Proposal for Small Grants Initiative, Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program, 2003

Project Title: Do Community-Based Resource Management Strategies Matter in a Globalized World? Comparative Study of SEleceted Upland Communities in the Philippines and Vietnam.

Proposed by: Maria Victoria O. Espaldon and Tuong-Vi Pham

Statement of the Problem

The Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines and Vietnam have been undergoing rapid transition in their respective economies. This change is characterized by rapid economic growth and "globalization" or increasing integration with the world economy. This kind of growth has various consequences both in the quality of the environmental resources and livelihoods of the population. The dynamics of resource use systems in the Philippines and Vietnam as they respond to global economic integration is a growing concern both to the academic and the policy making communities.

In Vietnam, the economy has undergone drastic changes since the process of economic liberalization started in 1989. The country has to date adopted a relatively steady course in the direction of global trade liberalization. The current round of dropping of trade barriers is based on three main international trade agreements. First is the Bilateral Trade Agreement between Vietnam and the US, which had been ratified by both countries by December 2001. Second is the Asia Free Trade Area (AFTA), in which Vietnam will attain full membership in 2006. Last is the move towards full WTO membership, in which Vietnam expects to enter possibly as early as 2005-07.

The Philippines has undergone a long history of agricultural policy reforms. The most dramatic of which is the inclusion of Philippine agriculture in the GATT-Uruguay Round in December 1994. The major commitments under the GATT-UR included the following (WTO/ATO 2000): a) market access expansion, or the opening up of domestic markets to foreign products; b) reduction of trade barriers to only 10% of gross value of agricultural production; c) minimizing the exports of products subsidized by the governments and d) harmonizing sanitary and phyto sanitary measures across member countries. Of these commitments, provisions of market access expansion and harmonization of sanitary and phyto sanitary measures are applicable to the Philippine case; and have already created significant impacts on the agriculture sector of the country to include flooding of the domestic market with cheap surplus agriculture products from the developed countries.

Pascual (2001) noted an increasing trend of agricultural imports after 7 years under GATT-UR agreement, which endanger the condition of local producers. For example, garlic importation has increased by 71% (import to production) and onion by 13% . Newspapers reported recently (PDI, 2002) the growing concern among local vegetable producers of Northern Luzon over the increasing quantity of vegetable imports with extremely low prices for consumers.

The uplands of the Philippines and Vietnam have not been spared from the influences of "globalization". In Vietnam, the uplands cover three-quarters of the country’s land surface and provide a home to one-third of its population including fifty-one of Vietnam’s ethnic minorities. In the Philippines’ uplands consists of over half of the country’s total land area and is considered home to about 15 million people. Under this international market regime, the Philippines has adopted a policy to focus on commercial crops with competitive advantage. This market integration triggers the expansion of plantation crops like banana and pineapple in the Philippines uplands.

The uplands are considered a fragile ecosystem, providing shelter and livelihood to a significant proportion of both Vietnamese and Filipinos. To sustain their livelihoods, the governments are promoting community based resource management strategies designed to formulate and implement sustainable livelihood activities that are complementary with the nature of the uplands ecosystem. Various programs, coupled with both internal and international efforts, were implemented to ensure that communities would have the capacities to carry out a resource use system that is more conserving of the biophysical resources and at the same time provide their basic needs.

It is within this context that this research is being proposed. While community based resource management strategies are being promoted in the uplands of Vietnam and the Philippines, another trajectory of events are in the offing. This is coming from the integration of local production and markets to the global economy. Many questions are now being asked: How do communities respond to the changes in the market economy? How does this new economic trend influence environmental quality? What are the incentives for greater agricultural intensification and does this present an opportunity to “save land for nature”? What is the social cost? How do local institutions and social networks that govern public resources and support social cohesion respond to the changes?

Research Objectives

The study proposes to examine the impacts of rapid economic changes and globalization pressures and opportunities on: 1) livelihood strategies; and 2) local institutions/groups/arrangements and social capital. Using examples from Vietnam and the Philippines, the study will highlight how these impacts are influenced by different stages of the globalization process.

