Sara J. Scherr, Ph.D. (corresponding author)
Adjunct Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics Department
2200 Symons Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, 20742 USA
Tel: (703) 758-2548; (301) 405-8360; Fax: (301) 314-9091 email: Sscherr@arec.umd.edu
Jintana Amornsanguasin, Ph.D.
Royal Forest Department, Bangkok, Thailand
Email: jintana@forest.go.th
Ma. Elena Chiong-Javier, Ph.D.
Department of Behavioral Sciences, De la Salle University, the Philippines
Email: ecjavier@lgn.pworld.net.ph
, clamecj@mail.dlsu.edu.ph
Dennis Garrity, Ph.D.
Director-General, International Centre for Research in Agroforestry, Nairobi, Kenya
Email: D.Garrity@cgiar.org
Satyawan Sunito, Ph.D.
Director, Centre for Agrarian Studies, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor, Indonesia e-mail: sunito@indo.net.id
, mea_awan@yahoo.com
Saharuddin, Ir.
Centre for Agrarian Studies, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor, Indonesia e-mail: sunito@indo.net.id
Paper presented to the SANREM Conference on “Sustaining Upland Development in Southeast
Asia: Issues, Tools and Institutions for Local Natural Resource Management”
Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines
May 28-30, 2001

2
ABSTRACT
Globally, a new paradigm is emerging of participatory management of upland watershed resources, but the “architecture” for successful, decentralized watershed governance is still in flux. In 2000, a collaborative study was begun to compare experiences of local organizations
(LO’s) for natural resource management (NRM) in the uplands of Indonesia, the Philippines, and
Thailand, to help these organizations and supporting institutions to identify problems, opportunities and strategies for more effective action. The first phase of the study examined the policy context and institutional landscape for locally led NRM in the uplands, using secondary data, key informants and site visits in the three countries. Organizational histories and descriptions were collected for 21 diverse examples of LO’s (each comprising from 1 to hundreds of community groups), 28 associations of LO’s, as well as several dozen NGO’s and government programs supporting LO’s working in upland NRM.
The country overviews concluded that democratization, devolution, greater legitimacy for upland peoples, foreign donor assistance, and leadership from non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) in Southeast Asia have intersected to encourage rapid growth of (LO’s) in the uplands. The process has been underway since the 1970s in the Philippines, resulting in much more extensive
LO active and networks. But policy processes begun in the 1990’s in Indonesia and Thailand, are likely to follow similar trajectories with continued political opening and capacity-building.
Tribal peoples, often in more remote and less populated areas, have been motivated to organize mainly to reclaim their ancestral lands. Migrant populations, often farming in more densely settled and environmentally threatened areas, are organizing to address problems of resource scarcity and conflict, to improve incomes, productivity and livelihood security. In migrant areas,
LO’s have been promoted by government agencies and private sector firms, mainly to increase the efficiency or effectiveness of NRM, while social NGO’s have promoted local empowerment.
While early stages of local organization have emphasized technical improvements and capacitybuilding, there was dramatic growth during the 1990’s in networking among LO’s and formation of informal and form alliances, to address pollution, market issues and natural resource conflicts.
Positive impacts of LO’s on local welfare, local resources and watershed environments are perceived to have been significant, but there is little documentation. Key informants involved in
LO development suggest that greater attention is needed to define appropriate roles for different support institutions, improve coordination, address issues of social stratification within communities, strengthen financial capacity of groups, strengthen education and training in NRM, and fully implement supportive policies.

3
LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS IN NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
IN THE UPLANDS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA:
POLICY CONTEXT AND INSTITUTIONAL LANDSCAPE
I. Introduction
Upland tropical watersheds contribute significantly to the livelihoods of many of the poorest rural populations in the world. Large and growing populations are farming and harvesting forest products in upper watersheds, even as watershed natural resources--for water supply and quality, environmental services, habitat for wild biodiversity, and carbon services--become increasingly important at regional, national and international scales. The governance of watershed resources in many developing countries is undergoing profound change. Control and decision-making over natural resources is being transferred in many places from highly authoritarian government agencies to local people. Collective action and modification of property rights are essential to address many of the critical challenges of watershed management— devolving natural resource management (NRM) to local communities, internalizing environmental externalities, negotiating use rights over resources, and resolving conflicts among stakeholders (Meinzen-Dick and Knox
2001). These changes reflect growing democratization, strengthening capacity in local governments, weakening central governments, the disappointing performance of central governments in protecting key resources, and growing conflict over resources. The emerging paradigm of participatory management of upland watershed resources calls for changes in planning and political processes that give local people a voice in decisionmaking (Thrupp,
Cabarle, and Azueta 1994).
Southeast Asia has been the locus for widespread experimentation and innovation in upper watershed management. Improving NRM is seen by many people in the region as inextricably linked to improved governance. Researchers from the International Centre for

