Ecological assessment, restoration and protection of the Northwest Panay low-elevation forest ecosystem: Developing community-based agroforestry solutions for natural resource management and biodiversity conservation

Objectives

• To develop, with resource-dependent residents of the Northwest Panay Low-Elevation Forest (NPLF) and its buffer zone, a resource management system that both advances the welfare of the local resource users and furthers protection of this critical natural resource base from a landscape-lifescape perspective.
  
• To develop and test essential elements of a workable social contract between buffer zone communities and the non-local stakeholders at the municipal, national and international levels who are concerned with resource protection.
  
• To develop a model of buffer zone management that works, and can be extrapolated to other protected forest situations in agroforestry intensification to local responsibility for park boundary protection.
  
• To bring the research and development agenda into alignment with specific and immediate conservation targets in Northwest Panay by emphasizing the propagation of indigenous fruit and timber trees that satisfy some or all of the following criteria:
  
  1. have economic and human-use value which can be exploited in a smallholder's tree farming regime;
  2. are identified as significant food sources for frugivores which serve as seed dispersers, or are otherwise environmentally key to wildlife habitat;
  3. are identified as being a significant genetic resource at risk of extirpation; and
  4. are appropriate for accelerating successional growth in forest gaps, wildlife corridors or as pioneer species for more extensive reforestation efforts.
• To establish meaningful associations between resource development and environmental management at the ecosystem level. Such association include:
  1. harnessing investments for livelihood development to produce input material for forest restoration;
  2. educating resource-dependent communities about the role of natural processes in forest maintenance;
  3. making livelihood in key communities co-dependent with the preservation of biological diversity

Research Theme

• Ecological Reconstruction

Activities

• Delineation and Environmental Assessments Delineation/zonation of protected areas boundaries; concurrent with or subsequent to community resource mapping activities. Buffer zone profiling and community consultations and planning for protected area management.
  
• Ecosystem/environmental mapping. Initial characterization of forest by type and quality (establishing the conservation status of the area); relative to zones;
  
• Identification of potential plot analysis and faunal survey sites. Ground truthing of previous rapid assessment of 1998
  
• Review and evaluate data.
  
• Compilation of maps. Establish land and ecological management units.
  
• Prioritize study sites for botanical inventories, plot dynamic analysis and faunal surveys.
  
• Plan and organize participatory transects/floral inventory/resource identification with communities.
  
• Conduct trainings of resource users in parataxonomy, forest dynamics, evaluation and monitoring of the resource base.
  
• Stakeholder analysis - detailed assessment of forest resource use, preferences and relevant skills, knowledge and attitudes
  
• Refinement and validation of community resource profiling relevant to agroforestry.
  
• Identification of local constraints, knowledge and resource gaps, as well as opportunities in relevant sectors.
  
• Participatory design and development of appropriate agroforestry systems
  
• On-farm analysis and planning
  
• Conduct and facilitate hands-on trainings, workshops, cross visits within and between stakeholders and support services.
  
• Development of community-managed nursery.
  

Expected Outcomes

• Progress Reports
  
• Updated and upgraded maps of the NPLF and a profile of the buffer-zone for project planning and management of the protected area
  
• Workshops, conferences and educational tours
  
• Nurseries established and seedlings produced
  
• Income accrued from marketing the variety of agroforestry products developed by buffer-zone villagers
  
• Agroforestry systems and complimentary technologies developed on farms
  
• Restored areas in NPLF
  
• Local and regional framework for the maintenance and further development of the program's objectives and goals
  
• Local capacity for adaptive management and policy development
  
• Updated and upgraded information on the faunal and floral species of the NPLF, and their interrelationships
  
• Brochures detailing propagation methods and technologies of priority endemic and naturalized tree species
  
• Results of mycorrhizal and rhizobial characterization will be published in refereed journals
  
• Elements of successful buffer-zone development and management of the NPLF ecosystem and similar areas in the Philippines and beyond
  
• Faunal-floral relationships and their role in assisted regeneration
  

Indicative Budget

• 100,000 euro

Duration

• Three Years

Project site

• Northwest Panay, Philippines

ARCBC Remarks

• Good proposal. Matches the research themes.

Coordinators