Let’s talk about Palawan

SUSTAINABLE AND INCLUSIVE LANDSCAPE GOVERNANCE PHILIPPINES

Discourses on landscape governance is not at all new; but as times move forward, resources get depleted, and people grow at an exponential rate, the discourses must be taken to the ground. Discourses must be taken to a level where people start seeing their different development agenda, and working together towards common sustainable pathways. Forest Foundation Philippines and Tropenbos International is steering Sustainable and Inclusive Landscape Governance (SILG) in three focal landscapes – Sierra Madre, Palawan, and Bukidnon-Misamis Oriental. SILG as a program aims to build on landscape experiences, and push forward best practices. It also aims to develop methodologies and tools that can help landscape stakeholders to co-create and co-implement landscape governance activities.

Dialogues: An Approach to Landscape Governance

PALAWAN October 10-12, 2018

Palawan landscape dialogue focused on best practices of eco-tourism, their existing Palawan Knowledge Platform, and challenges of land conversion and pending division of the province. Communities take pride in their community-based sustainable tourism mechanisms, not only because of their continuous profit, but more so about their contribution to mangrove conservation, and promotion of conservation among tourists. However, Palawan stakeholders are also pressed about issues of land conversion from forest to oil palm plantations. Some forest areas are also converted to major road lanes. On top of these, the stakeholders expressed their concerns about the possible adverse impacts of dividing Palawan into three provinces.

PALAWAN October 21-23, 2019

In 2019, the Palawan landscape dialogue brought more focused discussions on: 1) land conversion, 2) water provisioning, 3) landscape research agenda, and 4) proposed provincial division. To bring the 37 stakeholders from varying sectors together, this landscape dialogue used visioning exercises, participatory mapping, and tracking milestones.

Land and Water Resources in Palawan

1 The first map depicts the existing land conversion efforts in the island as known by the participants. Most of the land conversion efforts include building new airports in different municipalities; expanding coconut plantations; quarrying and reclamation; and gold and nickel mining projects. 2 The second map visualizes the different water sources in the island. Participants were able to sketch watershed areas, river systems, and tributaries. While the maps are only visualizations of the participants’ knowledge, and knowable information in the island, participants were easily able to identify water sources that could undergo pressure once land conversion intensifies under business as usual. These water sources include Busuanga, Malatgao, Montible-Napsan-Simpocan, and Irawan watersheds. Most of the rivers and tributaries in mainland Palawan are also stressed by ongoing land conversion efforts.

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This section provides a quick run-though of the resulting context maps. Each context maps provides the specific trends, political factors, economic climate, key players, and uncertainties for both land conversion, and water provisioning issues.

Landscape stakeholders still find it difficult to address issues on land conversion. For most part, stakeholders are caught in between striking a balance between infrastructure development, and conservation. One most pressing challenge for the island stakeholders is to align the Local Government Units’ (LGUs) Comprehensive Land Use Plans (CLUPs) with their island-wide Environmentally Critical Areas Network (ECAN) zones. CLUPs are accomplished per municipality, thus making the harmonization process difficult at the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) level. Other trends include disconnect between LGUs’ goals and sustainable development goals; timber poaching; presence of mining, quarrying, and powerplants; opening of new airports in municipalities to encourage higher tourism; lack of evidence-based reports and claims to as back up to ordinances and policies; weak implementation of inclusive governance; and proper documentation and recognition of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices. Despite the current trends, Palawan stakeholders still envision sustainable management of mining and agriculture areas; finding the balance between conservation and economic development; and

Context Mapping of Specific Landscape Governance Issues

identifying the carrying capacity of the island for different aspects such as tourism, agriculture, and infrastructure development.

Land conversion issues traverse other sectors, especially water sources. As reported by the participants, some areas in Palawan, particularly the main city Puerto Princesa, experience water shortage even during rainy season. Aside from the above-mentioned issues on land conversion, Palawan’s water provisioning issues are exacerbated by a lack of long-term, multisectoral planning on how to allocate available water sources. Water quality monitoring stations are also not in place, so there is minimal knowledge whether their water sources are not just declining in quantity, but also in quality. Despite these roadblocks, participants are able to discuss about existing good water governance practices. Some of these include the existing Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme in Tigaplan watershed, Brooke’s Point; and river water filters using Biosan filter in Puerto Princesa, and Roxas. Some of the recommendations include exploring and incentivizing water harvesting techniques and technologies at a municipality level; and inclusion of risks in their water management master plan. Ultimately, landscape stakeholders envision to have water studies in place; improve existing Water Quality Management Areas (WQMA) through adopting a multisectoral approach; and revised water policies based on up-to-date research results.

