Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

Chapter 6: Facilitating Change from the Inside in the Philippines • 177
Application of ACM approach
The next step was to introduce the newly formed action learning groups
to the structured learning processes they would be undergoing. These
were described as continuous cycles or loops of reflection-planning-actionmonitoring.
For each priority issue, the action learning groups (1) reflected
on the causes of the problem by analyzing how it had been handled in
the past and why previous attempts had failed; (2) planned together how
to address problems by selecting the best strategy from several options
and agreeing on who would carry it out and when; (3) implemented the
agreed strategy; (4) monitored their actions and learned from them; and
(5) adjusted their management strategy accordingly. The research team
supported and facilitated this process as necessary, understanding that
cycles of action and reflection would be of different duration depending on
the stakeholders or the issue.
Through this iterative process, the group gradually made changes and
adjusted their strategies while learning about the consequences of their
decisions and actions. The research team attempted to make learning
processes more conscious and structured by frequently using these learning
loops as the framework for charting the progress made by the groups on
each issue.
The following sections describe the learning processes that the action
learning groups in both sites underwent and their outcome. Of the 10
issues addressed by the action learning groups in the two ACM sites, I have
selected three to illustrate how ACM processes were played out.
Forest boundary dispute
In the Palawan site, DENR had awarded the management rights of different
portions of the forest to the cooperative and to the Batak indigenous people.
Initially, the cooperative was given the right and responsibility to manage
1,000 ha of forestland; the tenure was later expanded in February 1997 to a
total area of 5,006 ha. The Batak community forest was about 900 ha and
lay adjacent to the cooperative’s forest.
When the cooperative’s community forest was expanded, the new area
was not surveyed and its boundaries were not mapped. A complete survey
existed for the original 1000 ha only. In 2000, Haribon, a local NGO that
assisted the Bataks, asserted that the areas of the two forests overlapped