Policy Landscape for Customary Forest Management in the Philippine Cordilleras

Author(s):  
Leah Abayao

Forest management strategies in the Philippines recognize the cultural attributes of forests and customary practices accorded to them. Local communities view forests as an essential and contiguous resource. The Philippine Cordilleras is home to local community forests, natural and man-made or built. Natural forests are held collectively and managed according to customary practices. Man-made forests are developed by kin groups. These are small patches of forests that when surveyed make up a significant portion of the community’s natural resources. The “principle of collective ownership of forests” and the “customary tenurial security” are important principles in sustainable forest management in the Philippine Cordilleras. Agencies and local government units (LGUs) are challenged to strengthen their capacity to proactively encourage contemporary customary principles and practices to be used alongside official processes. These customary principles, when used within existing platforms, will prepare communities to face issues that affect their customary forests. Forests in some parts of the Cordilleras are tenured customarily, and such tenure comes with responsibility under the customary regime. The customary regime needs to be given equal attention in official processes to strengthen and effectively enforce forest local governance.

1998 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter N. Duinker ◽  
Reino E. Pulkki

In June 1997, we visited the Magnifica Comunità di Fiemme (MCF), a community forest in the Alps of northern Italy. We have prepared this article to help broaden the perspectives of Forestry Chronicle readers on community forests and what they mean in various parts of the world. We first describe the area and its forests, and then give a brief history of the MCF. Then we review the forest-management strategies used in this Norway spruce forest, and summarize the logging and wood-processing activities of the enterprise. We continue with a comparison of this community forest with three community forests in Canada, concluding that generalization on what makes a community forest successful is dangerous — each situation is unique. Finally, given that the MCF recently won permission to use the eco-label of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), we discuss our perceptions of how the MCF operation does and does not meet the FSC's Principles and Criteria of Forest Stewardship. Despite several shortcomings, we believe that the MCF is in most respects a sound example of sustainable forest management.


Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roswin B. Valenzuela ◽  
Youn Yeo-Chang ◽  
Mi Sun Park ◽  
Jung-Nam Chun

Participatory forest management has been considered as a practical and effective strategy for sustainable forest management, especially in situations where land tenure is not securely settled. For effective forest restoration, local communities, as the cornerstone of participatory management, should be provided with incentives to facilitate their participation and active role. We postulate that participation in mangrove restoration projects can not only provide financial rewards but also yield intangible benefits for communities, i.e., social capital. The study was conducted in the province of Quezon, Philippines, using face-to-face interviews as the main method for data collection. Regression analyses were undertaken to assess the impact of local community participation in mangrove restoration projects on social capital and its potential benefits to people in terms of access to information and services, which are key components of livelihood. Results revealed that people’s participation in mangrove restoration projects contributes to increasing social capital, consequently improving their access to information and services. Local people’s participation is beneficial to communities, as it can improve their livelihoods.


Author(s):  
Philipp Back ◽  
Antti Suominen ◽  
Pekka Malo ◽  
Olli Tahvonen ◽  
Julian Blank ◽  
...  

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Savage ◽  
David L. Martell ◽  
B. Mike Wotton

Ecological values are an important aspect of sustainable forest management, but little attention has been paid to maintaining these values when using traditional linear programming (LP) forest management planning models in uncertain planning environments. We embedded an LP planning model that specifies when and how much to harvest in a simulation model of a “managed” flammable forest landscape. The simulation model was used to evaluate two strategies for dealing with fire-related uncertainty when managing mature and old forest areas. The two seral stage areas were constrained in the LP planning model to a minimum of 10% of the total forest area and the strategies were evaluated under four representative fire regimes. We also developed a risk analysis tool that can be used by forest managers that wish to incorporate fire-related uncertainty in their decision-making. We found that use of the LP model would reduce the areas of the mature and old forest to their lower bound and fire would further reduce the seral areas below those levels, particularly when the mean annual burn fraction exceeds 0.45% per annum. Increasing the minimum area required (i.e., the right-hand side of the constraint) would increase the likelihood of satisfying the minimum area requirements.


1970 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pem N Kandel

In early 2005, 10,045 ha Community Forests (CFs) were certified in Bajhang and Dolakha districts of Nepal by using the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification scheme. After two years of forest certification, subsequent questions are being asked such as: What benefits have certification brought for the Forest Users Groups (FUGs)? What tangible differences are there in forest management system because of forest certification? and What lessons have been learnt from the certified forests? In an attempt to answer these questions, a study was carried out in April 2007 in Dolakha district where 11 (2,182 ha) community managed forests were certified in 2005. On the basis of field study from two certified forests (Vitteripakha and Suspa) of the district, this paper analyzes the effects of forest certification and its implications for enhancing Sustainable Community Forestry (SCF) in Nepal. Key words: Sustainable forest management, forest certification, community forestry Banko Janakari: A journal of forestry information for Nepal Vol.17(1) 2007 pp.11-16


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
G. Santopuoli ◽  
C. Temperli ◽  
I. Alberdi ◽  
I. Barbeito ◽  
M. Bosela ◽  
...  

