FARM FORESTRY - AN ALTERNATIVE TO GOVERNMENT-DRIVEN REFORESTATION IN THE PHILIPPINES

The Philippine government borrowed heavily from the Asian Development Bank and the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund to finance its Contrac t Reforestation Program between 1988 and 1992. People were paid to pla nt trees on public lands in the first 3 years of the program. A 25-yea r stewardship agreement succeeds the paid labour arrangement which pro vides cost benefit sharing between the contractor and the government. Results of the first phase of implementation were poor. On the same si te where problematic reforestation projects were assessed in the study are successful small tree farmholdings without government support. Th e study aimed to determine the success conditions for spontaneous and sustainable tree growing at the farm level. Six cases of farm-based tr ee growing in northern and central Luzon were investigated. Twenty-six respondents were interviewed using informal and semi-structured quest ionnaires. de Groot's actor-in-context analysis provided the main inqu iry technique (de Groot, W.T., 1992. Environmental Science Theory: Con cepts and Methods in a One-World Problem Oriented Paradigm. Elsevier, Amsterdam). The success conditions identified were (1) practice of int ercropping, (2) the farmers' direct need for tree products and other u ses, (3) assured access or property rights, (4) wood products market p rospects, (5) the farmers' economic situation, (6) the farmers' enterp rising attitude, (7) building on local options and (8) collective or n eighbourhood co-operation. As part of the government intervention for maximum program impact the following steps are recommended: (1) provis ion of more planting areas with tenurial security; (2) granting of usu fruct permits on arable open public lands; (3) making tree growing or conservation measures a condition for progressive attainment of strong er land tenure status; (4) creation of a wood market and other institu tional infrastructures; (5) allow any enterprising farmers to encroach on new areas for farm forestry; (6) food security before reforestatio n concerns; (7) building on what is natural; and (8) flexible and cont extualized reforestation plans. Upland farms are potential management units for reforestation. As a management modality farm-based tree grow ing is appropriate for squatted public lands or areas under stewardshi p agreement and it is strategic in penetrating the inaccessible and re mote sites with a high certainty of success. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.