4
Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) observe that governance changes were crucial ingredients in promoting sustainable management of indigenous agroforests, and widespread adoption of natural vegetative strips and new tree crops on hillside farms since the mid-1990s (Garrity, et al., in press). In order to better understand these interactions, ICRAF initiated a collaborative research project on “Local Organizations in Natural Resource Management in Upland Southeast
Asia.” This project has four objectives:
1) To produce information that will help local organizations identify problems and opportunities in upland NRM in southeast Asia;
2) To help institutions seeking to support local organizations to identify needs and strategies, and investment priorities;
3) To provide guidelines for ICRAF’s research and outreach in upland watersheds of SEA;
4) To understand the key factors that shape the formation and effective functioning of local organizations in NRM.
In this paper, we report preliminary findings from this research, based on country overviews for the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. In section II, we discuss the conceptual framework for the research and study methods. In sections III and IV, we discuss policy factors that have influenced the emergence and actions of LO’s in upland NRM in these countries, and describe the types of LO’s currently found and the institutions supporting them. In section V, we describe the perceived impacts of LO’s in NRM reported by key informants, and in section VI we suggest some key challenges facing further development of local NRM.
II. Concepts and Methods a. Innovation in upland natural resource management

5
Historically, the upland watersheds of Southeast Asia had relatively low populations and were politically and economically marginal. During the past 150 years, that situation has been changing. Upland populations have grown faster than overall population, and improved infrastructure has linked these regions much more closely with national economies. As settled farming populations have sought to intensify production on steeply sloping lands, often with poor soils, rural poverty has become more concentrated. Degradation of many key environmental resources—notably forests, water quality and supply, and wild biodiversity—has been associated with upland “development,” threatening local livelihoods as well as environmental values important nationally and internationally (Scherr 2000a).
People living in and depending upon these resources have not been passive in the face of these changes. There is evidence that innovations in NRM are underway in many tropical upland regions. A meta-analysis of 80 case studies by Templeton and Scherr (1999) suggests an inverted
U-shaped curve as population density increases, with resource degradation followed by resource rehabilitation—a process related to that described by Boserup (1965) for agricultural intensification. This “induced innovation” is shown on Figure 1 as trajectory I; note that this analysis does not imply that the original resource conditions are recovered, only that the supply of products or environmental services recovers. Thus intensive agroforestry systems may replace natural forests, with negative impacts for biodiversity services, even where other goods and services recover. Under trajectory II, degradation continues to the point that rehabilitation is infeasible. Under III, rehabilitation is delayed to the point that potential resource recovery is limited. To conserve natural resources and enhance livelihoods over the long term, accelerated innovation and rehabilitation (IV) is often desirable.

6
Organizational limitations appear to be a key constraint in this innovation process, especially for natural resources that are common property or public goods, and innovations that have economies of scale or require collective action. Local organizations may play critical roles in such adaptive processes: in managing common property resources, regulating private resource management to protect community interests, organizing community investments to improve natural resource conditions, sharing knowledge about NRM, cooperating to market products or environmental services from NRM, or advocating for community interests with policymakers and other influential external actors (Hinchcliffe, et al. 1999).
The conceptual framework shown in Figure 2 predicts that increasing pressures on natural resources will influence community conditions in ways that modify local institutions, including LO’s responsible for NRM. Such LO’s may influence both collective and householdlevel NRM. Resulting changes in productivity, natural resource conditions and human welfare within the community produce further dynamic changes (Scherr 2000b). It is thus important to understand what induces local organization in NRM and how such organizations can become more effective in achieving natural resource and livelihood goals.
Research and experience have demonstrated the importance of social capital, expressed through local organizations (LO’s), in managing shared resources (Campbell1994; Narayan
1999; Uphoff, Esman and Krishna 1999). The feasibility of devolving management of natural resources to local organizations has been amply demonstrated (Baland and Platteau 1996;
Farrington, Turtian and James 1999). Pretty and Ward (2001) estimate some 50,000 watershed and sustainable agriculture groups became active in the past decade in Australia, several African and Central American countries, India and Nepal, and he USA. A wide range of participatory approaches to community-based watershed management have been developed (Flora, C.B., et al.

