao, Philippines

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ram Avtar ◽  
Kenichi Tsusaka ◽  
Srikantha Herath

Ifugao province of the Philippines has a traditional muyong forest system that supplies water and prevents soil erosion of the world-famous Ifugao rice terraces. The socio-political structure of Ifugao has been the key to the maintenance and communal use of land, as well as the muyong forest, without causing excessive damage to the land. Recently, the Ifugao is facing various challenges viz. deforestation, slash-and-burn, introduction of commercial rice, and climate change. The aim of the study is to qualitatively assess the forest management practices in the muyong forest and the way forward to implement the United Nations—Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism. Community forestry can be an interesting option to reduce CO2 emissions from deforestation in Ifugao. This study qualitatively explores the societal problems in the area using focus group discussion (FGD) and key informant interviews (KII). The results show that the terracing lifestyle is at risk, due to mounting economic pressures from the domestic economy. Societal changes are altering the perceptions of the youth in terms of muyong sustainable management. They are threatening the sustainability of the terraces in the long-term because of outward migration and less value given to traditional practices. Furthermore, integration of commercial rice is changing the traditional agricultural system and placing less focus on forest maintenance. This study also discusses potential challenges and opportunities of REDD+ intervention and the role of REDD+ to foster sustainable muyong forest management as well as to find new innovative ways to maintain the Ifugao traditional system while coping with the modernization of the Ifugao economy.

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-196
Author(s):  
L. Puri ◽  
I. Nuberg ◽  
B. Ostendorf ◽  
E. Cedamon

Operational plans are a key element in community forestry in Nepal. However, the relevance of these plans to forest user groups (FUGs) is under scrutiny. This study investigates the usefulness of operational plans against the backdrop of knowledge, capacity and management practices of FUGs. Data were collected from 13 operational plans, 16 group discussions involving forestry professionals, and 218 household interviews in two villages of Lamjung district in Nepal. Whereas operational plans should specifically reflect site specific objectives and activities of forest management, the survey revealed identical objectives across the community forests. Current operational plans are technically complex, poorly linked to the place-based context of livelihood needs and less useful to the FUGs to inform and enhance forest management. This study proposes to differentiate community forests according to their production potentials, and revise the operational plans by shortening the elements that have little or no relevance to the FUGs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dil Khatri ◽  
Gyanu Maskey ◽  
Bikash Adhikari

At a time when community forestry has become a prominent mode of forest governance in many developing countries, REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest degradation) has emerged as a new conservation policy to contribute to climate change mitigation by incentivising such countries to conserve forest. While the proponents of REDD+ claim that it can help to strengthen decentralised forest governance through an increased flow of resources of fund and knowledge, the critics evince that there are negative consequences of REDD+ implementation to the decentralisation process, local control, and access to forests. Drawing on the ongoing engagement of the authors in the national REDD+ policy process and an ethnographic study of the REDD+ initiatives in Nepal, this paper demonstrates that REDD+ might paralyze Nepal’s long-standing community forestry policy rather than strengthening it. Findings show the instrumental use of participation in REDD+ policy development and limited representation of local voices in the policy processes. The piloting project implemented on community forestry suggest that REDD+, if implemented at full scale, can put new demand(s) to the long-standing community forestry policy and practices resulting in threatening of local uses of forests by smallholders. The implementation of REDD+ is likely to reshape community forest management practices driven from the priority of generating revenue which in turn undermines the need to manage forests to meet diverse needs of the smallholders. This analysis indicates the need for paying greater attention to represent local voices in developing national policies and programs, and align REDD+ objectives to the core principles of community forest management, local access, and control of forests.


