A joint undertaking of the governments of the Philippines and Japan through the DENR -Human Resource Development Service (HRDS) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the project will convene 30 representatives from Cambodia, Laos – PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam to hone their knowledge and skills in forest development and management through participation of upland communities.
The Philippines provides an appropriate setting for this training to showcase participation of communities in the rehabilitation of forestlands. This has been brought about by the implementation of various issuances recognizing and highlighting its paradigm shift from regulatory to developmental in managing forest-dependent communities, that is, considering them as partners and not hindrance to development.
The latest issuance, EO 318 dated June 9, 2004, supports this shift. It boosted EO 263 of 1995, Adopting CBFM as the National Strategy to Ensure Sustainable Development of the Country’s Forestland Resources.
JICA’s support to this training is one of its recognizing that the Philippines is gaining headway in the community-based approach and can contribute to other countries in Asia in developing or improving their participatory forest management approaches. Along this line, it sponsored the four-day visit and observation of eleven people from The Project for Rehabilitation of Natural Forest in Degraded Area in the Northern Vietnam Project (RENFODA), to the CBFM model sites in Region 3 and Kalahan Project Site in Imugan, Nueva Vizcaya. Further, its project on the enhancement of CBFM in the Philippines is still on-going. — Benny Enriquez