Nguyen Duc Hoang – Sub-Department of Forest Protection,
Soc Trang, Vietnam
With the sponsor of GIZ CZM Soc Trang, in July 2011, the Soc Trang delegation, including many departments and organizations, DARD, DONRE, DPI… DOF, have visited Philippines for a study tour on ICAM experience.
The Philippines has been chosen as the destination for the study tour because throughout our survey, we know that the Philippines has approximately similar GDP to Vietnam. Here, the livelihoods of poor people in rural areas depend much on natural resources along the coast. With more than 7000 islands and coastlines of thousands kilometers, Philippines has a rich and diverse aquatic resources. And they have a lot of experiences on protection and management of aquatic resources.
The goal of this study tour is to learn from their experience on coastal aquatic resource management. In Philippines, there are activities of EMRD in the Negros island, where we visited. After 4 days, we had visited provinces and cities such as Bacolod, Valladolid, Binalbagan, San Carlos and Sagay. The following presentation will be only about ICAM in Negros Occidental province.
ICAM in contrast to traditional sectoral approach to management, is a holistic, cross-sectoral, multidisciplinary approach in which land and sea areas of the coastal zones are managed as an integrated unit. So here, we can see that the cross-sectoral approach has been shown not only in terms of intra-collaboration of different agencies but also in terms of active local participation in coastal management. The multidisciplinary approach has been shown in zonation and the establishment of marine protected areas for sustainable use of natural resources. The consensus has been shown through alliance of local government units.
The group has chances to meet representatives from the alliance of LGUs (Local Government Units). Maybe in Vietnam, the concept of Alliance of LGUs is still new. However, in Philippines, Alliance of LGUs here are local government units of neighboring areas, collaborate together to have consensus in zonation for co-management. The benefits of this alliance of LGUS are: harmonized ordinances on resource use, improving law enforcement and overcoming the lack of management capacities and technical expertise.
One example of Alliance of LGUs that we had a chance to visit is the CENECCORD (Central Negros Council for Coastal Resources Development) alliance. This alliance includes 7 members which are neighboring cities and municipalities. After establishment of collaboration, they have jointly developed a scheme for clam management along the coast of the alliance. The results they have achieved are fisherfolks in all LGUs agree on the scheme and clams are well protected.
One example of active local people’s participation in coastal natural resource management is the FARMCs (Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Management Councils). This is the council mandated by law in every authoritarian levels of local government in Philippines. The council includes representatives of fisherfolks and representatives from agencies. The representatives of fisherfolks have to be more than 50% in the council. The tasks of these FARMCs are consultancy for authorities on coastal resource management through laws and regulations. Actually, the authorities have to listen to the consultancy of representatives of fisherfolks.
Recognizing the benefits of these FARMCs, local governments have made efforts to support and strengthen these FARMCs. When these FARMCs are strengthened, fisherfolks awareness on protecting natural resource will be enhanced; participation at local level for better fishery management will be improved. Therefore, when having awareness, people are voluntarily to establish teams/groups for example, the forest protection voluntary group “Bantay Dagat” and the sea patrol group “Bantay Katunggan” (voluntary local law enforcers).
Since environment and natural resources has an intimate relationship, environment is a very important aspect in coastal management. The group had chances to visit typical models of awareness raising. In Sagay and San Carlos, they have awareness raising mostly for children. For examples on Environment day, pupils are encouraged to reuse waste such as plastic bottles, plastic bags and papers to make craft products. They also have the marine museum for kids. This is the first marine museum for children in Philippines. Here visitors are introduced by children from 8-13 years old on marine environment, mangrove forests… as well as coastal natural ecosystems.
Another special feature is the separation and recycle, reuse of wastes. Together with closing landfills that can cause harmful impacts to marine environments, here they have established the eco-center for waste recycling and reusing, processing wastes for composting. In order to support these activities, cities also have regulations that people have to separate wastes at source (at home).
And another special feature is the additional collection of water use fee for watershed protection in upstream areas. In San Carlos, there is regulation that in every cubic meter of water people have to pay additionally 0.7 peso. This fund is used for rehabilitation and replantation of forests in upstream areas.
ICAM also has been shown through zonation and the establishment of marine protected areas. Marine protected areas are places for fishery regeneration and development. This is here where there is recovering of degraded ecosystems. The zonation aims to restrict overfishing from fishermen. This is in these marine protected areas, when well protected, fisheries can regenerate, develop more and more that leads to more production in open-access zone. In Sagay, fishery catchment per person per day has been increased from 3.3 kg (1997) into 8.3 kg (2010). It is the strict law and regulations that help make the success of these protected areas.
ICAM also has been shown through collaboration among different agencies/authorities. Different but related stakeholders have to work together, such as water from upstream flows through forests along river basins when well protected can provide good quality in downstream areas. Similarly, residential areas, mangroves…all are connected and related to each other.
In Negros, all related agencies such as DARD and DONRE have been aware of their roles in collaboration for good coastal management.
Through the study tour, we have summarized some lesson learnt that can apply for Soc Trang, such as:
• Active participation from local people is very important. In Vietnam we also have some fishery associations however their voices in natural resource management are still very limited. In Soc Trang, with the support of GIZ, we have established co-management in Au Tho B village to jointly protect and sustainable management of the mangrove forest.
• The marine protected areas contribute greatly to the conservation of marine resources. We should apply this zonation for more sustainable management and use of coastal natural resources.
• Waste separation and recycling can be achieved. However Vietnam has not yet achieved expected results as there is limitation in regulation for implementation.
• Another lesson is about the collaboration between government units/different agencies which helps to reduce conflicts and provides collective power. Can we achieve this? In Vietnam, it still remains questionable as the collaboration between government units has not been very good.
• Finally, sound leaderships and competent staff are crucial for promoting local sustainable development.
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