Integrated Conservation and Development: Impacts on Households in a Philippine Park

• DOI: 10.1177/1070496513504930
• Date: 01 December 2013
• Author: Dominique Cagalanan
• Published date: 01 December 2013
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Integrated Conservation

and Development: Impacts

on Households in a

Philippine Park

Dominique Cagalanan

1

Abstract

Protected area strategies increasingly incorporate local forest inhabitants and aim to

alleviate poverty. Common approaches include top-down integrated conservation

and development projects, and alternative approaches characterized by decentral-

ization, local participation, and community-based forest management. In the

Philippines, these three characteristics are cornerstones of the state’s conservation

agenda. This research examines state-led conservation initiatives in the Northern

Negros Natural Park, Philippines. By identifying key distinctions among households

living inside the Park and linking these to program outcomes, this article identifies

major design and implementation challenges for efforts seeking to link conservation

and development. Results indicate that current approaches achieve an economic win

for a select few larger landholding households near to roads, but environmental

requirements are not met and stakeholder participation in management is not rea-

lized. Expanding current approaches to include all households would likely result in

increased deforestation or reduce areas of potential regeneration. As such, alterna-

tive strategies require exploration.

Keywords

integrated conservation and development, community-based forest management,

decentralization, protected areas, forest conservation, the Philippines

Tropical Deforestation and Protected Areas

The scale and global extent of tropical deforestation (see Randolph, Green,

Belmont, Burscu, & Welch, 2005) hold serious implications for the earth

Journal of Environment &

Development

22(4) 435–458

!The Author(s) 2013

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DOI: 10.1177/1070496513504930

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1

University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Dominique Cagalanan, University of Miami, 1000 Memorial Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA.

Email: dcagalanan@miami.edu

system (Foley et al., 2005), particularly in regard to climate regulation (Gullison

et al., 2007; Pielke, 2005), biodiversity (Brooks et al., 2002; Shi, Singh, Kant,

Zhu, & Waller, 2005), and other environmental services (Millennium Ecosystem

Assessment, 2005). Globally, there has been a recent increase in protected areas

to shelter tropical forests and their remaining biodiversity (Zimmerer, 2006).

Multiple studies f‌ind that protected areas throughout the tropics are successful

in reducing deforestation and protecting biodiversity, and that deforestation

rates are lower within protected area boundaries than in surrounding areas

(Bruner, Gullison, Rice, & da Fonseca, 2001; DeFries, Hansen, Newton, &

Hansen, 2005; Naughton-Treves, Holland, & Brandon, 2005), although rates

of avoided deforestation appear to be associated with the remoteness of pro-

tected areas (Ferraro, Hanauer, & Sims, 2011). The global growth in protected

areas is a major step toward achieving conservation goals. Concern remains,

however, in regard to the increasing isolation of protected forest patches as

deforestation continues in surrounding areas (DeFries et al., 2005; Naughton-

Treves et al., 2005), and to displacement—protection in one area pushing defor-

estation elsewhere (Meyfroidt & Lambin, 2009).

Contemporary conservation approaches seek not only to prevent deforest-

ation and biodiversity loss, but also to alleviate poverty and support the eco-

nomic and resource needs of forest inhabitants (Brown, 2002; Ferraro et al.,

2011; Naughton-Treves et al., 2005; Zimmerer, 2006). At least one comparative

study indicates that protected areas have reduced poverty in Costa Rica and

Thailand (Andam, Ferraro, Sims, Healy, & Holland, 2010), though factors such

as distance from major city and quality of agricultural land lead to spatial dif-

ferences between areas of poverty reduction and avoided deforestation (Ferraro

et al., 2011). In the park-centric, top-down approach to conservation where the

state retains decision-making authority, integrated conservation and develop-

ment projects (ICDPs) are a central tool for achieving these dual aims

(Alcorn, 2005). ICDPs aim to reduce forest clearing and extraction, and elicit

cooperation with state conservation agendas by providing alternative livelihood

opportunities in protected area buf‌fer zones as compensation for loss of access

to the resource (Alashi, 1999; Alcorn, 2005; Naughton-Treves et al., 2005). The

ef‌fectiveness of ICDPs has proven to be problematic, however (Naughton-

Treves et al., 2005).

Agricultural development, a common focus of ICDPs, is typically centered on

intensifying and diversifying production on the assumption that to do so con-

serves or reestablishes older growth forests by sparing land. The success of this

intensif‌ication strategy remains an open question in the tropical world

(Gutı

´errez-Ve

´lez et al., 2011; Matson & Vitousek, 2006; Rudel et al., 2009).

For example, in a study examining the ef‌fectiveness of assistance for irrigated

wet rice production to reduce pressures on the forest in a protected area in the

Philippines, Lynagh and Urich (2002) f‌ind that both rice paddy owners with

secure tenure and farm laborers lacking tenure would continue to cultivate inside

436 Journal of Environment & Development 22(4)