The increasing demand for innovative forest management strategies to adapt to and mitigate climate change and benefit forest production, the so-called Climate-Smart Forestry, calls for a tool to monitor and evaluate their implementation and their effects on forest development over time. The pan-European set of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management is considered one of the most important tools for assessing many aspects of forest management and sustainability. This study offers an analytical approach to selecting a subset of indicators to support the implementation of Climate-Smart Forestry. Based on a literature review and the analytical hierarchical approach, 10 indicators were selected to assess, in particular, mitigation and adaptation. These indicators were used to assess the state of the Climate-Smart Forestry trend in Europe from 1990 to 2015 using data from the reports on the State of Europe’s Forests. Forest damage, tree species composition, and carbon stock were the most important indicators. Though the trend was overall positive with regard to adaptation and mitigation, its evaluation was partly hindered by the lack of data. We advocate for increased efforts to harmonize international reporting and for further integrating the goals of Climate-Smart Forestry into national- and European-level forest policy making.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 4071
Author(s):  
Jie Dai ◽  
Dar A. Roberts ◽  
Douglas A. Stow ◽  
Li An ◽  
Qunshan Zhao

Community forests have been established worldwide to sustainably manage forest ecosystem services while maintaining the livelihoods of local residents. The Chitwan National Park in Nepal is a world-renowned biodiversity hotspot, where community forests were consolidated in the park’s buffer zone after 1993. These western Chitwan community forests stand as the frontiers of human–environment interactions, nurturing endangered large mammal species while providing significant natural resources for local residents. Nevertheless, no systematic forest cover assessment has been conducted for these forests since their establishment. In this study, we examined the green vegetation dynamics of these community forests for the years 1988–2018 using Landsat surface reflectance products. Combining an automatic water extraction index, spectral mixture analysis and the normalized difference fraction index (NDFI), we developed water masks and quantified the water-adjusted green vegetation fractions and NDFI values in the forests. Results showed that all forests have been continuously greening up since their establishment, and the average green vegetation cover of all forests increased from approximately 30% in 1988 to above 70% in 2018. With possible contributions from the invasion of exotic understory plant species, we credit community forestry programs for some of the green-up signals. Monitoring of forest vegetation dynamics is critical for evaluating the effectiveness of community forestry as well as developing sustainable forest management policies. Our research will provide positive feedbacks to local community forest committees and users.


2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (No. 11) ◽  
pp. 526-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Vacek ◽  
V. Balcar

Forest management in the Czech Republic (CR) was not shaped in the environment of natural forests but in the territory that was influenced by unregulated felling and animal grazing for a long time. Hence the fear for sustainable and balanced benefits from forests endangered by long-term uncontrolled exploitation was legitimate. Almost after three centuries of application of the sustainability principle, forests are considered not only as a source of renewable wood raw material but also as a tool of the environment formation. Mountain forests are an important landscape component of this country. They are an object of specific importance from the aspect of natural environment conservation, stabilization of natural processes and general landscape homeostasis. In addition, they fulfil a number of production and non-production functions. Cardinal elements of sustainable forest management in the CR conditions are as follows: management of the forest as an ecosystem, i.e. transition from exclusive care of forest tree species and their stands to care of the whole forest ecosystems; restructuring (conversion, reconstruction) of damaged and declining forests; optimum (species, genetic, spatial, age) structure of forest ecosystems differentiated according to site conditions and management targets; differentiated transition from general management to group or individual methods; utilization and support of spontaneous processes such as natural regeneration, competition and other principles of self-regulation. The above cardinal elements of sustainable forest management are applicable to forests of the CR in general, but their importance considerably increases in mountain forests where many species survive on the margin of subsistence. Moreover, mountain forests of CR have been heavily destroyed by anthropogenic factors, especially air-pollution ecological stresses, during the last three or four decades.


2005 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 1378-1388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Peter ◽  
John Nelson

Incorporating fire disturbance into sustainable forest management plans is necessary to provide estimates of variation around indicators for harvest levels, growing stock, profitability, and landscape structure. A fire disturbance model linked to a harvest simulator was used to estimate the probability of harvest shortages under a range of harvest levels and fire suppression scenarios. Results were then used to estimate "sustainable" harvest levels based on a risk tolerance to harvest shortages and the effects of fire suppression. On a 288 000 ha forest in northeastern British Columbia, the cost of historical fire disturbance was estimated at $4 million per year in terms of foregone harvest profits. Suppressing 98.3% of disturbance events to 30% of their historical size had a value of $1.8 million per year. Higher levels of risk tolerance were associated with increased harvest levels and short-term profits, but as timber inventories were drawn down, average long-term profits became volatile. The modelling framework developed here can help to determine resilient forest management strategies and estimate the future flow and variability of harvest volumes, profits, and landscape conditions.


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