Liz Miyo Sousa OtaProf John Herbohn
A/Prof Steve Harrison
IUFRO 3.08 International Conference
11-15 October, 2015
Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
Local assistants:
Rogelio Tripoli
Dazzilyn Palermo
Local advisor:
Prof Eduardo Mangaoang
Socioeconomic Impacts of the Rainforestation Farming Project
in Leyte, the Philippines
Critical overview of the RF project
Socioeconomic aspects and impacts of the project
Financial analysisHow can mixtures enhance risk mitigation?
Designing more suitable financially viable reforestation systems for groups of landholders in Leyte Province
The Socioeconomic Function of Reforestation Projects in the Philippines: Designing Systems to Better Fit Landholders’ Needs
Critical overview of the RF project
Socioeconomic aspects and impacts of the project
Financial analysisHow can mixtures enhance risk mitigation?
Designing more suitable financially viable reforestation systems for groups of landholders in Leyte Province
The Philippines
• Population (2010): 100.1m, 55% is rural (World Bank, 2015)
• Contribution to value of crop production (2014):
Rice (39%), corn, banana, coconut.
• Main causes of deforestation and forest degradation: kaingin, logging, forest fire and natural phenomena (Rebugio et al., 2007)
• Country is prone to earthquakes and typhoons -> Haiyan (2013)
Study location: Province of Leyte, Leyte Island(Le et al., 2012)
Total area of the Philippines: 300 000 km2
Forest cover:
Before Spanishcolonization
90% (Rebugio et al., 2007)
Currently 27% (FAO, 2015)
Motivations• Current paradigm in reforestation and restoration:
enhancement of local livelihoods and economies
(Erskine et al., 2006, Chazdon, 2013)
• Need of socioeconomic suitability in reforestation
(Lamb, 2011, McElwee, 2009)
• Philippines
• Early efforts: environmental issues
• 1970-1990s: political factors and possible timber shortage
• Currently: balancing socioeconomic and environmental gains
(Rebugio et al., 2007)
• A mixed degree of success has been observed
• Need to assess past forestry initiatives to subsidise future ones (Harrison et al., 2004, Chokkalingam et al., 2006)
• The Rainforestation Farming (RF) project played an important role in the national and regional levels and was adopted by the DENR in 2004
To assess the socioeconomic impacts of the RF project
Main aim
• What are the socioeconomic differences between RF implementers and non-
implementers?
• How satisfied are landholders involved with the overall outcomes of the
project and why?
• What are the socioeconomic impacts of the RF project?
Data collection
- Ethics Approval USC
- Permission from VSU president and local government and barangay officers
- Consent from participant for interview:- 27 RFI (RF
implementers)- 52 NRFI (non-
implementers)- 7 KI (key informants)
- Visits to the RF sites
Representativeness of NRFI sample – Sociodemographic information
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
None Elementary High school College Postgrad
Highest Level of education in household
Emtage (2004) NRFI RFI
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Light Material Mixed Material Concrete
House Construction Material
Emtage (2004) NRFI RFI
57%43%48% 52%
81%
19%0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Own some farm land Own no farm land
Farm land ownership
Emtage (2004) NRFI RFI4.7
4.9
5.1
5.3
5.5
5.7
5.9
6.1
Total number of members in householdStandard error
Emtage (2004) NRFI RFI
% %
Brief overview of the RF project
Visca-GTZ Tropical Ecology Program (VSU-GIZ) 1990-2000Rainforestation Farming Project 1995-2000Main aim: Provide landholders an alternative and more sustainable land use than the kaingin practices, combining food production, income generation and environmental benefits (Milan and Margraf, 1994, Milan et al., 1998)
Institute of Tropical Ecology
28 implementers: 26 private landholders and 2 communitiesImplementer: Adopter, pseudo-adopter, re-adopter, tester(Kiptot et al., 2007)
Average area/site: 1.09 (S.E.=0.24)
RF system= agroforestry system with native tree species
DESIGN 5000 seedlings per hectare.Production of fruits was low and timber tree growth was poor.Lack of expertise. Not enough evidence for the design.
