Over-Regulated and Under-Marketed: Smallholders and the Wood Economy in Isabela, The Philippines

Hiding in Plain Sight: How a Fallow Forestry Supply Chain Remains Illegitimate in the Eyes of the State

“…Lack of formality may also prevent some small-scale producers from capturing the fair value of their product (Aoudji et al, 2012;Perdana et al, 2012) and the state to capture timber-based revenue in the form of taxes and fees. It also allows for the flow of extra-legal income from supply chain actors to corrupt forest authorities and third-party enablers (Masipiqueña et al, 2008). Informality prevents full accountability and control by state agencies to govern the nation's forests and has had serious consequences to the environment, forest-dependent communities, workers, and government coffers (Dourojeanni, 2020).…”

“…In the case of small-scale farm-forestry, where the practice of timber production already exists as an inextricable part of an agricultural cycle, we have shown that the problem of informality of fallow forestry is one of regulatory impossibilities (Sears et al, 2018), not inefficiencies in the supply chain or market. Rather, more positive impact on the livelihoods of forest-dependent people and on forest production could be made by removing regulatory obstacles (Masipiqueña et al, 2008;Ordoñez et al, 2011;Gritten et al, 2015;Flanagan et al, 2020), improving local forest governance (Agrawal et al, 2008), securing land and resource rights (Bruce and Fortmann, 1988;Cronkleton and Larson, 2015), and building local capacity in the normative and technical aspects of forestry, from management to business (Pacheco, 2012;Bloomfield et al, 2018).…”

“…In many countries of the global South, state forest authorities pay little attention to smallholder timber production. As a result, few regulatory mechanisms exist that recognize, much less support, the production of timber on farms or provide secure access to timber markets (Masipiqueña et al, 2008;Román-Dañobeytia et al, 2014;Gritten et al, 2015). In Peru, state authorities fail to recognize fallow forestry as a "proper" (Pain et al, 2021), and therefore legitimate, silvicultural system.…”

Illegal logging in the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, the Philippines

“…In Isabela, the community-based forestry program was plagued by mismanagement and fraud, and widely misused to authenticate illegal wood from the NSMNP (Tarun-Acay 2004). The failure to enforce environmental legislation actually impedes the development of a sustainable and legal wood industry; throughout the province farmers have established yemane and mahogany plantations but the availability of cheap, illegal lumber depresses wood prices (Masipiqueña et al 2008;Seki 2004). Despite the availability of legal wood from plantations, the furniture makers continue to use illegal narra.…”

“…As we have seen, illegal logging operations in the NSMNP thrive in a seemingly biased, inconsistent, and over-regulated forest policy framework. Most producers, consumers, and municipal government offi cials do not fully understand the technical details of forestry regulations (Masipiqueña et al 2008). Obtaining permits is a time-consuming and complex process (United States Agency for International Development 2004).…”