Bulk of the landscape governance concerns can be addressed and improved by having available evidence-based information. The dialogue also opened the opportunity for academic institutions to share their current research agenda, and activities; and for participants to influence their agenda by raising specific questions and concerns.

Western Philippines University (WPU), and Palawan State University (PSU) have varying strengths, and research agenda for the landscape. WPU is focused mainly on: 1) agriculture, 2) aquaculture, 3) culture and indigenous people; 4) biodiversity conservation and enhancement; and 5) climate change adaptation. Some of the research products available to the public are cashew wine, cashew prunes, and agri-machineries. PSU, on the other hand, specializes on education and culture; but still has research endeavors on improving health, governance, and environment and climate change. The issues discussed under the themes of land conversion and water provisioning have yet to be investigated by both universities. They were inclined to help the landscape with water studies, and starting off with studying carrying capacity and ecosystem-based approaches at a municipal level. Both universities have strong national and international links and partnerships that can help them carry on with some of the identified landscape research topics. An interesting outcome of this dialogue session was that CSOs started to discuss specific community or landscape issues with the universities, and they planned to forge partnerships, so that CSOs can easily access research materials of the universities.

Influencing the Landscape’s Research Agenda

Aside from land conversion, and water provisioning issues, Palawan also faces an impending scenario in of a provincial division. The proposal intends to divide Palawan into four districts: 1) Puerto Princesa as a lone, separate city; 2) Northern Palawan; 3) Central Palawan; and 4) Southern Palawan. This issue opened several governance concerns, as most of the participants are unsure how the provincial government came about with such proposal.

On one hand, participants see that the division can help improve social services through bringing government offices closer to some barangays. Others are also hopeful that the division can provide opportunities for employment. However, despite these crucial good points of the proposal, participants saw more counterarguments as to why they question the proposal. For one, most of them do not know the reason for such proposal. Other reasons include possibility of increasing land conversion because of employment; greater social and economic divide; easier intrusion of investors; possible increasing violations to the Strategic Environmental Plan (SEP) law; and emerging helplessness of barangay officials and communities brought about by the campaign process. At this time, leading CSOs are exploring legal routes, coupled with campaign efforts to educate communities on the current state, and a number of cons of dividing Palawan. Landscape stakeholders are also hoping to expand its network to reach more communities.

Proposed Provincial Division

We have a game plan!

Despite the number of issues and challenges mentioned, Palawan stakeholders still envision to maintain their remaining forest cover by 2030. This map visualizes how the participants envision their forest cover to be in 2030. While it will be more ideal for them to envision expanding their forest areas, given the current realities of growing population, demands, and development efforts, the stakeholders feel that to maintain the lush forests they have today is still a good vision to pursue. Maintaining their forests today would entail greater efforts to police intrusions, and development plans that bypass the carrying capacities of their ecosystems.

The dialogue also enabled the participants to come up with a game plan to help them move towards their targets: 1) watershed establishment; 2) maintain forest cover by 2030; and 3) ecosystem-service-based development planning. Participants foresee challenges on having various stakeholders and sectors co-create, and co-own certain plans; behavior change; implementing strict monitoring and evaluation protocols; lack of manpower in the LGUs and CSOs; and increasing and maintaining linkages among stakeholders. Within their spheres of control, organizations and individuals committed to identify good water governance and conservation efforts; share their dialogue experiences and documentation to other stakeholders; and start issuing letter to their LGUs to improve on their CLUP, and disaster risk reduction management readiness. On more specific levels, the participants committed to continue with inclusive public participation in planning and consultation processes. The participants also saw the critical role of governance to advance their advocacies; specifically, they identified having governance-focused capacity building efforts in place, and forming a multisectoral and multi-stakeholder WQMA management boards. As stakeholders, they also realized their responsibility to understand and review plans and policies, specifically their existing ECAN zoning. To address some concerns on livelihood provisions, the participants also committed working towards a streamlined NTFP permitting process, especially for harvesting almaciga resin. While the dialogues can take different forms, and bring different issues on the table, Palawan stakeholders have shaped their landscape governance journey to be something that is coordinated, co-created, and co-owned by everyone in the group. They see local development planning as the most viable venue to start adopting and practicing landscape approaches, and emphasizing on landscape governance as core unifying issue.

After the Palawan landscape dialogue, some organizations and individuals volunteered to be part of the landscape governance core group. The core group will not duplicate roles and duties of other management bodies, or technical working groups. Instead, the core group will focus on continuing with multi-stakeholder, and multisectoral dialogues; serve as a representation of select communities as they also sit in other management bodies; and continue identifying and promoting sustainable and inclusive practices appropriate for their landscape.

Taking Small Steps: Palawan Landscape Governance Core Group