The role of community organisers in the promotion of community forestry in the province of Leyte, the Philippines

Abstract

The research problem addressed in this thesis is: ‘How important is the role of community organisers in the success and failure of a people’s organisation in achieving the community-based forest management objectives within its implementation in the Leyte province, the Philippines’.An interview survey was undertaken in seven municipalities within the Leyte province and 13 people’s organisations that are, or have been, assisted by community organisers. A total of 215 respondents were interviewed, 189 from people’s organisations, 17 community organisers and officers from nine NGOs and nine officers and staff from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The province currently has 20 established community-based forest management sites mostly managed by people’s organisations that were assisted by community organisers, a factor that was primarily considered as the subject of the research investigation.The failure of a number of people-oriented forestry programs in the Philippines implementation, prompted the government to shift its strategy from large-scale industrial-based, to small-scale, multi-product based, people-oriented and community-based forestry operations. The new strategy has propelled the government to put more emphasis on local people’s participation in the development and management of the forestry sector and to provide these people with equity, development and empowerment by transferring forest management into the hands of the local people. The new CBFM strategy developed a growing interest in the role of small-scale forestry in the country, which is the current focus of the ACLAR (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research) project titled “Redevelopment of a timber industry following intensive land clearing’ in the Philippines that identified the slow uptake of small-scale forestry in the country.Community organisers have been identified as a major influential factor in the success of community-based forest management in the Philippines. However, several studies have revealed that the lack of attention given to community organising has been identified as a factor hindering forest management. This lack of attention to community organising results in problems such as the lack of community participation in developing community-based forestry in the Philippines.The study revealed that community organisers, within their two-year community organising contract, were effective in forming people’s organisations, motivating people to participate in voluntary activities organised by people’s organisations, and encouraging cohesiveness among members of people’s organisations. They manage to raise the level of environmental awareness and knowledge of people’s organisation members, develop leadership interest and skills, create avenues of opportunities, provide direction and facilitate the establishment of large tree plantations. However, the two-year community organisers’ contract was not enough to establish mature and cohesive POs prepared to assume management on their own, including managing the tree plantations. The issues of the lack of training and funding support, very low wages, delayed salaries, and the limited time for community organisers to work with people’s organisations as well as the pressure to produce tangible outputs such the establishment of large tree plantations, prevented them from putting more emphasis on the development and empowerment of the people. The two-year that the community organisers worked with the people’s organisations were focused on preparing manpower resources to establish tree plantations. Hence, the people felt that they were only used as labourers in the tree planting project implemented by the DENR and not as partners or co-managers of forest resources.