ICR Journal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-229
Author(s):  
Muhammad Adha Shaleh

Community forestry offers many perspectives on the forest management system. It has become an avenue for special collaboration between state, scientific communities, social enterprises, businesses, and local communities, as well as a means of promoting practical solutions in forest conservation. Furthermore, it becomes an arena where forest people can participate in forest conservation projects, improve their livelihoods and manage forest projects via their own traditional knowledge. Inspired by its unique features, the researcher carried out a qualitative research study of community forestry with the hope of exploring its possibilities in the South East Pahang Peat Swamp Forest (SEPPSF). In this regard, the researcher employed research methods that consisted of interviews, focus group discussions and field observations. The interviewees were asked to reflect on current forest management practices in SEPPSF. Other participants included government officials, social activists and researchers. This study found that the SEPPSF offers a unique opportunity for collaborative forest care. To achieve this vision, however, there is a need to resuscitate the following three important elements of community forestry in SEPPSF: community empowerment in forest care; community land security; and community consultation for forest related activities. In addition, this study recommends two contemporary models to prompt effective forest governance: a short-term community forestry project in SEPPSF and a long-term community forestry project for the Orang Asli. It is anticipated that this paper will provide a fresh perspective on collaborative forest management. Furthermore, it is hoped that its findings parallel increasing calls for holistically sustainable forest management in Malaysia.


Author(s):  
Sherwin E. Ona ◽  
Emmanuel C. Lallana

The need to improve local disaster risk reduction (DRR) capacities in the Philippines is crucial in mitigating and responding to future disaster events. Despite being one the most disaster-prone countries in the world, national protocols remain inefficient, marred by corruption and poor inter-agency coordination. In addition, the current top-down and reactive practices have proven to be inadequate in responding to the needs of various stakeholders. The chapter examined these disaster preparation practices through a qualitative-descriptive research design and by using disaster information management (DIM) as the framework. In particular, the authors focused on the disaster preparedness practices of selected parishes of the Diocese of Legazpi and their partner organizations. The study also examined their information management practices and the current information and communications technology (ICT) tools in disaster preparedness.


Forests ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Linser ◽  
Bernhard Wolfslehner ◽  
Simon Bridge ◽  
David Gritten ◽  
Steven Johnson ◽  
...  

Growing concern about forest degradation and loss, combined with the political impetus supplied by the Earth Summit in 1992, led to the establishment of eleven intergovernmental, regional, and international forest-related processes focused on the use of criteria and indicators (C&I) for sustainable forest management (SFM). Up to 171 countries have participated in these processes to apply C&I frameworks as a tool for data collection, monitoring, assessment, and reporting on SFM and on achieving various forest-related UN Sustainable Development Goals. Based on an expert survey and literature analysis we identify six interlinked impact domains of C&I efforts: (1) enhanced discourse and understanding of SFM; (2) shaped and focused engagement of science in SFM; (3) improved monitoring and reporting on SFM to facilitate transparency and evidence-based decision-making; (4) strengthened forest management practices; (5) facilitated assessment of progress towards SFM goals; and (6) improved forest-related dialog and communication. We conclude that the 25-year history of C&I work in forestry has had significant positive impacts, though challenges do remain for the implementation of C&I and progress towards SFM. The work should be continued and carried over to other sectors to advance sustainability goals more broadly.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Petersen ◽  
Adam M. Wellstead

The San Bernardino National Forest in southern California experienced an unprecedented bark beetle outbreak in the early 2000s. The outbreak, coupled with a looming threat of catastrophic wildfire, droughts, changing forest management priorities, and a legacy of poor forest management practices coalesced to create a challenge that existing institutions and management agencies could not address. In response, an interagency collaborative effort, the Mountain Area Taskforce (MAST), was initiated. Based on key informant interviews, this paper details how this new governance organization emerged and how it effectively addressed a landscape scale forest challenge. Forest governance analyses often focus attention on macroscales, overlooking the microlevel arrangements that set MAST apart from other responses to bark beetle outbreaks. Interagency collaboration has taken on greater importance in efforts to address forest management at landscape scales and this case study provides important insights into the challenges and opportunities of these new governance arrangements.


2018 ◽  
pp. 54-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Basnyat ◽  
T. Treue ◽  
R. K. Pokharel

