SEA-10:Closure Of Open Access Forest Areas: Field Research In The Upper Chico, Cordillera Region, Philippines

Country:	Philippines
Partner Organization:	Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC)
Timeframe:	16 November 2001-15 May 2002
Contact Person (s):	Ms. Sylvia San Mateo Miclat
Address:	1/F Manila Observatory BldgAteneo UniversityLoyola Heights1108 Quezon CityPhilippines
Telephone:	63-2-426-5921
Fax:	63-2-426-5958
Email:	essc@admu.edu.ph

This research documentation will focus on the Upper Chico Watershed, an area located in northern mountains of the Philippines. It is a region where ESSC has been involved in facilitating community-based resource management planning with local government. Previously, the area was also a focus of PWG activities, from which the requests for further assistance emerged from communities and local governments emanated. The objective of this activity is to develop a long-term strategy to assist communities and local government to protect forests and Cordillera watersheds from further degradation. The approach will involve the exploration of ways to close open access forest to illegal logging, mining, and land clearing while encouraging the regeneration of degraded ecosystems and related biodiversity.

The project will synthesize information gathered during the ESSC project and through PWG activities to develop a picture of current social, economic, political, and cultural realities. Key elements to be considered in the development of the strategy will be the incorporation of the social and cultural mechanisms presently operative and local government's role definition and political willingness to assume the responsibility and accountability for natural resource stewardship.

The activity will result in a working paper that will greatly contribute to current efforts of ESSC in its development of a broader proposal to pursue research in assisted natural regeneration that will be fed into local and national discussions on community based forest management. Local government authorities will be provided with a strategic vision of how they might better approach natural resource management and watershed stewardship to sustain their upland forests and hydrology.

As the Cordillera region provides a context where local government maintains a greater degree of autonomy from the Center, it allows an opportunity to explore how decentralization of natural resource management might take operational shape with relevance for other parts of the Philippines. It is expected that the experience from the Cordillera, as presented in the publication, will provide another perspective regarding the ways other national working groups in the region can design appropriate strategies to build capacity of local government administrations and communities to protect threatened forests and watersheds.