Timber Regulation and Value Chain in Community-Based Timber Enterprise and Smallholder Forestry in the Philippines

Forest tenure reform has no doubt attained significant gains in promoting social justice and equity in the forest sector, through legal recognition of the communities’ property rights over forest lands in many developing countries. This includes the right to harvest and market trees that the communities planted. Along these lines, the Philippines’ community-based forest management (CBFM) and smallholder forestry have the potential to meet the country’s wood demand and contribute to its poverty alleviation goal. Realities on the ground, however, make this lofty aspiration seems too far-fetched. Formal and informal barriers along the timber value chain restrict the growth and obstruct opportunities for community-based timber enterprises (CBTEs) and smallholder forestry. Using the case of CBFM and smallholder forestry in the Visayas and Mindanao Islands in the Philippines, respectively, this paper examines the hurdles posed by regulations and informal practices, such as restrictive policies and increased transaction costs, through a segment analysis of the timber value chain. It argues that failure to address these barriers would lead to the decline of CBTEs and smallholder enterprises, thus undermining the merits of the forest tenure reform.