Following a case study approach, this paper explains how scientific forest management plans were developed and implemented in community forests of a mid-hill district in Nepal. Field observations were carried over a period of two years (December 2014 to December 2016) in two community forests. User group members, forest officials, forest technicians and executive committee members were consulted. The plans were prepared simply by compiling the administrative requirements where management prescriptions were defined either based on forest technicians’ knowledge or taken directly from the guidelines with little reference to the actual site quality, management objectives, and forest stand conditions. Apart from harvesting of trees, users hardly implemented the plans’ silvicultural prescriptions and forest restoration activities. Moreover, forest officials administratively reduced the number of trees that users could harvest to around half of what the plans allow. Accordingly, forest user groups face a paradoxical forest administration that promotes timber harvesting according to so-called scientific principles, which it then brushes aside to satisfy bureaucratic demands. The study concludes that the concept of scientific forestry is merely used as a “brand” or a seemingly sound “narrative” in community forestry, while it is of little practical relevance because administrative decisions are more powerful in guiding forest management decisions. Hence, the study suggests a replacement of the current schizophrenic mix of so-called “scientific forest management” and sweeping administrative orders with adaptive management practices in community forests. Banko JanakariA Journal of Forestry Information for Nepal Special Issue No. 4, 2018, Page : 54-64


1970 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-34
Author(s):  
B Shrestha

Wider discussions are held as to the contribution of community forestry program in Nepal to improve the forest condition and meeting the forest product requirements. This paper presents findings from a study of six Community Forest User Groups in far-western lowlands of Kailali and Kanchanpur in Nepal. The groups with natural and plantation forests have varied experiences in forest conservation and distribution of products. Some groups are resourceful in terms of availability of forest products from the natural forests. Others with plantation forests are product scarce from their own and depend on government managed forest and other sources to meet their demands. The role of concerned government authorities and federation of groups would be instrumental to analyse demand and supply, and make provisions for distribution of forest products within and outside groups and district. Key words: Community forest management, forest products, distribution, far-western low land   doi: 10.3126/banko.v18i2.2170 Banko Janakari, Vol. 18, No. 2, 25-34


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Frank Ankomah ◽  
Boateng Kyereh ◽  
Michael Ansong ◽  
Winston Asante

Forest cover loss, particularly those arising from deforestation and forest degradation, is largely driven by human activities and has attracted global attention over the decades. Globally, countries have adopted strategies to manage and conserve forests in response to these human disturbances. Ghana’s strategy to ensure sustainable management of the forest and its estate was to zone the forest into management regimes based on the resource availability and the object of managing those particular areas. Whilst forest degradation and its drivers and actors have been widely reported in Ghana, it is not known how forest management regimes influence these issues. Focusing on four forest reserves in the high forest zone of Ghana, this paper used interviews of key forest stakeholders, analysis of Forestry Commission field reports, and field verification to demonstrate the effect of forest management regimes on drivers of forest degradation. A combination of many proximate and underlying factors was observed to drive degradation in a synergetic way. The main drivers which were identified and their corresponding actors varied and manifested differently across management regimes. The strive by forest landowners to earn revenue from the protected forest, perceived unfair payment of ground rents for protected areas by Timber Utilization Contract holders, poor forest management practices on the part of forestry personnel, nondeterrent penalties, poor forest monitoring, the granting of compartment re-entry permits to harvest residual yield, overdependence on few species, weak enforcement of forest regulations, and perceived corruption on the part of forestry officials were the major underlying factors that impact on how the drivers manifested in various regimes. Our study reveals that the primary forest stakeholders of the country are the main actors of forest degradation and have developed various means convenient for specific regimes that enable them to benefit from the forest at the expense of conservation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 209-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sushant Acharya ◽  
Bishnu Raj Upreti

The equity and inclusion issues are widely observed in Community Based Forest Management (CBFM) and Community Forestry (CF) is not an exception. Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) are portrayed as robust grassroots institutions for forest management and group governance. However, many contemporary researches have shown that CFUGs are still governed by some influential local elites who hardly practice equity and inclusion. In this context, objectives of this paper are: to explore how equity and inclusion issues lead CFUGs fall into internal conflicts; and to demonstrate how CFUGs are able to address such issues locally. The study was carried out in Salghari CFUG of Ratnechaur, Myagdi. Semi-structured interview and focused group discussion were key tools used for data collection. Livelihoods and Social Inclusion Framework and Equity Framework are used for data analysis. The findings of the research revealed that dalits and non-dalits of Salghari fall into internal conflict regarding the use of forest products. The conflict was then managed through amendments in CF provisions and change in CF leadership. This paper concludes that execution of equity and inclusion provisions in CF, secures access to assets for disadvantaged people from CBFM. However, this demands empowerment of these people and facilitating role of external agency.


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