Impacts of co-management in forest management

The experiences in the seven co-management sites demonstrate a partnership arrangement among key stakeholders of forest and forestlands triggered by the co-management agreement. The resulting institutional arrangement has created a condition where the local government unit has taken the lead in the management of forests and forestlands which in the past was the sole responsibility of the national government through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Through the implementation of co-management the impacts/opportunities were identified. The identified lessons from the co-management implementation which can provide insights on factors that could contribute to the success or failure of co-management forest lands are the following: FLUP [forest land use plan] facilitates signing of co-management agreements, clear purpose such as conservation of water sources and reducing impacts of environmental hazards such as floods, landslides among others, is crucial in sustaining LGUs interest in managing forests and forestlands, multi-sectoral bodies, such as Steering Committee and Technical Working Groups, which allow stakeholders to jointly analyze problems and generate consensus, facilitate resolution of conflicts and create commitments that increase sustainability of actions, recognition of IPR [individual property rights], complemented with planting material support from LGUs encourage forestland occupants to develop agroforestry farms, use of existing partnership instrument such as co-management agreement, memorandum of agreements and legitimization of resource management plans by the SB/SP [Sangguniang Bayan/Sangguniang Panlalawigan] can continuously engage LGUs to support management of FFL [forests and forest lands] within their jurisdiction and annually allocate funds, DENR can augment their achievements in forest protection and rehabilitation by complementing resources with LGUs and other partners, LGUs can facilitate fund leveraging and generation of sustainable sources of funds such as PES [payment of ecosystem services] and PPP. However, to sustain the co-management arrangement, certain issues and concerns from co-management implementation has been enumerated in the study.