7
2000), for both full devolution and co-management of resources by local communities and government agencies. Indigenous peoples in many parts of the world have succesfully claimed the right to manage their ancestral lands (Poffenberger 1998). However the “architecture” for decentralized watershed governance is still in great flux, with both public agencies and local people struggling to find new ways of working together in this new context. It is essential: to identify conditions, policies and institutional arrangements under which devolution is likely to be successful (Agrawal and Ostrom 2000); to understand the factors that explain the emergence of collective action (Pelsky et al 1999) and differing performance among groups (Pretty and
Ward 2001); and to identify effective strategies of institutional support for LO’s (Carroll 1992). b. Research questions
Priority research questions and hypotheses for this project were defined at a planning workshop held in August 2000, in Cagayan de Oro, the Philippines (Scherr and Garrity, eds. 2000). Key research questions were:
1) What political, social or environmental conditions affect the emergence, type and function of local organizations in NRM?
2) What institutional arrangements characterize LO’s and the resource organizations supporting LO’s? How do LO’s interact with government and business organizations, and with one another?
3) What have been the actual impacts of LO’s on local NRM and welfare, and watershedlevel environmental services and production?
4) What operational features most affect the effectiveness and sustainability of LO’s and supporting institutions?

The objective of Phase 1 research was to describe and compare the policy context and organizational landscape for LO’s in NRM in major upland regions of the three countries, to inform site selection and further specification of hypotheses for case study research in Phase 2.
Phase 1 research emphasized research questions 1 and 2, while documenting tyes of impacts sought or observed and operational issues of broad concern to regional actors.
8
The country studies focused geographically on Luzon, Mindanao and Visayas regions of the
Philippines; East and Central Java, Kalimantan and Sumatra regions of Indonesia; and northern
Thailand. Data for the studies were obtained through a review of national literature (including
“grey” literature), in-depth interviews with key informants involved in upland NRM, including local and resource organizations, and field visits to selected local organizations. National legislation enabling LO’s in upland NRM were documented, as were major government watershed management programs. Organizational histories and descriptions were collected for
10 groups of LO’s in the Philippines, 9 in Indonesia and 2 in Thailand, for 28 associations of
LO’s; and for several dozen NGO and government agencies supporting LO’s working in upland
NRM. Detailed research results for each country are reported in Amornsanguansin (2001),
Chiong-Javier (2001), and Sunito and Saharuddin (2001), and a comparative analysis is presented in Scherr, et al. (2001).
III. Policy Context For Local Organizations (2) a. Historical loss of local control over upland resources
In all three countries, populations historically concentrated in the fertile lowland river valleys, supported by paddy rice cultivation. In the Philippines, population densities in the uplands remained low until the 1960s, when migration out of the lowlands, in search of farmland,

9 increased very rapidly. Government claims over upland forest resources conflicted both with long-settled highland indigenous groups and upland migrant farmers whose land use was technically illegal.
Permanent settlement in the uplands of Indonesia began around 1850 in Indonesia, with deforestation for large-scale Dutch plantations and the introduction of cassava for dryland agriculture. Policies to promote transmigration from Java to the Outer Islands began after 1930.
The Basic Agrarian Law of 1960 established state sovereignty over much upland territory, while legislation between the late 1970s and mid-1980s reduced village autonomy and disbanded rural cooperatives and banned other political activity.
In Thailand, wet rice cultivation was begun in lower uplands in the early 1930s; short fallow and permanent cropping has been practiced n the midlands for a century, while the highlands were populated by hill tribes and tea growers. Uncontrolled migration to the uplands occurred during the Indochinese wars, creating intensive land competition. In 1960, policies of forced settlement for hill tribes were pursued, and in 1976 they were made Thai citizens. But as a result of changes in forest law, 20 percent of upland farmers—occupying a third of forest areas— were deemed to be illegal. as part of policies to reduce opium production in the late 1960s and
1970s, government pursued forced intensification of shifting cultivation systems and villagization; in 1985 re-demarcation of forest land was implemented without consideration of local rights.
In all three countries, upland inhabitants experienced large-scale dispossession through government land claims (often justified on environmental, as well as national security grounds) and grants of land ownership or concessions to large-scale economic interests. While there were active cooperative movements, particularly in parts of Indonesia and the Philippines,

