اثربخشی اصلاحات تمرکز زدایی در بخش جنگلداری فیلیپین

Decentralisation reforms and political conditions in the Philippines present an ideal environment for forest management by recognising the land entitlements of upland and indigenous communities and promoting the involvement of local government units. By assessing whether current conditions – policies, institutions, and programmes – are conducive to effective decentralisation, this study examines the present state of decentralisation in the forestry sector of the Philippines. By analysing case studies conducted in Nueva Vizcaya Province, it also attempts to answer a broader question: when is decentralisation a success and when is it a failure? A number of uncertainties are revealed, along with various issues that hamper decentralisation, and that are interrelated and reinforce one another in much the same way as they have done over the past decade. The study highlights the need for caution when increasing the involvement of government at different levels, as it affects the pace of decentralisation reforms. It also shows that a mix of site-specific interventions and community endeavours that focus on securing local livelihoods has led to some success. This is a strategy that helps decentralisation reforms.

Over the last two decades, a considerable literature has emerged on the shift from centralised to decentralised management of natural resources, specifically the forests in developing countries. This reflects the experiments and programmes in community forestry or local forest management that aim to empower local communities, assigning responsibility or enabling devolution. Decentralisation in the forestry sector is considered an effective alternative to the command and control approach towards forest management, which in the past has led to the decline and degradation of forests in developing countries. It has been estimated that by 2002 around 22% of developing countries’ forests were formally under some form of decentralised management (White and Martin, 2002). Such noticeable changes in developing countries’ forestry sectors took place during the 1990s with the implementation of new forest policies supported by facilitating institutional arrangements at various government levels. These policies recognised decentralisation as a fundamental instrument for managing and conserving forest resources. Now the question that arises is: Are conditions conducive to effective decentralisation in the forestry sector? In this study, we attempt to answer this question in the context of decentralisation in the forestry sector in the Philippines. The study focuses on the Philippines because of its relatively extensive experience in forestry sector decentralisation (Pulhin et al., 2007). It has a relatively long history of forestry programmes that solicit broad public participation, and more policies and laws favouring devolution in forestry management than any other Asian-Pacific ‘developing country’ (Banerjee, 2000). It uses a mix of democratic, administrative, and fiscal decentralisation strategies in the natural resources sector. A major approach to decentralisation in the Philippines involves transferring responsibilities from the national government to local government units and local communities. Grainger and Malayang (2004, p. 11) suggest that decentralisation in the Philippines forestry sector contributes to “democratisation and pluralisation, by changing relationships between villages, local and provincial governments and the state”, and it is “as much a social experiment as a forest management strategy”. The Philippines also has one of the largest programmes especially under Community-based Forest Management (CBFM) projects. There are in all 5503 CBFM project sites nationwide covering around 5.97 m ha, and involving 690,691 households and 2877 people’s organisations. Around 1577 sites are being managed through CBFM Agreements (Statistics provided by CBFM Division, Forest Management Bureau, The Philippines), whereas in the remaining sites different tenure arrangements mainly intended for upland communities are being implemented, such as Certificate of Stewardship Contracts (hereafter, stewardship contracts) and Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claims (hereafter, ancestral domain).1

By assessing the policies, institutions, and programmes that facilitate decentralisation, and analysing the site-specific conditions drawn from case studies undertaken in Nueva Vizcaya Province, this study shows that interrelated issues that challenge decentralisation in the forestry sector in the Philippines have not yet been resolved, this despite government policies to distribute natural resources fairly and promote decentralisation for over three decades. Implementing more practical policies and developing institutional conditions to support decentralisation reforms are still a major challenge. The goal is to ensure communities receive sustainable income from rehabilitated forests and tree plantations by providing market linkages, equitable intra-community benefit-sharing arrangements and participation, and efficient arrangements to extend or renew individual and community-based forestry contracts and resource use permits. This study highlights the effects of increasing government involvement at different levels that drive decentralisation reforms. There are conflicting authorities in the forestry sector with almost identical functional responsibilities at various levels, and also similar administrative structures. There are local government units, which are central to decentralisation reforms, and the Community-based Forest Management (CBFM) projects that straddle municipalities and barangays. There are also numerous people’s organisations in large projects representing specific local communities under the umbrella of a federation. This mixture of governance, and the high number of actors and stakeholders, affect the pace of decentralisation reforms and make it difficult to assign or identify accountability. From an institutional economics perspective, increasing the levels of government to promote decentralisation requires more levels of administrators and higher implementation costs. This implies that decentralisation is a complicated process that needs site-specific intervention, as the case studies show.