The well-being of both local
communities and wider societies relies on the wholeness of the world’s forest ecosystems. Therefore, forest and natural resources management must be precautionary. It must avoid potentially harmful or degrading effects to an ecosystem, even
in the absence of scientific certainty of such harm, while integrating a range of social, cultural, and economic activities supported by scientific methods and programs of research and development, marketing, and communications.
The rate of deforestation in the Philippines is among the
highest in the world. Over the past 50 years, almost
two-thirds of the country's forests have been lost, including nearly all virgin
forests. The forest cover is now only 17 percent, far below the estimated 60 percent required for ecological sustainability.
Erosion, flooding, reduced water quality, loss of soil fertility, reduced development opportunities
and widespread abject poverty can all be at least
partially attributed to ruinous care of the land. Our poor forests, by force
of natural adaptivity, are trying to survive by growing tall cogon grasses to replace its lost trees. But these giant cogon grasses cannot hold the soil nor store rainwaters nor provide support to our ecosystem. The disastrous
flash floods in the South proved that not even coconut trees, which were used to replace forest trees,
were helpful in holding flood
waters.
The government, aware that the health and well-being of forest ecosystems and human communities are interdependent; has established CBFMs or Community
Based Forest Management Systems. CBFM
is the generic global term for the program geared towards the conservation of the remnant forests of the world --and the
restoration of vast areas of degraded forests. The work must be undertaken from two different standpoints. One, by eliminating the direct and underlying causes
of deforestation and the other, by returning responsibility for forest management to the communities who inhabit them, considering
that they are the ones primarily concerned in the conservation of this global resource.
By optimizing the potential economic benefits through the development
of alternative incomes, encroachment into natural forest by the communities for slash-and-burn subsistence farming or rampant logging will be minimized.
Sound ecosystem management should recognize the legitimate contribution of many systems of knowledge/disciplines (i.e. aboriginal, traditional, local, technological, and scientific). It is important that all communities have sufficient access
to a variety of systems of knowledge to support their management decisions on forest
and other natural resources. The failure of industrial-forestry science to bring
about practices that protect forest ecosystems and communities highlights the need to respect and integrate indigenous, local, and multi-disciplinary systems of knowledge. An appropriate system of up-to-date, integrated
knowledge should continue to adapt
and evolve with research and changing situations on the ground, and hence will lead to and support management practices that
are similarly adaptive and consistent.