10 considerable social capital was destroyed through political repression, weakening of local governance, loss of land and resource rights, and resettlement prior to the mid-1980s. With few rights or autonomy, there was little local organization for NRM. Infrastructure investment in the uplands, while lagging well behind that in the lowlands, linked upland regions more closely with national markets, attracted further migration and external investment, and intensified conflicts over natural resources (Scherr 2000a). The information revolution has begun to free rural villages from their former isolation (Sunito and Saharuddin 2001). b. Policy reform and local organizations
The development of LO’s in NRM has resulted from the greater political space for local action and empowerment resulting from broader political openings, and leadership and support from external NGOs. Key policy and legislative elements were:
• reform of forest policy to reflect local rights of ownership, access and management;
• devolution of many NRM functions to local governments, as part of broader governance changes;
• legalization of farming on steeper slopes, partly in response to the development of
“conservation farming” and agroforestry practices for sloping lands;
• legalization of NGO’s; and
• legalization of independent collective action among rural people.
Re-thinking government roles and objectives in upland forests in the region began in the 1970s’, in reaction to accelerating deforestation. The EighthWorld Forestry Congress of 1978, convened in Jakarta, carried the theme “Forests for People”, and participants signed the Jakarta Declaration warning that unless returns from forest utilization reached the communities in and around the forests, supply problems would certainly emerge (Chiong-Javier 2001). Reforms in legislation on

11 agrarian law, forest and environmental law, and local governments have strengthened rights of upland land users and democratized some features of resource governance. Political recognition of the legitimacy and rights of upland land users began in the Philippines in the 1970s and 1980s, and in Indonesia and Thailand in the 1990s. This history partly explains the proliferation of LO’s in the Philippines relative to the smaller numbers, weaker organization, and greater reliance on external organizations in the others.
In the Philippines, the presence of upland farmers was legitimized through various policy initiatives 1971-81, and democratic organization and action grew in the years leading up to the overthrow of Marcos and accelerated thereafter. The Uplands Development Program of the
1980s featured a “participatory” philosophy. The 1990’s saw a surge in volunteerism, growing legitimacy for “ancestral domain” land claims, and in 1997 legal changes devolved many NRM responsibilities to local government. The Philippines cases illustrates the manner in which national policy can be responsive to local processes, and vice versa.
In Indonesia, not until the 1990’s did the NGO movement grow and village-level organizing re-emerge, accelerating after the fall of Suharto. Key pieces of legislation that would legitimate village or municipal authority over NRM, ancestral land claims and forest concession policy are being actively debated at this time, but have not been passed. In Thailand, legislative changes in the mid-1990’s strengthened local government’s (“tambon”) role in NRM, putting the
RFD in the role of technical advisor. The 1997 Thai Constitution formally granted local people’s rights, and a Community Forestry Bill is currently under debate.
The development of LO’s and NGO’s both stimulated some of the above policy change, and was promoted by it.

12 a. Historical institutions for NRM
Established upland communities in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand have commonly protected natural resources important to their livelihoods and identity. In Indonesia, a tribal
“code of conduct’ for nature-man relationships existed that is still evident in community NRM in both various types of communities. In Thailand, traditional upland NRM practices included protection of forests for headwater protection, soil conservation, cremation, Buddhist temples, sacred forests, and water catchment protection. Their focus has been on regulating resource access and communal sharing of resources, and they have relied mainly on natural regeneration to protect and conserve resources. While traditional upland NRM systems provide some shared cultural norms and social capital, existing institutions are not generally organized to undertake more intensive systems of NRM involving commercial transactions, community investments or intensive management. Thus, in addition to securing access and tenure rights to resources, they must improve their managerial capacity, through their own efforts or external assistance. b. Types of local organizations
We use “local organization (LO)” as an umbrella term for diverse types of local groups (Table
1).
There is considerable variation in the LO’s currently involved in upland NRM in these three countries, so that a rigid typology of LO’s cannot be devised. Nonetheless, it is possible to identify four major categories of LO’s involved in upland NRM, in terms of their genesis or overall objective (Table 2): a) indigenous communities in their ancestral lands, located at higher altitudes, with less intensive land use systems, for whom land rights issues are primary; b) farmer groups organized by the government or larger-scale private sector firms to support production activities (for example, for credit or outgrower schemes);

