Description

Summary: This paper reviews the form of incentives or rewards that have been provided to upland communities in a number of sites under different management leadership in the Philippines. It also discusses what the upland farmers have to do in return for these rewards. The Goal of such a review is to evaluate what elements are present in these communities that will support an environmental reward system and in the process, assess the potential of the case study sites for inclusion in RUPES.

The succeeding discussion is divided into three parts: The first part briefly presents the situations with regards ESP and environmental service provision in a number of forest communities in the country. This is followed with a discourse of the key observations discerned from the cases analyzed. The concluding part identifies the issues that must be resolved in the design and institutionalization of ESP system in Philippine watersheds.

Table of Contents:

Introduction Case studies of environmental service ‘payments’ in the Philippines – Case 1: The Makiling Forest Reserve (MFR): Managed by the University of the PHilippines – Case 2: Maasin Watershed: Management spearheaded by LGU with multiple funding sources – Case 3: The Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park (NSMNP): Managed by Plan International (an NGO) with funding from EU and USAID

– Case 4: Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park: GEF-WB funded and managed by DENR and the NGOs for integrated protected areas (NIPA)

Key Observations based on the case studies