Forest Fruits from Central Luzon, Philippines

by Biodiversity Conservation Network Staff

What's at Stake?

The primary and secondary forests in the Kalahan Reserve in Nueva Vizcaya, support diverse plant and animal species as well as 550 Ikalahan families who live within the Reserve. The resources of the Reserve, which include nearly 15,000 hectares of ancestral land, are managed by the indigenous people under an agreement with the Philippine Government. Compared to other localities these resources are well managed. Nevertheless, there are still threats from road building and over-harvesting of certain non-timber forest products.

To address these threats, the Kalahan Education Foundation (KEF), a local people's organization formed by the Ikalahan Tribe, is implementing an integrated program of Community Forest Management and non-timber forest product extraction (NTFP) extraction. Enterprise activities include the production of jams and jellies from forest fruits, cultivation of orchids and mushrooms and the manufacture of furniture. In addition, the local communities are undertaking Timber Stand Improvement in the secondary forests. KEF is thus diversifying the community's economic base by adding value to the resources and developing alternative markets for their products.

The project site is formally recognized by the Government of the Philippines and the project has played an important part in developing government policies for local management of such resources.

The KEF and the Ikalahan people are developing systems for monitoring and evaluating the status of the resources within the reserve and ways to assess the impact of the economic activities on their resources over time.

	1997 Update
Successes and Challenges
"OK...So What?"

WHY BIODIVERSITY   FIELD STORIES   PARTICIPATE   RESULTS   MARKETSPACE ABOUT THE NETWORK   WHAT'S NEW   LEARNING MATERIALS   SEARCH   LINKS   SITE MAP   HOME