13 c) community groups organized by the government to pursue soil, water or forest conservation objectives (for example, community-based forest management-
CBFM-on public lands); d) farmer or community groups, self-initiated or organized by social and environmental NGO’s, that emphasize local empowerment for social development and natural resource management.
The number of LO’s in NRM has proliferated in recent years. Indigenous groups may include from one to ten neighborhoods, organized in traditional clans. Migrant community groups typically include from a few dozen to a few hundred members, in from one to five communities.
The primary motivation for new LO’s in the indigenous communities, more remote and mainly located at higher altitudes and with less intensive land use systems, is securing ancestral land rights. The primary motivation for new LO’s in higher-density migrant communities with permanent farming systems is to respond to growing natural resource scarcity and conflicts with other actors. While local people mobilized most in response to external threats, but some also responded to new opportunities offered by new technologies, markets, and market access.
The level of interest in local organization in NRM appears to be a function of the length of upland settlement, ranging from ancestral lands among long-settled indigenous peoples to recent migrants from the lowlands. Population density, land quality and proximity to markets were not associated with greater local organization in this non-random sample, although such variables seem to have affected the type of activities undertaken. All groups studied were in sedentary communities.
In all three countries, the major resource focus of LO’s studied was forests, as a result of community forestry programs and land claims in forest areas. LO’s working on sustainable

14 cropping and agroforestry activities are also widespread, usually stimulated by technical interventions from government programs, private businesses or NGO’s. Other LO’s are undertaking activities to protect water flow and quality, and maintain protected areas for wild biodiversity.
In the Philippines, most LO’s were organized by external institutions, particularly
NGO’s. In Indonesia, most LO’s, apart from the traditional adat communities, were originally organized by government agencies. In Thailand, many NRM efforts were self-initiated (a process observed since the 1920’s), as a means of resolving conflicts with loggers, protected areas, and downstream water users. b. Supporting organizations
Access to external training and on-going support appears to have been a crucial factor in successful LO for NRM in all three countries. Such support has come from national and local governments, foreign donors, NGO’s, donors and multi-sector coalitions.
Since the 1970’s, national governments have supported large watershed management, social forestry, protected area management, and sustainable upland farming programs. Donors have recently encouraged participatory approaches in upland projects, though public agencies have had limited flexibility to implement them. Government programs are evolving from activities seeking to control local people’s NRM, to community forestry and conservation farming activities encouraging local planning and in decision making in NRM, to support for policy and institutional changes regarding local resource rights and voice in resource governance. Funding for training of government agency staff, local leaders, and local NGOs was particularly important.

15
In much of Indonesia and parts of the other two countries, government-organized groups remain implementing agents of government programs rather than independent decision-makers.
Nonetheless, government-organized community forestry and watershed management groups constitute one of the most numerous types of LO’s. In the Philippines, nearly half a million farmers in more than 2000 LO’s are involved in community-based forest management initiatives on over 4 million hectares. In some watersheds in Thailand, the Royal Forest Department (RFD) provides technical support, in collaboration with international NGOs, to new governance structures—like the Mae Rek Watershed Management Network Committee—that rely on Village
Forest Conservation Committees. Many such LO’s, particularly in the Philippines and where provided with NGO training, have evolved to take on activities not originally envisioned, as organizational capacity has grown and networks developed.
Local Government Units (LGU’s) have recently begun to assume responsibilities for comanaging natural resources in their jurisdictions. These have included drawing up NRM plans, implementing NRM projects, source internal and external funds for NRM, and building viable
NRM partnerships. In some cases in the Philippines, they have provided support to LO’s such as technical assistance, creation of ordinances that provide incentives for conservation, inviting LO participation in a municipal level council for environmental concerns, securing tenure security, allocating forest management responsibility to interested user groups, establishing agroforestry programs, and providing financial and technical support for tree farms (Chiong-Javier 2001). In
Indonesia, new Village Parliaments are providing opportunities for local input into NRM.
The growing NGO movement over the past 20 years has been key in promoting LO’s, especially through their “empowerment” approach and capacity-building for local groups and leaders, that have enabled more independent action. NGO’s have played an important role in

