Alliances: Partnership for Land Use

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Alliances Partnership for Land Use

• Asia Forest Network

2
Alliances Overview

• Development Alliances
• Decentralization Creating Need for Alliance
• Advantages of Alliances
• Weakness of Alliances
• Examples of Alliances Cases in Philippines

3
Development Alliances

• Most desirable kind of development as it
• Is viewed as locally designed attainable
• Responds to social concerns social movements
• Seeks full stakeholder participation closed
  resource access
• Does address poverty concerns relating welfare
  and livelihood
• More easily incorporates concerns of local access
  rights tenure into local environmental
  management
• Is not externally depended nor driven, no model
  or program format coming from above

4
Decentralization Creates Need for Alliances

• Decentralization
• Consolidation of the democratic process by
  widening its base participation action
• Moves decision-making closer to local agents and
  provides a basis to recognize cultural and
  ecological diversity
• Local governance evokes transparency,
  accountability, and participation
• Growth in complexity of responsibility response

5
Decentralization and Forestlands

• Decentralization and local governance hardest to
  implement in forestlands
• People are accustomed to be managed from national
  center
• Nationalization of forests eroded the authority
  of local cultures for managing surrounding
  natural resources
• Local management is difficult when ownership and
  authority is at national level forests vs
  fisheries
• Multiple layers of planning needed
• Human security as continuity of access rights,
  environmental stability
• Importance of forest resources to communitys
  livelihood, culture, and identity

6
Local Governments Land Use Planning
Implementation

• Grouping of local government unit (LGU) and
  local people is an emerging strategy for dealing
  with the challenges
• Getting local governments to engage communities
  in land use planning strengthen the resource
  access rights and tenure
• Development of local groups demands creativity,
  responsibility, trust, and quality governance
• Easier to get attention on problems new
  initiatives good or bad

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Why Alliances

• Triggered by awareness of natural resource
  degradation
• Formed to respond to the geographic situation by
  addressing the issues concerns in an collective
  manner
• Composed of a wide membership of those who agreed
  to work together - equitable but not equal
• personnel from local government offices and the
  planning offices
• technical persons from the national line agencies
  (e.g. DENR)
• clusters of communities and existing community
  organizations
• civil society groups

8
Why Alliances

• Stakeholders bring different perspectives,
  experience and capacity into a discussion
• Natural landscape may cover more than one local
  administrative unit
• Can respond to broader concerns with greater
  capability
• Unique strategic position
• Partnership and collaborative action with
  planning and implementation agencies at local
  level lead them to better position in both policy
  recommendation and decision making
• Can bring information from the community level to
  the right people in the management or the board.

9
Weakness of Alliances

• Difficulties in securing commitment
• Lack in funding, human resources technical
  knowledge
• Low level of involvement from local government
  personnel due to little flexibility
• Conflicting laws or differing interpretation of
  issues
• Need for local champion
• Quandaries over legal identity and structure

10
Cases in Philippines

• Allah Valley Landscape Development Alliance
  (AVLDA)
• A multi-stakeholder group comprised of
  representatives from the Province of South
  Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat, plus five national
  government agencies and one NGO Coalition
• Response to intensified flooding incidents
  resulting in greater risk to poor communities
• Objective and goal Protection and management of
  the Allah valley landscape towards the goal of
  improving the socio-economic condition of the
  people
• Multi-stakeholdership contributions
• greater environmental sustainability through more
  comprehensive environmental management
• strengthen and sustain relationships between two
  regions by focusing on real needs

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Cases in Philippines, cont.

• Bukidnon Watershed Protection Development
  Council
• One of the first province-wide initiatives for
  watershed management in the country.
• Created through executive decree with the
  objective of fully protecting and preserving the
  remaining forest in the Bukidnon watersheds and
  to rehabilitate open areas within the headwaters
  of the watershed.
• Multi-sectoral council seeking to address
  management and protection needs for the
  watersheds in the province

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Who what they are
13
Who what they are
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Findings from Philippine Cases

• Named alliances are a new development initiatives
  emerging locally going beyond sector to total
  area management
• Provincial or municipal enggement is key Changes
  in leaders often result in changes in the level
  of commitment and concern for continuing the
  alliance
• Questions of sustainability may arise around
  election time
• Alliances often times fail to implement work
  programs due to limited technical and financial
  resources
• Communities view new agency as another layer in
  the bureaucracy, and remain apprehensive unless
  definite and positive changes are demonstrated
• Lack of information about the area limits but
  drives planning and data management with purpose
• Through the alliances they can attain easier
  agreement on shared watershed problems as well as
  the delivery of basic services, expected to
  influence management and achieve greater human
  security