IMPLEMENTATIONProject accepted including exotic species as requested by landholdersFlexibility for the sake of socioeconomic suitability
Current situation:- Agroforestry system- Timber and fuelwood- Forest with no direct use of products
Current situation:- Abandoned- Insufficient silvicultural managementThe project did not provide enough capacity building for a long-term site management
Study 2 – Socioeconomic impacts
- Excel and SPSS Statistics 22
- Parametric and non-parametric tests
- - Logistic regression on the willingness to join a similar future project
Table 1. Respondents’ characteristics per group of Rainforestation Farming implementer (RFI) and non-implementer (NRFI). Averages and standard deviation or percentages. † indicates that continuous variables were used to compare the groups of RFI and NRFI by the independent sample t-test. †† indicates that ordinal variables and continuous variables with non-normal distribution of residuals were used to compare the groups of RFI and NRFI by the Mann-Whitney U test. *indicates significant difference (p<0.05) between groups of RF and NRFI. RFI NRFI †Number of household members 5.89 (2.00) 5.25 (2.45) ††Number of adults* 4.59 (2.13) 3.35 (1.96) ††Number of teenagers 0.59 (0.95) 0.48 (0.70) †Number of children* 0.70 (1.08) 1.42 (1.45) ††Number of household members who dedicate some of their time to work on-farm* 2.19 (1.87) 2.94 (2.42) ††Number of adults who have at least completed college per household*
1.44 (1.73) 0.29 (0.87) ††Number of adults who haven't completed elementary* 0.37 (0.62) 1.16 (1.12) Main decision maker Man 74% 57%
Woman 19% 13% Both 7% 30%
††Average area of farmland (ha) * 4.59 (5.84) 1.51 (2.15) ††Frequency labor is hired to work on-farm*
Never or hardly ever 33% 68% Sometimes 14% 6% Very often 53% 26%
††House construction material* Light material 11% 54% Mixed material 41% 36% Concrete 48% 10%
Respondents who stated knowing how to register tree planting 41% 10% Respondents who have experienced applying for a permit to harvest trees 22% 6%
Social co-benefits(Greiner and Stanley, 2013)
Type A Income-related benefits
Type B Non-income relatedbenefits
Type C Type A and B for the society
Highlights Study 2
• RF did not reach equally the various socioeconomic
groups.
• Project brought non-financial benefits to landholders
and to the region.
• The project did not bring income, but enhanced social
resilience.
• It had positive but not optimised socioeconomic
outcomes.
• Recommendations for future reforestation efforts will
be drawn.
ReferencesChazdon, R. L. (2013). "Making tropical succession and landscape reforestation successful." Journal of Sustainable Forestry 32(7): 649-658.
Chokkalingam, U., et al. (2006). One century of forest rehabilitation in the Philippines. Bogor, Indonesia, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
Erskine, P. D., et al. (2006). "Tree species diversity and ecosystem function: Can tropical multi-species plantations generate greater productivity?" Forest Ecology and Management 233: 205-210.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2015). The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015. Rome, FAO.
Harrison, S., et al. (2004). "Past and present forestry support programs in the Philippines, and lessons for the future." Small-scale Forest Economics, Management and Policy 3(3): 303-317.
Kiptot, E., et al. (2007). "Adopters, testers or pseudo-adopters? Dynamics of the use of improved tree fallows by farmers in western Kenya." Agricultural Systems 94(2): 509-519.
Lamb, D. (2011). Regreening the bare hills : tropical forest restoration in the Asia-Pacific region. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London and New York, Springer Netherlands.
Le, H. D., et al. (2012). "More than just trees: Assessing reforestation success in tropical developing countries." Journal of Rural Studies 28(1): 1-15.
McElwee, P. (2009). "Reforesting “Bare Hills” in Vietnam: Social and environmental consequences of the 5 Million Hectare Reforestation Program." AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 38(6): 325-333.
Milan, P. P. and J. Margraf (1994). "Rainforestation Farming: An alternative to conventional concepts." Annals of Tropical Research 16(4): 17-27.
Milan, P. P., et al. (1998). Harvests from rainforestation: economic and cultural aspects of environmental farming. International Conference on Applied Tropical Ecology: Aspects on Ecosystems Management in Tropical Asia, ViSCA, Baybay, Leyte, Philippines.
Rebugio, L. L., et al. (2007). Forest restoration and rehabilitation in the Philippines. Keep Asia Green Volume I “Southeast Asia”. D. K. Lee. Vienna, IUFRO. 20-I: 125-170.
World Bank (2015). World Bank Open Data.
Thank [email protected]
Acknowledgements to the staff of the VSU, in particular the CFNR and ITEEM, ACIAR, USC and
participants of the study.