16 bridging the very wide social and political gap between LO members and national elites, as well as stimulating community-wide dialogue on NRM issues (Sunito and Saharuddin 2001). Foreign
NGOs have also provided important financial and technical support to the domestic NGO’s supporting LO’s. Most NGO’s have emphasized technical assistance and marketing, network building, leadership training, community organization, and research and documentation of upland land dynamics and resource mapping. Advocacy NGO’s have provided critical analysis on laws, regulations and government policies affecting upland farmers, and supported LO’s particularly in pursuing legal and policy remedies for land rights and natural resource concerns.
The 1990’s was an experimental period, with unlikely collaborative partnerships emerging between LO’s, NGO’s, LGU’s, academic institutions, the private sector, watershed management institutions. An interesting example in Indonesia is the Bidayuh Community-Led
Organization in West Kalimantan, which involves cooperation between a local traditional adat organization, a private company, Regreening field extension officers and reforestation field extension officers. In the Philippines, 78 academic institutions, NGOs and PO’s from different parts of the country have formed a coalition to provide agroforestry extension, land tenure and marketing services to upland communities. c. LO networks and alliances
As LO’s mature, they look increasingly to their counterparts in other countries to provide some of the necessary support provided earlier by external agencies. During the 1990’s, there was dramatic growth in networking among LO’s, including the organization of informal and formal alliances (examples in Table 3). Indigenous peoples’ organizations concerned primarily with land claims found strategic, moral and political support through alliances. For LO’s focused more on improving resource management, initial successes from new technologies and local

17 management innovations, have stimulated them to organize action on extra-local issues, such as pollution, unfair market practices, and land and natural resource conflicts.
NGO’s played a major leadership role in catalyzing and organizing many of these alliances in all three countries. In the Philippines, the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR) has been in the forefront of federation PO’s at the regional level, with 15
CBFM federations organized in 2000. The increasing activity of LO’s in local, provincial and national policy has drawn the attention—and sometimes support--of politicians, who recognize the potential role of federations, whether government-organized or independent, in mobilizing rural voters.
V. Impacts
The major impacts reported from LO’s in upland NRM fall into three general categories:
• Improved natural resource conditions : increased forest conservation and tree-planting; reduced illegal poaching; reduced pesticide problems; reduced forest fire; adoption of soil conservation practices, and negotiated demarcation of protected forest areas;
• Improved local welfare impacts : increased farm productivity; improved farming skills; new employment opportunities, recognition of local land rights, and greater local access to natural resources; and
• Local capacity building : increased leadership skills; improved skills in organization, proposal-writing, mapping, research and monitoring; greater local participation in protected area management; greater political consciousness; and networking.
Many of the key informants interviewed in the three countries were convinced that LO’s working in upland resource management were having large positive impacts. However, there has been little documentation of such impacts, in terms of local welfare and resources or watershed-level

18 environmental services and production. Even donor and government-funded watershed projects tend to monitor only operational indicators (e.g., number of seedlings produced in tree nurseries), rather than final impacts. Because the state of natural resources typically fluctuate from year to year, longer-term monitoring is needed to ascertain genuine changes. Assessment at a higher spatial scale (beyond the borders of village organizations) is needed to understand broader ecological impacts of changes in local management. More rigorous analysis is also needed to understand the impact of LO’s relative to changes in other key variables shown in Figure 2.
International and national research institutions have, in several cases, played a strategic role in empowering LO’s, by providing independent evidence, convincing to policymakers, of positive impacts of LO’s on natural resource conditions, or by refuting common myths about land and resource use. Examples include research demonstrating the sustainability and management of agoforests in Indonesia; studies in Thailand countering the myth of resourcedestroying shifting cultivators; and studies in the Philippines that have documented the viability of social forestry. Initiatives underway to help LO’s develop systems to monitor their natural resources, to provide feedback for local management--such as the Water Watch groups in the
Philippines--may be a promising approach to build databases at a low cost, that can feed into watershed-scale monitoring of water, biodiversity and forest resources.
VI. Challenges For Upland Organizational Development
Local organizations will play a growing role in upland watershed management in southeast Asia.
There is ample scope to extend their presence, scope and effectiveness through better policies and organizational support. The legislative framework is most advanced in the Philippines; in
Thailand and Indonesia, key elements are still under debate. Comparative analysis of the evidence from phase 1 research suggests that policy trends in Thailand and Indonesia are likely

