After ten years of implementing the Community-Based Forest Management Strategy, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, together with non-government organisations (NGOs), peoples’ organisations (POs), local government units (LGUs) and other partners in community forestry have conducted a series of workshop-consultations to assess the gains and failures of CBFM as a national strategy in forest management.

CBFMS was adopted by the Philippine government as its national strategy for forest management in 1995 to achieve sustainable forestry and social justice. To implement it, the DENR formulated the Strategic Action Plan adopted in 1997. The year 2007 is a crucial year in CBFM as it is time for assessing the past decade as well as to map out plans for the next ten years (2008-2018). This series of workshop-consultations was conducted from January to March in five key cities/towns in the Philippines – Baguio City (29 January – 1 February), Bacolod City (6-9 February), Cagayan de Oro City (19-22 February), Davao City (25-28 February) and Los Baños, Laguna (11-14 March). A total of 116 POs, 52 LGUs, 48 NGOs and 87 DENR participants nationwide have joined in these consultations.

These consultations were crafted in order to gather better outputs from the different stakeholders. Earlier, from 20-22 September 2006, a national workshop on strategic planning for CBFM was conducted. But it lacked the substantial participation of the intended partners such as POs, NGOs and the LGUs. Thus, a series of more participatory workshops was identified to address more specific CBFM concerns coming from the direct players.

The output from the series of workshops is also expected to enhance the output of the first workshop and more importantly, translate strategies into activities at the local level. In addition, NGO CBFM support groups have recognised the need to institutionalize a systematic, sustained and mutually supportive collaboration in the hopes of moving CBFM forward.

With the crafting of the new strategic plan 2008-2018, it is expected that the outputs given by these players will be highlighted and given its necessary response. Despite frustrations, a diminished level of confidence and unmet expectations, every stakeholder remains hopeful that this strategic plan will move CBFM to greater heights in the next ten years.

Contact:
NTFP Task Force, Philippines
Telefax: +63 2 4262757
Email: abi.aguilar@yahoo.com