Rattan and Resin from the Tropical Forests of Palawan, Philippines

by World Wildlife Fund - Philippines

Project Overview

The island of Palawan is often described as the last environmental frontier in the Philippines, as it contains some of the country's largest remaining areas of primary rain forest and some of its more intact and diverse coral reef systems. Palawan has an abundance of unique flora and fauna, including numerous endemic species, and accounts for a significant portion of the entire biological resources of the Philippines. Palawan is also home to a large number of indigenous peoples whose territories, natural resources, and cultures face growing threats from legal and illegal destructive logging and fishing practices, mining activities, and the rapid encroachment of immigrants from neighboring islands.

To counter these threats, the project team is developing new non-timber forest product (NTFP) enterprises and alternatives to the traditional marketing system. The project's short-term focus will be on rattan, almaciga resin, and honey, but over time it will also explore the potential for marketing other NTFPs. NATRIPAL, an association of 53 groups of indigenous peoples representing a majority of the indigenous communities in Palawan, hopes to simultaneously reduce the pressure on the natural resource base and improve local peoples' well-being through these projects.

The success of a community-based conservation and enterprise program like the one on Palawan will help to establish the credibility of local resource management in general. To further this effort, WWF-Philippines and NATRIPAL are working to obtain the most binding certification of ancestral land rights for two pilot project sites currently available in the Philippines -- the recently promulgated Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim (CADC). Partners are also helping project partners to establish a credit program and marketing unit that will assist indigenous cultural communities in the pilot sites to obtain greater, more sustainable benefits from the sale of NTFPs.

	Current Accomplishments
Successes and Challenges
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