Specifically, the research will seek to achieve the following objectives:

a) describe the changes in the condition of the natural resources, particularly forest, agriculture and water resources as a result of policy reforms in the selected study areas;

b) examine household changes in livelihood strategies (on-farm & off-farm), and their associated institutional arrangements, through time, as responses to policies promoting global economic integration;

c) analyze the community based adaptive strategies adopted in response to globalization pressures by examining changes in local institutions and social networks;

d) compare how being at different stages of the globalization process (Vietnam – less advanced, phased in; Philippines – complete liberalization) may result in different impacts on household livelihoods, adaptive strategies of local institutions, and environmental quality problems - in the two study areas in the two countries; and

e) examine implications for policy and programming formulation to enhance the adaptive capacities of households and local institutions to adjust to pressures from globalization, and manage their resources sustainably.

Project Activities

Applied research and information dissemination are planned.

Research

Study Areas

Two research sites will be selected, one each in the uplands of Vietnam and Philippines. Candidate communities were chosen because they are undergoing fairly rapid economic change with respect to livelihood strategies and commercialization, in response to globalization pressures/opportunities. The study areas under consideration are the intensive agricultural systems developing in both countries as national responses to the need of the global market. For the Philippines, the expansion of banana plantation in Mt Kitanglad of Bukidnon, Mindanao will be considered. Banana plantation development in Mindanao has gradually encroached into the upland areas of Mt. Kitanglad, an important biodiversity site in Southern Philippines and home to indigenous communities known collectively as "lumads". Cursory examination showed that this change has varied results, ranging from out-migration of subsistence farmers to other areas, shift to other income generating activities such as business and service sectors. The influence of banana expansion to other facets of local communities remains poorly understood, such as its influence on family networks, natural resource management traditions, the culture of the indigenous people (e.g. social capital) and rural poverty.

Agricultural products such as ginger, baby-corn, and baby cucumbers, have been intensively developed for a few years (perhaps 2-3 years) in Hoa Binh province in Vietnam’s northern mountain region, where the Muong ethnic minority group lives. These products are processed in a nearby Japanese joint-venture plant for export to Japan. The results are varied, including shifting from producing food to export oriented commodities, encroaching into upland areas to intensify household field production of the exported products as well as for food products for poorer households, who fail in the cultivation of unfamiliar crops, water and soil pollution resulting from over use of chemical fertilizer and pesticide, and shifting to other activities like trading.

Research activities

Research will take place at both the household and local institutional levels, where the information gathered at the household level will determine the nature of the institutional investigation in the community. The research will be iterative - flowing between households and institutions to gain a better and deeper understanding of their interactions.

Two communities will be chosen to do the research, one in Vietnam and one in the Philippines. At least 20% of total households in the village will be interviewed. Average numbers of households in the study site are approximately 100, so 20-25 households will be chosen to interview.

A baseline study will be conducted in both study sites using standardized data collection protocols to ensure comparability among the two sites. A stratified random sample of households will be chosen for the survey, representative of poor, medium, and better-off economic status; with these households we will engage in surveys and key informant interviews about their livelihood strategies and how these are affected, dynamically, by macro level economic policies/trade reforms, as well as their interactions with the local institutional environment.

At the household level we will gather data on the demographic characteristics, assets, land and forest tenure and production systems, income sources and levels, and credit access; and how community institutions play various roles in promoting/thwarting household access to land, labor, capital and markets. This will be the basis for analyzing their livelihood strategies and linkages to the institutional environment.

At the local institutional level, we will conduct interviews with community leaders, leaders of mass organizations, elderly people, and those who both directly or indirectly contribute to household income generation, and have a functioning local presence. Special attention will be given to informal, community-based institutions that may well be “invisible” in any formal institutional analysis (examples of informal institutions are such things as informal credit and savings arrangements, sharecropping, labor share arrangements, agreements for using the forest etc).

