The Philippines Action Plan to Combat Desertification, Land Degradation, Drought and Poverty

Synopsis

The Philippines is a country made up of islands, some large and some small. It is an agricultural country with mostly steeply sloping land that was cleared of forest to become cropland – principally for food crops to support the rapidly increasing population. Over time, soil loss and nutrient depletion have reduced the productivity of the land. Innovative approaches that provide soil protection and improve both livelihoods and human nutrition have been trialled. This chapter summarizes the results of some of them.

Key Points

• The Philippines, one of the largest island-groups in the world with 7,107 islands and islets, is strategically located within the area of nations that sweeps southeast from Mainland Asia across the equator to Australia. Approximately 27.3 % of the Philippines is vulnerable to drought, alternating with yearly floods and typhoons, causing serious land degradation and declining land productivity. These are provinces located in Type 1 climate, which are typhoon and drought prone and are generally vulnerable to El Nino – 6.60 million hectares are in Luzon, 1.41 million hectares (Mha) in the Visayas. There are specific provinces in Mindanao that are likewise becoming vulnerable to seasonal dryness caused by natural drought and El Nino phenomenon.

• It is estimated that soil erosion carries away a volume of soil 1 m deep over 200,000 ha a year. On-site soil fertility losses in the Philippines due to unsustainable land management, as per 1989 World Bank estimates, is to be around US$ 100 M, equal to one per cent of Philippine GDP per year. The quality and management of land resources in the Philippines has become of serious concern because of exponentially increasing population and the need to expand agricultural production to marginal areas while ironically converting prime agricultural lands to non-agricultural uses.

• Acknowledging the Philippines’ increasing vulnerability to drought and land degradation as a result of increasing recurrence of dry spell and alternating incidence of El Nino and La Nina as well as poor management of land, freshwater, and watershed resources, the Philippine National Action Plan (NAP) was formulated and implemented by the Philippine Government in 2004. The NAP is an expression of full and unqualified commitment of the Philippine Government in the effective and accelerated implementation of the programs and project activities to combat desertification, land degradation and poverty in the identified drought vulnerable areas of the country. It is a working document for the convergence of actions of the Departments of Agriculture (DA), Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Science and Technology (DOST) and Agrarian Reform (DAR).

• The NAP is water-centered and focused on the sustainable management of Critical Watershed Areas located in seasonally dry/arid areas, which are suffering from food insecurity. It is composed of two major thematic programs – Sustainable Agriculture and Marginal Upland Development and Integrated Ecosystem Management. These thematic programs have five components – Land and Water Technology Development, Local Governance and Community Initiatives, Data Base Development and Harmonization, Information, Education and Communication, and Enabling Policy Development. All of these aim to mainstream agriculture and rural development programs that will prevent the incidence and spread of desertification in deprived communities living in seasonally arid degraded lands.