People, power and timber: politics of resource use in community-based forest management

Professorial Chair Lecture

Vicente Lu Professorial Chair Lecture

Place

Forestry, CFNR Faculty Lounge, UPLB, College, Laguna

Date

6-26-2006

Abstract

Politics has a large part to play in the Philippine forest management and mismanagement. This paper builds on the recent scholarship on the politics of forest management and utilization in the Philippines. Drawing from the intellectually traditions of political ecology and the theory of resource rights in common pool resource scholarship, it examines how two models of power, namely, "power over" and "decentered model of power", are exercised or employed at the policy, program and project or site level. The issues and indicative impacts associated with the employment of these types of power in relation to resource use in CBFM are also explored. The study synthesized and analyzed relevant policy documents, selected published and grey literature on CBFM including the results of recent multi-stakeholder assessments and findings from various case studied on CBFM as resource materials for the analysis.

Analysis revealed that certain features of political economy and theory of property rights in common pool resource scholarship proved to be a useful analytical lens in exploring the complex and multi-layered political arena by which power is exercised in the context of timber utilization in CBFM. Contrary to the dominant literature which assumes that the two models of power are mutually exclusive, the three-level analysis reveals that both forms of "power over" and "decentered model of power" are exercised at different levels of CBFM. This suggests the need for more in-depth study on their "dual nature" including the possibility of their deconstruction in the light of new findings not only in the context of CBFM but in other areas where power, in its varied forms, is being simultaneously employed. The paper also points out that the adverse impacts of politics at the policy and program levels relevant to resource use in CBFM areas appear to be less manageable for local communities compared to those of local level politics. There is thus the need to build the political capacity of the local communities to enable them to wield counterveiling power to effectively negotiate or even resist central control. To improve current forest governance in support of CBFM, the paper highlights the need to legislate CBFM policy that will secure tenure and property rights in CBFM areas, reinvent DENR to be more responsive to its changing role, and institutionalize social processes that ensure greater participation of local communities and other legitimate stakeholders in the management and sharing of benefits form forests.

Location

UPLB Main Library Special Collections Section (USCS)

College

College of Forestry and Natural Resources (CFNR)

Language

English

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