The Philippine forests are threatened by deforestation, forest degradation and climate change. They are also important for the livelihood of communities as well as being a global biodiversity hotspot. This project aims to foster nature-based solutions by including local stakeholder aspirations into land use planning and combining it with a spatial decision support system which will allow for more sustainable forest management.
Participatory land use planning as a tool to balance economic and conservation needs
Forests still cover 24% of the surface area of the Philippines and are threatened by deforestation and forest degradation. They harbour an outstanding biodiversity, being inhabited by many species which cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. Forests also provide a range of valuable services as well as products which are crucial for rural development and the livelihood of forest communities. Currently, local landscape management plans are set to follow sub-national and national priorities often without involving local stakeholders adequately. This approach often prevents that the need for both nature-based solutions and local livelihoods can be met through sustainable forest management. Nature-based solutions and sustainable forest management have the potential to safeguard the Philippine’s remaining forest landscapes and to support national wood demands which are currently sustained by industrial timber plantations and imports. Land use planning is a key element to achieve this.
The project will combine existing tools and methodologies and aims to create a new framework for land-use planning: In a co-design and bottom-up process, involving forest-dependent communities together with local and regional stakeholders, the project will analyse future land use scenarios and their impact on ecosystem services for four landscapes in Northern Luzon and Eastern Visayas (each approx. 80-100 km2). The analysis will include effects on timber and crop production, flood protection and other services by using different kinds of data from geographic information systems (GIS) and spatially explicit land use modelling. The results will be incorporated into a decision support system which will serve as basis for long-term planning and management by revealing the impact of land use on ecosystem services. The team consisting of Melvin Lippe from the Thünen Institute of Forestry, Cecilia Mangabat from Isabela State University Cabagan, and Renezita Come from Visayas State University will execute the project in collaboration with Forest Foundation Philippines.
Facilitating long-term planning horizons is an important step to safeguard the remaining forests and balancing the needs of rural development, biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation. Involving a variety of stakeholders (from public and civil society, local and regional management) creates both transparency and a sense of ownership. It also empowers local and regional stakeholders to take a more active role in landscape management. The combination of strong stakeholder involvement and scientifically sound decision support systems is an innovative way for developing a systematic and reproducible strategy for sustainable forest management and land use. The resulting framework has the potential to become a role model for other areas and for further applications.
