SEA-12:Comparative Assessment Between Upland And Coastal Communities In Community-Based Forest Management Implementation

Country:	Philippines
Partner Organization:	Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC)
Timeframe:	1 July 2002-30 June 2003
Contact Person (s):	Ms. May V. Blanco	Mr. Emmanuel P. Crucio
Address:	ESSC Door 3, Gallares Court, Graham Avenue Tagbilaran City 6300 Bohol Philippines	ESSC Door 3, Gallares Court, Graham Avenue Tagbilaran City 6300 Bohol Philippines
Telephone:	63-38-235-5247	63-38-235-5247
Fax:	63-38-235-5819	63-38-235-5819
Email:	esscbhl@mozcom.com	esscbhl@mozcom.com

This proposal is to come up with a comparative assessment of experiences between upland communities within the Caro-ud watershed and between coastal communities in community-based forest management (CBFM) implementation. Watershed and forest management are closely linked in terms of its ecological, social and economic importance to the people in the communities within the area. This is aimed at enhancing the communities' capacities to manage their natural resources. The assessment will also produce recommendations for policy review and formulation of local ordinances and for the enhancement of the Bohol Environment Code which was enacted in 1998.

It shall describe the situation of four (4) selected upland and coastal communities, identify elements that either facilitate or hinder favorable management of the community forests, and compare and contrast facilitating and hindering factors in community forest management approach. These will include an analysis of the following elements out of which the communities can learn from each other in terms of:

Using a community-based perspective in the management of resources, the study will guide the integration of better resource utilization and conservation mechanisms in the sectoral development plans of the local government units (LGUs) and in the updating of such plans therein. The project will facilitate management dialogue processes between local communities and LGUs and other stakeholders to enable them to appreciate the value of their own management planning strategies and directions to manage their resources better.

The study tools include documentation and secondary data review, policy analysis, semi-structured interviews, field observations, focus group discussions (FGDs) with local leaders, people's organization (PO) members, village elders, LGU officials and local environment and natural resources (ENR) staff.

Layers of issues and management concerns will be surfaced out of the study. The expected output of the activity is principally to come up with a comparative assessment study of community-based forest management agreements (CBFMAs), and dialogue documentation reports with various thematic map overlays. In effect this will serve as diagnostic reference to enable the communities and LGUs to develop better resource management plans and to more successfully implement them.

Specific application of the study output is to present relevant inputs to develop policy formulation, and reforms in community forest management approach among the local governments within the Caroud watershed and in the provincial government of Bohol.

The maps to be generated include:
a) biological resources including abundance map
b) land and water uses map
c) community extraction or activity sites map.

On the other hand, document reports to be produced include:
a) comparative assessment case report which is the main output beefed up by the
b) assessment of environmental policies adopted by communities and LGUs,
c) documentation of scoping dynamics/events, description of local resource management practices
d) dialogue documentation
e) analysis of the best strategies developed by the community in forest management.