The Philippines Action Plan to Combat Desertification, Land Degradation, Drought and Poverty - Combating Desertification in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - page 307

GIS-Based Land and Water Resources Evaluation (Rodelio B. Carating, personal
communication). The outputs were digital map products suitable for planners, policy
makers and land users:- administrative map, watershed, soils, soil series, soil depth,
land use, dominant land cover, slope, erosion, forestry suitability, crop suitability
(oil palm, grassland, and land degradation hot spots).

9 Conclusion

Compared to arid and semi-arid areas, the state of land degradation in the Philip-
pines is not as bad; nevertheless a cause for alarm considering its extent and impact
on food security. There are over 33 million Filipinos affected by land degradation.
The total degraded land is estimated at 132,275 km 2 .
The Philippines has indeed become increasingly vulnerable to drought, deserti-
fication and land degradation brought about by many contributing factors, foremost
is the increasing recurrence of dry spell and alternating incidence of El Nino and
La Nina as well as poor management of land, freshwater and water resources.
Combating desertification, land degradation, drought and poverty is an enormous
task that would require significant amount of resources and effort not only from one
agency of the government but more so from the private sector. The development and
implementation of the Philippine NAP is a significant step to address these pressing
problems as it will serve as a comprehensive and focused policy instrument that will
provide the platform of convergence in policies and programs of the four umbrella
agencies in the Philippines, namely the Department of Agriculture, the Department
of Agrarian Reform, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources,
and the Department of Science and Technology, in combating desertification,
land degradation, rehabilitation of degraded lands and preservation of threatened
ecosystem with a view to alleviate poverty in degraded, seasonally arid and drought
vulnerable areas in the country.
The Philippine National Action Plan to combat desertification and land degrada-
tion was revised in 2009 to conform to UNCCD format. There is a need to mobilize
the Filipino scientific community for an integrated program for methods, standards,
data collection, research network, assessment and monitoring of land degradation,
including some socio-economic instruments. There is need to set up an inter-agency
task force to work together to come up with Philippine Land System Map. A regular
updating of the map is important.

Acknowledgements This chapter contains excerpts from the National Country Report on the
UNCCCD Implementation (Philippines) and The Philippine National Action Plan to Combat
Desertification, Land Degradation, Drought and Poverty and draws up on the report of Silvino
Q. Tejada and Kim Tae-eun ( 2011 ) and the report of Rodelio B. Carating, Senior Science Research
Specialist Bureau of Soils and Water Management on the State of Land Degradation in Philippines,
prepared for UNCCD.