Timber Regulation and Value Chain in Community-Based Timber Enterprise and Smallholder Forestry in the Philippines

Abstract

Forest tenure reform has no doubt attained significant gains in promoting social justice and equity in the forest sector, through legal recognition of the communities' property rights over forest lands in many developing countries. This includes the right to harvest and market trees that the communities planted. Along these lines, the Philippines' community-based forest management (CBFM) and smallholder forestry have the potential to meet the country's wood demand and contribute to its poverty alleviation goal. Realities on the ground, however, make this lofty aspiration seems too far-fetched. Formal and informal barriers along the timber value chain restrict the growth and obstruct opportunities for community-based timber enterprises (CBTEs) and smallholder forestry. Using the case of CBFM and smallholder forestry in the Visayas and Mindanao Islands in the Philippines, respectively, this paper examines the hurdles posed by regulations and informal practices, such as restrictive policies and increased transaction costs, through a segment analysis of the timber value chain. It argues that failure to address these barriers would lead to the decline of CBTEs and smallholder enterprises, thus undermining the merits of the forest tenure reform.

Incentives and Constraints of Community and Smallholder Forestry

“…Another important challenge corresponds to the lack of compliance with the rule of law among many actors who derive profits from forest products, especially timber. Community forestry is linked to forest sector legality in a myriad of ways, as discussed in several of the papers of the special issue (e.g., [9][10][11][12][13][14]). For example, financial viability of community forestry timber production is threatened by illegally produced timber in Brazil [14], but also in many other countries.…”

“…These additional costs undermine the economic viability of these operations, which can drive well-meaning stakeholders to exploit their forests outside of the law [10]. Illegal conversion of forests to alternative land uses also continues to remain a major challenge, reflecting once more a driver leading to inadequate compliance with the law that characterizes the forest sector in many contexts (e.g., [9,[11][12][13]). …”

“…Three papers are from Asia [9,11,15], two from Africa [13,16], two from Central America [12,17], and two from the Amazon basin [10,14].…”

“…The papers include the Gritten et al [9] paper, which analyzes regulations in three Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam, Nepal and Cambodia, and how they constrain communities from benefiting from timber resources, to which they gained access through prior land and forestry reforms. A somewhat similar analysis is undertaken by Pulhin et al [11] who review the barriers created by regulatory and administrative requirements and associated extra-official practices that impact benefits communities receive from timber harvesting in the Philippines. A third paper in this group is by Pacheco et al [10], who review the regulatory and policy reforms in the Western Amazon, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, and how these regulations have evolved to adapt to emerging needs and claims from smallholders.…”

“…Three of the papers [9][10][11] review wider forestry reforms in Western Amazonia, mainland Southeast Asia, and the Philippines, and associated implications for smallholders and communities undertaking forest management. Two of the papers [12,13] review several decades of experiences from community forest management in Quintana Roo and Mozambique, and explore how regulatory, economic, and social factors have shaped community forestry initiatives, and the capacities of communities to adapt to changing regulatory, policy, and market environments.…”