Conclusions and recommendations

The Philippines has invested a lot of money and effort to rehabilitate 1 its degraded forest lands over the last century. Coming back to our questions in Chapter I have these efforts actually increased forest cover helped impoverished upland communities enhanced biodiversity and environmental services or contributed to meeting timber needs? Did they address the underlying degradation causes and were the rehabilitated areas maintained in the long term? What are the most promising approaches? Which ones can be replicated at low cost by local institutions and actors? Which ones are self-sustaining at the local level? What enabling factors are required to sustain the efforts? Forest cover continued to decline at least until 1988 although 849304 ha were planted (188374 ha from 1910-74 and 660930 ha from 1975-87). A high deforestation rate was ongoing simultaneously and little is known about long-term survival of the plantations. From 1988-2003 forest cover registered a significant 0.7 million ha increase which government and other actors attribute to regrowth vegetation plantations established through reforestation projects (936542 ha planted from 1988-2002) and spontaneous tree growing by farmers and others on public and private lands.

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