The Philippines Action Plan to Combat Desertification, Land Degradation, Drought and Poverty - Combating Desertification in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - page 291

to expand agricultural production to marginal areas while ironically converting
prime agricultural lands to non-agricultural uses.

• Acknowledging the Philippines' increasing vulnerability to drought and land

degradation as a result of increasing recurrence of dry spell and alternating
incidence of El Nino and La Nina as well as poor management of land,
freshwater, and watershed resources, the Philippine National Action Plan (NAP)
was formulated and implemented by the Philippine Government in 2004. The
NAP is an expression of full and unqualified commitment of the Philippine
Government in the effective and accelerated implementation of the programs and
project activities to combat desertification, land degradation and poverty in the
identified drought vulnerable areas of the country. It is a working document for
the convergence of actions of the Departments of Agriculture (DA), Environment
and Natural Resources (DENR), Science and Technology (DOST) and Agrarian
Reform (DAR).

• The NAP is water-centered and focused on the sustainable management of

Critical Watershed Areas located in seasonally dry/arid areas, which are suffering
from food insecurity. It is composed of two major thematic programs - Sustain-
able Agriculture and Marginal Upland Development and Integrated Ecosystem
Management. These thematic programs have five components - Land and Water
Technology Development, Local Governance and Community Initiatives, Data
Base Development and Harmonization, Information, Education and Commu-
nication, and Enabling Policy Development. All of these aim to mainstream
agriculture and rural development programs that will prevent the incidence
and spread of desertification in deprived communities living in seasonally arid
degraded lands.

Keywords Desertification • Land degradation • Drought • Soil erosion •
Watershed • Poverty alleviation • Food security • Water • Archipelago doctrine •
Islands

1 Country Background

The Philippines, one of the largest island-groups in the world with 7,107 islands
and islets, is strategically located within the area of nations that sweeps southeast
from Mainland Asia across the equator to Australia. Its boundaries are formed by
three large bodies of water: on the west and north by the South China Sea; on the
east by the Pacific Ocean; and on the south by the Celebes Sea and coastal waters
of Borneo.
The total land area of the Philippines is 300,000 km 2 or 30 Mha. It constitutes
2 % of the total land area of the world and ranks 57th among the 146 countries of the
world in terms of physical size. The Philippines, advocates the archipelago doctrine,
as such it gains exclusive to all resources living or non-living in and at the bottom
of an area of about 276,000 square nautical miles.