19 to parallel those in the Philippines, with perhaps a decades’ time lag. Increased support for local capacity building and networking will in turn support policy change. Even where legislation and programs are established, there continue to be serious implementation problems, and many communities still wrestle with unresolved tenure disputes. Rewarding local communities with greater resource access or tenure rights, in recognition of demonstrated good land and resource husbandry, appears to be an approach acceptable to many local people and government agencies.
Areas requiring attention include improved coordination among institutions on goals for upland interventions, greater attention to financial and marketing aspects of LO’s; and strategies to address relations of villages with adjacent state forests, plantations and absentee urban landowners. Efforts are needed to evaluate and redefine the roles of different actors in supporting
LO’s. It may make sense to leave the function of local capacity building to NGO’s, rather than government agencies. The role of local government is likely to become more important in the future. New types of partnerships with the private sector will be needed to provide the access to capital, technology and markets required for LO’s to take advantage of upland commercial opportunities. Some NGO’s may provide more specialized services to LO’s. Research and academic institutions have undertaken practical work that has played an important role in supporting LO’s. These institutions need to further clarify their role to avoid replicating work done by NGO’s and local governments.
The establishment and empowerment of local organizations are not a panacea for the serious challenges of upland NRM—only a necessary first step. Local capacity for good resource husbandry, equitably managed, is constrained by social factors, including male domination in most organizations, high social stratification in some traditional organizations and peri-urban communities, limited social capital on which to build, and social disruption due to continued

20 immigration. Greater access and control over natural resources by local communities may not always lead to improved NRM—as defined by environmentalists or downstream resource users-- in the short-run, given resource-scarce conditions in most rural communities. Local governments and watershed management institutions will play a critical role in assuring the effectiveness of
LO’s—but that role will be much different in a context of active LO’s. Most such institutions have not yet made the necessary philosophical and practical transitions. Environmental education, planning and research support, even environmental service payments from downstream resource users, will be needed to encourage sustainable resource management without coercion. Stronger alliances among locally led organizations will be needed not only to safeguard local control over resources, but also to support and encourage long-term investment in sustainable systems. Phase 2 of this project will examine some of these issues more closely, through case study research.
VII. References
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Boserup, E. 1965. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change

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Campbell, C.A. 1994. Landcare: Communities Shaping the Land and the Future . St. Leonards,
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Carroll, T.F. 1992. Intermediary NGO’s: The Supporting Link in Grassroots Development.
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Chiong-Javier, M.E. 2001. 2001. “Local Organizations in Upland Natural Resource Management in the Philippines”. Country study for research project on Local Organizations in Natural
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Farrington, J., C. Turton, and A.J. James, eds. 1999. Participatory Watershed Development:
Challenges for the Twenty-First Century . New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Flora, C.B., S. Gasteyer, E. Fernandez-Baca, Damayanti Banerji, S. Bastian, S. Aleman. 2000.
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Resources: A Summary of Approaches”. Paper presented at the sixteenth meeting of the
International Farming Systems Association, Santiago, Chile. November.
Garrity, D., V.G. Amoroso, S. Koffa, D. Catacutan, G. Buenavista, P. Fay, W. Dar. In press.
“Integrated Natural Resource Management on the Poverty-Protection Interface in an Asian
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Table 1. Local Organizations: Terminology
The following terms used in the Philippines. There is considerable, but not complete, cross-over in Indonesia and Thailand.
- Community-Based Organization (CBO ): an organization based or located in a community; it may not be representative of the community;
- Community-Led Organization (CLO ): a variant of CBO with emphasis on leadership born by representatives chosen by a cross-section of community members, working to affect the common good, often self-initiated;
- Farmer-Led Organization (FLO): a sectoral grouping of farmers, often self-initiated; may develop to become CLOs;
- People’s Foundation (PF): a variant of FLO with an outward service-orientation, existing to serve not only its members but also external clients who may be CBOs or
FLOs, often self-initiated;
- Cooperative : a formal organization registered with the government, with a well-defined socioeconomic agenda and capital, and oriented towards some form of social enterprise
(e.g., credit lending or marketing); may have a community-wide or sectoral membership;
- People’s Organization (PO ): a generic term embracing all of the above groupings—a form of civil society at the grassroots level.
- Federation : a formal (i.e., government-registered) or informal alliance or coalition of several or many types of organizations, associations or cooperatives. It may have a multisectoral composition when PO’s coalesce with NGOs and/or Local Government
Organizations.
Source: Chiong-Javier 2001.

