The Potential of Sustainable Forestry Certification for Smallholder Tree Growing - Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services - page 210

for certification. In this section the viability of such a step for the Philippines is
explored.
Plantations have had a varied history in the Philippines. In recent decades many
policies have been launched to stimulate them, on the whole with a remarkably low
rate of success. Between 1988 and 1992 alone, a total of $621 million was loaned
to the Philippine government for the purpose of reforestation from, amongst others,
the Asian Development Bank, who also lent another $200 million between 1993
and 1995. This huge budget was invested in various reforestation schemes, under
full governmental authority and by stimulating private initiative, but results lagged
severely behind expectations. A study conducted by Pasicolan (1996) revealed that
only 10 to 15 percent of the planted trees survived and the reasons for these disap-
pointing results were analyzed, by comparing successful and unsuccessful planta-
tions run by communities. Important factors for achieving successful results
included in particular, the need for intercropping so that the land continued to be
productive for the community's direct needs, a direct interest by the community in
the produce of the plantations, clearly established property rights over the planta-
tions, a good organization of community co-operation, healthy finances of the
project participants and the prospect of a good timber market.
In contrast to subsidized tree growing, spontaneous tree growing also appears to
take place without any clear help from the government (Garrity and Mercado
1994), that is, the growth of small plantations for fuel wood and timber by individ-
ual smallholder farmers on their private farms. In general this relates to plantations
of one to two hectares, as part of farms of about 10 hectares. The main drivers are
an enterprising attitude of the farmers and good market conditions, including easy
access to roads (Pasicolan 1996). Since the mid-nineties, this development has
extended; at present this spontaneous development seems to offer the best prospects
for increasing plantations, albeit with some governmental support, such as the pro-
vision of free seedlings.
The question is, as to what the prospects are for the application of sustainability
certification for smallholders' plantations in the Philippines. This must clearly be a
well-planned process as starting too quickly at farm level, without the involvement
of the whole chain, could well result in failure.
It must be acknowledged that certification will, in general, only pay back on an
international - mainly European - market because the organization of a niche mar-
ket of buyers who are willing to pay a price premium can probably only be found
there, aside from a small market formed by foreign and Philippine elite groups in
Metro Manila. Indeed, examples elsewhere point to successes at a local market
level. Ota (2006) described an example in Japan, where an ecological housing
movement successfully realized FSC certification for over 11,000 ha with local sup-
ply. But on a country level, the factor that best explains the development of sustain-
able forestry management is the proportion of exported forest products (Van Kooten
et al. 2005).
A crucial requirement is the constant high quality and sufficient quantities of the
timber products (see also Kollert and Lagan 2007). This limits the use of a species
like gmelina ( Gmelina arborea ), which is mostly grown in the spontaneous tree