The research design will allow exploration of the following issues:

1. Factors related to globalization pressures/opportunities with respect to changes in livelihood strategies of the studied community (who is gaining and losing from globalization in the site communities?). These include: a)income generating activities; b) new markets for high value and export crops; c)higher production costs driving out poorer farmers (landlessness and land concentration)?; d) reduced/expanded food security?; e) expanded/limited opportunities for education? for migration?; f) agricultural intensification, changes in land use (and does this present an opportunity to “save land for nature”, but at what environmental and social cost?); and g) drivers for/against deforestation, water contamination, and land degradation

2. Impacts of these changes on local institutions, arrangements and social capital are examined by the following research questions: a) Are these institutions inclusive, and helpful to the poor, or do they replicate power relations in the region?; b) Do the local institutions have a voice in policy at all?; c)Are such institutions/networks resilient and adaptive? ; d)Do they continue to serve traditional functions only; e) If ‘adaptive’, are these institutions “adapting” to globalization in a way that opens space for the poor to participate?; f)If resisting, are they resisting globalization in their natural resource management strategies, or at a large scale (politically)?; g) Are they undermined, weakened or transformed?; h) Do the leaders, members and beneficiaries change?; i) And, if such institutions are undermined, what does this mean for common resource management and access, for informal safety nets for the poor and sick, for cultural integrity and traditional knowledge, and other functions that local institutions serve?; and lastly j) Can their community-based natural resource management strategies play an effective role in protecting the “losers”, or restraining the “winners” from appropriating a greater and greater share of the resources?

3. Local-national-global – what are the drivers and controllers of change? Questions such as: a) How has national policy, driven by the globalization process, influenced the observed changes in the study communities (e.g. incentives)?; b) How does government policy interact with both global and local pressures/initiatives?; and c) What role can government policies, laws and regulations play in the future?

Information dissemination

Seminars will be held in the Philippines and Vietnam to present the research findings.

In Vietnam, two seminars will take place in the commune, where the research site is, and in Vietnam National University. In the commune, the findings will be presented in the Commune People’s Committee, where the local authorities, representatives for local mass organizations (both formal and informal) and farmers will be invited to participate in the presentation and to give comments on the report.

In Vietnam National University, Hanoi, a seminar will be organized by Ms. Pham. It will take place in her organization (the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies-CRES). Policy makers from Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and from Committee for Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Areas, together with researchers and academics from the Institute of Economics and Vietnam National University will be invited to participate in the seminar. CRES will provide its staff to assist organizing the seminar and support small logistic costs for this seminar.

In the Philippines, a parallel seminar will be organized to present the findings of the study in the Municipality of Lantapan which will be hosted by the Local Government Unit, and one seminar will be help in the university (UPLB). Policy makers from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Agriculture (DA), NEDA and other researchers and graduate students will be invited to attend the seminar. SESAM (School of Environmental Science and Management) will provide staff and logistical support for organization of the seminar.

Reports of project findings will be published in a Vietnamese journal as well as in an English language journal (e.g. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Journal of Environmental Science and Management, and Philippine Agricultural Scientist). A brief of the research report will be distributed to concerned public officials.

Collaboration Statement

1. Maria Victoria O. Espaldon, PhD (Human Geography) is an Associate Professor at the School of Environmental Science and Management, University of the Philippines at Los Banos (mvoe@agri.searca.org). Dr. Espaldon will be responsible for background policy research, site selection, design of survey instruments, field research, data analysis, and seminar preparation in the Philippines. She will collaborate with co-investigators in field work and data analysis for the Vietnam site. She will provide lead expertise for the project in the areas of community-based natural resource management strategies, and adaptive strategies of local institutions to globalization pressures.

2. Tuong-Vi Pham, MA (Regional Planning) is a Land Use and Environment Specialist at the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam (VIPK@NETNAM.VN). Ms. Pham will be mainly responsible for background policy research, site selection, design of survey instruments, field research, data analysis, and seminar preparation in Vietnam. She will collaborate with co-investigators in field work and data analysis for the Philippines site. She will provide lead expertise for the project in the areas of indigenous knowledge in natural resource management strategies and cultural institutions, and ecosystem impacts from globalization pressures.

