Author : Sajise, Percy E.

Summary : The historical context in which deforestation has taken place in the Philippines since the 19th century is given, from tobacco-curing and ship-building activities of the Spaniards during the 1800s, to heavy log exports to other countries, liberal policies on forest management and regulation, agricultural expansion, and rapid population growth since the beginning of the 20th century up to the present. The impacts of these deforestation activities have been siltation and soil erosion, loss of biological diversity, disturbance of the hydrologic cycle, displacement of cultural communities, low income, poverty and malnutrition. The Government's response to the deforestation problem has been two-pronged: reforestation and management of forest occupancy. However, major programs to implement these policies were ineffective because they were more target-rather than process-oriented, punitive rather than participative, and sectoral rather than spatial integration in orientation. Among the lessons learned for the development of sustainable land use systems for present-day application from earlier projects were: Importance of people participation, use of the process approach, land tenure security, giving incentive packages, linkages with appropriate line agencies, and use of agroforestry and reforestation technology. Some possible sustainability indicators from these projects were also indentified, such as improvement of land use in a watershed or landscape, replication of technology by farmers themselves, increasing the number of adopters of technology and active participation of local organizations, decrease in number of people in destructive forest activities, willingness and active participation in forest protection and more planting of permanent trees and perennial crops.