BY ERNAN BALDOMERO
SAN JOSE, Antique – The government of Germany will allocate funds amounting to P568, 749, 995 for the community based forest and mangrove management program in Panay and Negros.
The project is spearheaded by the national government through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) targetting the rehabilitation of forest and mangrove covers, livelihood assistance and rural infrastructures for the provinces in Panay and Negros.
DENR-Antique information officer John Temana said that the program gears towards the improvement of environmental conditions and reduction of poverty started in 2004 through the formulation of proposals, Philippine-German negotiation in 2005 where the project was confirmed.
A feasibility study was conducted followed by a KfW appraisal mission and later the project was endorsed to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) for approval.
Based on the feasibility study, Panay and Negros islands are facing environmental and ecological concerns. It has been found that it is already suffering from depletion and degradation of its forest and coastal resources that affects an approximately 900,000 hectares or 36% of the total land area.
Large parts of Panay and Negros is the location of steep mountains which covers around 1/3 of its total land area can also be found many critical watersheds which are already barren and are prone to erosion.
In the economic and social analysis, the people in the two islands has limited economic support and social infrastructure such as village whole-sale markets for the produce, water system, limited opportunities for generation of income. An average of 33% of all families in the program provinces fall under the poverty threshold.
Temana said that the objectives of the program in to enable participating people’s organization and village households to manage forests and mangroves sustainably and adopt more sustainable and productive upland farming systems which will contribute in their food security, income and living conditions.
Among the program areas are the 5 provinces in Western Visayas - Aklan, Antique, Iloilo and Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental in Region VII. The identified project cores sites are the municipalities of Kalibo, Malinao, Tangalan, New Washington and Batan in the province of Aklan; Patnongon, San Remigio, Sebaste, Sibalom and Tibiao in Antique; Carles, Dingle, Maasin, San Dionisio, and San Joaquin in Iloilo; Candoni, Cauayan, Ilog and Kabankalan in Negros Occidental and Bayawan, Bindoy and Sibulan in Negros Oriental.
He added that the components of the program focus on the rehabilitation of forests and mangroves, improvement of livelihood options, improvement of rural infrastructures and capacity building. In order to successfully implement the project, the local government concerned would tap the help of people’s organizations (POs) with Community Based Forest Agreement (CBFMA) or CADT, establishment of multipurpose tree plantations.
“The main target of the program is the reforestation of the 9,000 hectares of denuded forests through the introduction of sustainable forest management, while allowing the utilization of existing plantations which has an approximately 26,000 hectares established in CBFMAs in Panay and Negros added by 14,000 has. of private plantations,” Temana said.
In the rehabilitation of mangrove areas would be initiated through planting of buffer strips along coastline and river banks and support in wood and non-timber forest products processing and marketing through Pos and farmer associations. The project would also give support to sustainable upland agriculture including permanent tree crops, irrigation schemes thus increasing land productivity.
He said that people in the communities could likewise benefit on the said project through the introduction of viable livelihood options, resource-based small and medium enterprises, processing and agro-forestry products. Improvement of rural infrastructures such as farm-to-market roads would also be implemented added by the establishment of potable water supply, irrigation schemes and village drop-off markets.
Capacity building programs for the POs for the formulation of project proposals, business plans and financing requests and for the DENR, Land Bank of the Philippines and local government personnel’s as the project implementing agency in active involvement in the community based resource management to effectively provide the required extension and support services. For the period of seven (7) years
The funding agency is the German government through KfW Bank that would finance the total program costs of 8.5 million euros where 2.8 million euros will be given as grant and 4.2 million euros as government loan, and GOP contribution of 1.75 million euros.
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