3. Robin Marsh, PhD (Resource Economics) is the Academic Advisor, Center for Sustainable Resource Development, University of California Berkeley (rmarsh@nature.Berkeley.edu). Dr. Marsh will be primarily responsible for a cross analysis of Vietnam and Philippines, providing the team with inputs from the field of resource economics, particularly in the examination of impacts of globalization on changing livelihood options and the configuration of social capital and local institutions in the study areas (building on her work at FAO, Rural Institutions Service). She will participate in design of survey instruments, data analysis, writing part of the report and publication of findings. She will contribute about 4-5weeks in the conduct of the research.

Connection with learning/skills developed during the course at Berkeley

Knowledge of natural resources management/community-based resource management gained from Bearhs ELP in UC at Berkeley guides the design and implementation of the proposed project. This includes the insights generated by exposure to the community forestry of the Watershed Research Center, theories and practices in conflict resolution and management and the complex interaction of population, poverty and environmental quality.

Expected Results and Outputs

• Policy-oriented research report on findings and policy implications published in brief reports and distributed to concerned government agencies and officials and related issue organizations such as the Department of Agriculture and NEDA for the Philippines. In Vietnam, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) would be a very strategic consumer of the research report.
• Joint article for publication in a journals such as the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Journal of Environmental Management, Philippine Agricultural Scientist in English, and Journal of Anthropology in Vietnamese. (at least 2 journal articles submitted for publication)
• Seminar presentations (in Vietnam and Philippines) in the University and concerned government agency (refer to Information Dissemination section).

Timeline and Duration: 9 months; 15 February 2003-15 November 2003

1. Background research: 4 weeks

2. Survey instrument preparation, including pre testing: 4 weeks

3. Field work in each country: 10 weeks

4. Data analysis: 8 weeks

5. Report writing: 2 weeks

6. Seminars: 2 weeks to include preparation, invitation

7. Dissemination to include submission to journals, distribution of materials: 4 weeks

8. Final report submission, incl preparation: 1 week

Related research

Braid-Rosario, Florangel. 2002. Poverty and Globalization. Philippine Communication Centrum.Manila, Philippines.

Dang Thanh Ha and M. Victoraia Espaldon. 2002. Impact of Changes in Market Conditions and Policies on Land Use and Land Management Decisions Among Upland Farmers in Central Highlands, Vietnam. SANREM/CRSP/SEA Research Report.

Department of Social Welfare and Development. 2002. Fighting Poverty in Every Locality: Strengthening communities, building people for global integration. A paper for the Round Table Forum on "Poverty and Globalization: Asia Pacific at the Crossroads". Philippine Communication Centrum Foundation with Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication, Makati, August 28, 2002.

Habito, Cielito. 1999. "Farms, Food and Foreign Trade: The World Trade organization and Philippine Agriculture". AGILE. Manila.

ICARD, The Impact Of The Global Coffee Trade On Dak Lak Province, Viet Nam, September 2002

Oxfam Great Britain and Hong Kong Hanoi, Rice for the Poor and Trade Liberalization in Vietnam, 2002

Oxfam Great Britain and Hong Kong Hanoi, Impacts of Coffee Prices Under Trade Liberalization on Coffee Farmers in Daklak Province Vietnam, April 2002

Pascual, F. 2001. WTO and the Philippine Agriculture: Seven Years of Unbridled Trade Liberalization and Misery for Small Farmers. Integrated Rural Development Foundation in the Philippines. Quezon City, Manila. (irdf@info.com.ph)

Sikor, T. The Political Economy of Decollectivization: A Study of

Differentiation in and among Black Thai Villages of Northern Vietnam. PhD dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, U.S.A., 1999

Tolentino, Lutgarda. 2002. Globalization and the Philippine Agriculture: Focus on Cereals. A UPLB Professorial Chair Lecture, August 2002.