Table 2. Major Types of Local Organizations for Upland NRM in Indonesia, the
Philippines and Thailand, with Examples
Type of LO for
NRM, by origin
Country Examples
Indigenous community organizations
Farmer groups organized by government or private firms
Community groups organized by government or private firms
Community groups organized or supported by social and environmental
NGO’s
Indonesia
Philippines
Thailand
Indonesia
Philippines
Indonesia
Philippines
Thailand
Indonesia
Philippines
Thailand
Panglero Community Led
Organization (Sumatra)
Tagbanwa Foundation of
Coron Island
Klum-Muang-Fai (upland water user groups)
Forest Farmer Group of
South Malang (established by SFC Social Forestry program)
Kapit-Bisig Farmers
Association (DENR,
UNDP-organized)
Bidayuh Community-Led
Org., W. Kalimantan
(govt., private company, traditional adat)
Cancabalong-Obo
Multipurpose Cooperative,
Cebu
Natural Resources
Conservation Group, Mae
Rek (organized by RFD)
Forum of Free Farmers
(support by national NGO)
Farmer Landcare Groups
(organized by ICRAF,
Landcare Association)
Village Forest
Conservation Committees,
Mae Rek (CARE-
Thailand)
Community forest rights claims
Ancestral domain claim, manage terrestrial and aquatic resources
(response to loss of bird nest rights)
Manage forest and water resources
Improve incomes through forest use rights, sustainable agriculture
Forest protection and conservation, farm productivity, livelihood dev.
Community forestry, joint management of a large timber estate through cooperative management
Forest conservation, farm productivity (first organized by
DENR, then merged with LO)
Watershed planning, resource regulation
Conservation farming, land rights
Conservation farming, agroforestry
Watershed planning, resource regulation, conservation farming
24

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Table 3. Local Organization Alliances for Upland Natural Resource Management:
Examples from Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand
Country Alliance
Indonesia Integrated Pest Management
Field School Alumni
North Sumatran Farmers’
Association
SETAN BALONG, SETAN
GUNDUL
Aliansi Masyarakat Adat
Philippines Claveria Landcare
Association
Membership
Several thousand farmers who participated in field schools
NA
Regional associations of upland farmers
Alliance of adat communities in Sumatera and Kalimantan
3000 members, 28 barangays in 5 municipios
Objectives
Encourage and support sustainable agricultural practices
Holds congresses, publishes statements, books on agrarian reform
Promote adat community land rights
Conservation farming, tree-planting, irrigation, freshwater fishponds, riparian management, lobbying for
NRM ordinance at municipal level
“ Landcare
Association
1000 members, 7 local
Landscare associations with
Federation of Tabuan
Farmers Association
34 subchapters
51 members from 4 organizations in barangay
Farmers
Association, Inc.
331 KBFAI members in 2 barangays
17 Indigenous Federations:
• SARAGPUNTA
• Molbog
• NAKAMATA
• NATRILUBO
• DUM’A Ple-Kuka
• TAGPUAN
• PHM
• BALATBAT
• Lumadnong
• Panaghiusa
• Glompo’k
• PAMAAS
• KAFCD
• KPLN
• PASS
• SKAP
• SANAMA-NIBAAG
• 7 PO’s – N. Palawan,
• All Molbog in Balabac
• 11Manobo-Higonon POs
• 25 Manobo-Bukidnon
• Manobo-Sultan Kadarat
• Dingalan-Aurora
• CFSA holders- Bailan,
Umabang and Amindang
• Hanunuo Mangyan in
Kabilyan watershed
• Manobo in PTFI IFMA
• 7 Manobo communities
• 24 Subanen PO’s
• Manobo in N. Cotabato
• Bugkalot/Ilongot comm..
• Mangyan in Mindoro
• 4 CADC holders
• 3 Aeta villages in SBMA
• Aeta villages
Farm productivity, forest conservation, communal tree farm
Tree farming, income-generating projects
Promote and lobby for indigenous land rights, conservation farming, ancestral domain management, rights to manage protected areas, local watershed management, land survey
Thailand Kor Gor Nor--Northern
Farmers’ Network
(1994)
Mae Rak Watershed
Management Network
(1999)
Northern Community Forest
Network (1990s), evolved into Assembly (1999)
Ethnic minority groups in the midland and highland zones
(Karen, Hmong, Lahu)-107 villages in 14 sub-watersheds
Natural Resource
Conservation Groups within the Mae Rak watershed
NA
Promote community forestry and local participation in NRM; encourage government to involve local communities
Resolve conflicts, establish regulations, prepare strategic plan, monitor watershed
Exchange experience of communitybased forest management on basis of traditional culture and belief