Using Native Timber Trees for Recovering Degraded Landscapes in the Philippines
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USING NATIVE TIMBER TREES FOR RECOVERING DEGRADED LANDSCAPES IN THE PHILIPPINES: Social, biophysical and economic assessment of agroforestry systems practised by smallholder farmers Author: Fernando Santos Martín S U M M A R Y This study was designed to gain a better understanding of the current land used decisions that lead to rapid conversion of tropical forest margins and the slow process of rehabilitation and development of sustainable land use practices on deforested areas in the past. The overall hypothesis is that “Using native timber for recovering degraded landscapes can result in land use that is both sustainable and productive”. Three main requisites need to be test to answer this general hypothesis. Are timber based agroforestry systems with native timber tree species (i) Socially acceptable; (ii) Biophysically feasible and; (iii) Economically profitable? Thesis introduction present the big picture, describing what are the driving forces of deforestation and tree planting in the Philippines and other tropical countries especially in Southeast Asia. General and specific hypothesis and objectives are presented in Chapter 2 together with the overall framework and flow-chart of the thesis that guided the work. Chapter 3 presents the results from the socio-economic survey conducted among smallholder in four different upland communities revealing which are the major factors influencing farmers’ capacity and intention to plant timber trees. Chapter 4 presents data on where farmers are actually planting native timber tree species across the agricultural landscape and evaluates these results in relation to tree growth performance. Chapter 5 develop a tree database for the most promising native tree species and estimates above- ground tree biomass utilizing destructive and non-destructive methods which will allow further analysis using model simulations tools. Chapters 6 and 7 evaluate timber based agroforestry systems with native tree species from the biophysical and economic point of view. Chapter 6 presents biophysical results from model simulations and evaluates the feasibility and sustainability of a wide array of possible management options where trade-offs between tree growth and crop yield is presented in a simple and innovative format. Chapter 7 converts biophysical model simulations results into economic values (using external price data) and evaluates the profitability and risk resilience of each system under different macroeconomic conditions. Overall thesis conclusions are discuss in Chapter 8, where the consolidation of each individual chapter results lead to synthesized what are the policy and economic determinants needed to facilitate the forest transition that is likely to take place in the Philippines. T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S CHAPTER 1. THESIS INTRODUCTION What are the driving forces of deforestation and tree planting in the Philippines? Factors and actors involve in two distinct trajectories 1. The big picture.................................................................................................................................... 1 2. Land-cover change in Southeast Asia ................................................................................................. 3 3. Deforestation forces in the Philippines ............................................................................................... 4 4. Agroforestation in the Philippine’s upland ......................................................................................... 8 5. Why native trees species? ................................................................................................................... 9 6. References......................................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 2. THESIS HYPOTHESIS AND OBJECTIVES 1. Background....................................................................................................................................... 17 2. General Hypothesis and Objectives .................................................................................................. 18 3. Specific Hypothesis and Objectives.................................................................................................. 19 4. Thesis structure................................................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER 3: SOCIAL ASSESSMENT Which is the social domain where timber based systems might be able to occur? Main factors influencing farmers´ capacity and intention to plant timber trees 1. Introduction....................................................................................................................................... 21 2. Material and methods........................................................................................................................ 24 2.1. Study site: Leyte province....................................................................................................... 24 2.2. Source of data ......................................................................................................................... 26 2.3. Model building........................................................................................................................ 27 2.4. Social analysis......................................................................................................................... 29 3. Result................................................................................................................................................ 29 3.1. Independence variable text...................................................................................................... 29 3.2. Social Domain for timber tree planters ................................................................................... 30 4. Discussion......................................................................................................................................... 32 5. Conclusions....................................................................................................................................... 34 6. References......................................................................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER 4: TREE SITE MATCHING Where to plant native trees across the agricultural landscape? Gain in tree growth prediction in relation to simple set of site quality indicators 1. Introduction....................................................................................................................................... 39 2. Materials and Methods...................................................................................................................... 42 2.1 Study area: Manlawaan, municipality of Tabango................................................................. 42 2.2 Searching for planted native trees in Manlawaan................................................................... 42 2.3 Soils sampling of farmer’s sites ............................................................................................. 43 2.4 Definition of site quality indicators......................................................................................... 44 3. Results .............................................................................................................................................. 45 3.1 Planting niches and designs .................................................................................................... 46 3.2 Soil profile ............................................................................................................................. 46 3.3 Tree growth performance........................................................................................................ 48 3.4 Gain in tree-growth prediction in relation to site quality indicators........................................ 50 4. Discussion......................................................................................................................................... 52 5. Conclusions....................................................................................................................................... 52 6. References......................................................................................................................................... 52 CHAPTER 5: TREE DATABASE What scientific information exists about promising native tree species? Tree database for non-destructive estimation of aboveground biomass 1. Introduction....................................................................................................................................... 55 2. Materials and Methods...................................................................................................................... 58 2.1. Tree selection and sample....................................................................................................... 58 2.2. Field data collection.................................................................................................................58 2.2.1. Tree size and branching pattern...................................................................................58 2.2.2. Dry weight estimation.................................................................................................59 2.2.3. Measure the length of bare tip on final links...............................................................59