Philippine Community-Based Coastal Management:
The Challenges

Philippine experience reveals that the development of new, more broadly collaborative, integrated coastal management models is necessary to scale up significant but still small successes achieved in community-based coastal management.

By Alan T. White, Deputy Chief of Party, CRMP and Evelyn T. Deguit, Community Organizing and Community Development Advisor, CRMP

Coastal resource management (CRM), employing mostly community-based methods, has been practiced in the Philippines over the last two decades to try to stem the increasing tide of damage to habitats and the decline of fishery production. CRM has been supported and nurtured by a variety of institutions, i.e., government, non-government and people’s organizations, research institutions, and multi-lateral and bilateral donor organizations, employing different strategies and approaches. Such projects, working with coastal communities, have targeted nearshore fisheries, mangrove and coral reef habitat management and poverty among coastal communities as a primary focus.

Generally, the Philippines’ 18,000-km coastline is under siege from a variety of activities and impacts that are eroding the natural resource base and the area’s potential for full sustainable use. The lack of control of almost all development in the coastal zone is symptomatic and indicative of what is to come if much stronger and more effective institutions and procedures for integrated coastal management (ICM) are not put into place in the near future. The challenges of coastal management are of such magnitude that Philippine institutions are beginning to respond with more concern and integrated approaches than in the past. Still, the path ahead is not well defined.

The Philippines has developed many models in “community-based coastal management.” One effective model uses participatory coastal resource assessment methods to involve coastal stakeholders in planning. Shown above are the fishers of San Vicente, Palawan mapping their coastal resources.

An important question that needs to be addressed is whether the current community-based approaches can be successful in reversing resource degradation and the growing poverty in coastal areas. The Philippines is often looked up to for models in “community-based coastal management”, where many well-designed and successful projects have accomplished their objectives. Yet, given this outwardly positive trend as often voiced in literature or suggested by the organizations for successful projects, what are the real trends and what will be needed to scale-up community-based efforts to more integrated management of coastal areas in the country?

The second major influence affecting the evolution of coastal management is the devolution of authority to the local governments (municipal and provincial). The challenge created by the devolution of coastal management is that few municipal governments in the country have the capacity to manage their natural resources. They generally lack trained personnel, budget and technical knowledge.

The need for technical assistance is great, as governments and communities, while motivated to take on the responsibility for managing their coastal resources, generally lack human and financial resources to effectively undertake CRM.

In spite of these limitations, the motivation among municipal governments to manage their resources is increasing rapidly as they realize the seriousness of the problem and what they stand to lose if no action is taken. The opportunity to improve ICM in the country is thus tremendous, given the more than 800 coastal municipalities bordering the extensive coastline, but realized coastal resource management are small.

A key lesson generated by coastal management projects to date is that it is extremely difficult to plan and implement successful ICM programs without a multi-sectoral approach that has sufficient support from the government and its partners and a strong level of acceptance among the resource-dependent communities. As yet, it is difficult to claim success for ICM in any of the major projects except at a very localized level where the geographic scope is small and the number of stakeholders limited. How can these successes be scaled up?

• ICM replacing fisheries development and habitat management approaches of past projects;
• Local government units (LGUs) assuming responsibility for and allocating resources to manage municipal waters and resources;
• A redefined role of national government agencies to provide primarily technical assistance on CRM to local government and to influence policy formulation, modification and clarification; and
• Multi-sectoral collaboration becoming essential to solve complex ICM problems.

Key activities presently seen as essential for success at the community and local government levels include:

• Participatory coastal resource assessments;
• Participatory and integrated coastal management planning;
• Economic development for coastal resource users through environment-friendly enterprises;
• Implementation of limited access regimes such as marine sanctuaries;
• Formation and strengthening of CRM organizations;
• Training in skills relevant to ICM planning and implementation;
• LGUs allocating budget for CRM;
• Legal instruments required for effective support of ICM;
• Policy analysis and formulation; and
• Participatory monitoring and evaluation.

One important difference from the past is that these key activities must be fully integrated with local (municipal, city and provincial) governments. National agencies have an important supportive role to play but no longer have the full responsibility for environmental management as in the past. This changes their orientation.

• Expanding from community level to nationwide projects. There will increasingly questions about how this can be done, particularly in relation to national policy frameworks for support. Scale of effort and geographic extent of projects are concerns that need more analysis in relation to government capacity to govern and their redefined roles.
• How to build local government capacity in meaningful ways. This follows again from national policy and how local governments support localized ICM efforts. A key may be how to build more local leadership with emphasis on technical skills. Obtaining increased environmental budgets needs exploring.
• Developing a broader environmental management framework. A link between watershed management, waste management and other pollution problems with CRM is becoming critical in many areas.
• Developing databases that work and are practical to maintain. Measuring success and returns in any form requires keeping track of certain data over time. Databases and how to make all kinds of information systems work in the context of ICM for measuring change over time is essential.
• Measuring changes in environmental quality. Environmental parameters need to be better understood in the context of community management and monitored both for the measurement of success in the program and as an incentive for local participation to continue and increase.
• Designing institutional arrangements with local and national governments. The reality emerging in the Philippines is that collaborative management is the only means to sustainability of community institutions. Institutional arrangements that include municipalities, national agencies, non-governmental organizations, academe and others are becoming the norm and needs further refinement and more working models.
• Linking population programs to natural resource management. This is needed to highlight the connection of population with carrying capacity in coastal areas. This is important considering the conservative stand of the Catholic Church.

Small successes in CRM, while multitude, cannot fully address the full scale of problems that impact coastal resources.

Community-based coastal management has many small successes to its credit in the Philippines. But with the scale of problems becoming more apparent, we need to develop new models. “Community” is often being replaced with “collaborative” and experience is showing that multi-sectoral arrangements are basic to success.

Another ingredient more commonly being considered is economic and the role of value. The “values” of resources are important using whatever measures appropriate since it is value and perception of people about value that motivates people into action. Our models can place more emphasis on environmental value formation and how to derive economic benefits from healthy coastal environments using non-destructive and non-extractive techniques. This will help communities and government to justify investment in coastal management and build stronger partnerships.

Courtney, C.A.and A.T. White. 2000. Integrated Coastal Management in the Philippines: Testing New Paradigms. Coastal Management. 28(1):39-53

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