Addendum to Proposal:

For the proposed case study in Vietnam, the following answers are responding to your requested clarifications.

1) Believing that other studies around the world may have addressed very similar issues to those addressed in the proposal, include a literature review of past studies as a project activity, plus reference to any studies known to you

Ø A literature review of past studies to related issues will be included in the project.

Ø References:

For Vietnam Case Study:

§ Sikor, T. The Political Economy of Decollectivization: A Study of

Differentiation in and among Black Thai Villages of Northern Vietnam. PhD dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, U.S.A., 1999

§ ICARD, The Impact Of The Global Coffee Trade On Dak Lak Province, Viet Nam, September 2002

§ Oxfam Great Britain and Hong Kong Hanoi, Rice for the Poor and Trade Liberalization in Vietnam, 2002

§ Oxfam Great Britain and Hong Kong Hanoi, Impacts of Coffee Prices Under Trade Liberalization on Coffee Farmers in Daklak Province Vietnam, April 2002

§ Dang Thanh Ha and MV Espaldon. 2002. Impacts of Changes in Market Conditions and Policy on the Land Use and Land Management Decisions among farmers in Central Highlands of Vietnam. A Research Report from SANREM/CRSP/SEA.

For the Philippine Case Study

§ Pascual, F. 2001. WTO and the Philippine Agriculture: Seven Years of Unbridled Trade Liberalization and Misery for Small Farmers. Integrated Rural Development Foundation in the Philippines. Quezon City, Manila.

§ Department of Social Welfare and Development. 2002. Fighting Poverty in Every Locality: Strengthening communities, building people for global integration. A paper for the Round Table Forum on "Poverty and Globalization: Asia Pacific at the Crossroads". Philippine Communication Centrum Foundation with Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication, Makati, August 28, 2002.

§ Braid-Rosario, Florangel. 2002. Poverty and Globalization. Philippine Communication Centrum.

§ Tolentino, Lutgarda. 2002. Globalization and the Philippine Agriculture: Focus on Cereals. A UPLB Professorial Chair Lecture, August 2002.

§ Habito, Cielito. 1999. "Farms, Food and Foreign Trade: The World Trade Organization and Philippine Agriculture". AGILE. Manila.

§

2) Give greater details about the dissemination of research findings in both countries, and cost-sharing of these activities by your respective institutions or government agencies (include in budget)

§ In Vietnam, two seminars will take place in the commune, where the research site is, and in Vietnam National University. In the commune, the findings will be presented in the Commune People’s Committee, where the local authorities, representatives for local mass organizations (both formal and informal) and farmers will be invited to participate in the presentation and to give comments on the report.

§ In Vietnam National University, Hanoi, a seminar will be organized by Ms. Pham. It will take place in her organization (the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies). Policy makers from Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and from Committee for Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Areas, together with researchers and academics from the Institute of Economics and Vietnam National University will be invited to participate in the seminar. CRES will provide staff to assist organizing the seminar and support small logistic costs for this seminar. The budget is amended for this item to $300 (up from $100).

§ In the Philippines, 2 seminars will be organized, one in the Municipality of Lantapan, and one in the university (UPLB). Expected participants of the first seminar are the researchers and faculty members of the local state university, Central Mindanao University (where one graduate student is expected to be involved), local executives of 2 adjacent municipalities, local Department of Agriculture officers and community leaders. Because this is quite some distance from UPLB, the budget of 300USD will need counterparts such as assistance from the Local Government Unit and CMU in terms of cost of venue, transport of participants and organizing the seminar. The university based seminar will be organized by my home office so the cost is minimal.

3) Specify the number of communities/households (approximately) in each study site.

In the study site in Vietnam, one community (village) will be chosen for field research. At least 20% of total households in the village will be interviewed. Average numbers of households in the study site are approximately 100, so 20-25 households will be chosen to interview. For the Philippine case study, one community will be selected and will cover at least 20% of the total households for interviews, up to 30 households.