Project Summary: Evidence-Based Decision-Making for Watersheds in the Philippines Prepared By: Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO) of the Iloilo Provincial Government and University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV). With technical support provided by the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada July 2016 www.canurb.org
PROJECT SUMMARY: EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION-MAKING FOR WATERSHEDS IN THE PHILIPPINES August 2016
Evidence-Based Decision-Making for Watersheds in the Philippines The Project: Watershed management is an important component of environmental management and governance in the Philippines. This is becoming increasingly significant as environmental events, such as storms, increase in number and severity. Better watershed management practices are vital to maintaining the region’s economic competitiveness and to safeguard communities. The objective of the project, which was financially supported by Canada’s International Research and Development Center (IDRC) and administered by the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI), was to build capacity for evidence-based planning on a watershed basis. The initiative was undertaken in one province with the idea that it could then be used as a model for other local governments across the Philippines to reduce the risk of natural disasters. One of the issues facing the Philippines is that, although there is an array of national policies to improve environmental conditions, the nation suffers from fragmentation of local efforts to manage its watersheds. The Province of Ontario, Canada, has created an effective system where local environmental governance is based on watershed boundaries. Therefore, based on the success of this system, this project focuses on increased collaboration and sharing of best practices on watershed management between Canada and the Philippines. Other specific objectives included improving the collaboration between local governments and academic institutions for watershed data collection, analysis and ongoing monitoring, and the creation of a Watershed Report Card template and rating system that can be used by local authorities to improve community awareness and engagement in watershed stewardship. The main deliverables for the project consisted of a review of comparative policy and best practices in ecosystem-based planning and management in Canada and the Philippines; creation of monitoring indicators for provincial watershed; and recommendation of a monitoring framework to guide Philippine watershed managers in collecting and evaluating current data based on important indicators of health and sustainability. The aim is to promote standardized collection protocol to ensure that data is reliable, consistent and defensible. In doing so, the project also involved the development of a template to guide the preparation of report cards to communicate current watershed conditions based on important indicators of health and sustainability. Ultimately, the project will increase the capacity for evidence-based planning on a watershed basis. The project also aims to establish a model that will be replicated by academic institutions and other local governments in the Philippines that are striving to improve the state of the country’s watersheds. Methodology: To coincide with the many deliverables involved in the process a variety of methods were utilized. Secondary research was the primary method of data collection for the comparative policy analysis of watershed management policies in Canada. For other deliverables, a series of consultations, workshops and validation activities were designed and conducted to capture the opinion of subject experts and a wide range of community stakeholders.
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PROJECT SUMMARY: EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION-MAKING FOR WATERSHEDS IN THE PHILIPPINES August 2016
The Findings: Research Paper - Best Practices: Ecosystem-based Planning and Management in Canada and the Philippines To research best practices in watershed management, CUI investigated what Canada has been doing in terms of adopting an ecosystem-system based management strategies and approaches. This new approaches have created the emergence of a new framework for sustainable water management and governance. The report highlights the major organizations who are involved in watershed management and planning in Canada. Some key findings to take from Canadian Best Practice: •
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Focus on watershed as the primary scale for water-based decision making. This is more appropriate scale for whole-system thinking than political boundaries which may divide watershed into two decision making authorities. A key planning approach is the creation of a watershed management plan where the state of the watershed is assessed and detailed management information on actions, participants, and resources required for implementing a plan are presented. A collaborative environmental management approach, which involves more direct civic and community engagement around decision making is better suited to the needs of watershed management. Proper monitoring techniques which include recording and reporting data to local and provincial water managers, as well as the public is important to ensure that there is adequate access to scientific information regarding water quality. This helps to evidence-based decision making.
Monitoring Framework The monitoring framework largely derived from the referring to the best practices identifies in the comparative policy research. The purpose of the framework is to guide Philippine watershed managers in collecting useful information to be presented in future watershed report cards and in other applications. The monitoring framework provides a baseline for which to start that can evolve as information, technology, and resource allocation change. The monitoring framework identifies important variables and guides collection of information pertaining to the variables. In time, the cumulative body of information generated by regular monitoring will identify long-term changes, provide the basis for statistical analysis of the possible causes, and demonstrate trends in measured conditions. This information will aid in communicating to decision makers and the public about how watershed health may be getting better or worse. While the overall aim of a monitoring framework is to help characterize the entire watershed, subwatershed level reporting is effective and the most efficient way to collect data. It was determined that important variables to monitor are natural cover, biodiversity, agriculture and land use, water, waste management, and governance. It is suggested that pilot surveys which test the sampling network are undertaking prior to a comprehensive monitoring campaign. The framework stipulates specific measuring techniques and methods for each of the variables that are to be followed when conducting the all-out monitoring campaign. One of the main points to emphasize is that it is important that the proper protocols are followed because it the data needs to be reliable, consistent and defensible. The monitoring report outlines these protocols.
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PROJECT SUMMARY: EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION-MAKING FOR WATERSHEDS IN THE PHILIPPINES August 2016
If this is done correctly than this information may have multiple benefits and suit the needs of many stakeholders. Watershed Report Card The watershed report card is the means of communicating the information that is obtained when after implementing the monitoring framework. It is how the findings of the watershed’s health are recorded and conveyed to others. It allows the watershed manages to determine the health of the watershed based on the indictors, communicate the findings in a way that is easily understood by the target audience, identify short and long term targets, and use the findings as a benchmark to determine if the health of the watershed is improving over time. It was determined that an adequate report card cycle is five years because short of catastrophic environmental events, environment conditions change incrementally. Next Steps: The next years of implementing these tools should be documented. Records should include the experiences and the acceptability level of the tool from the community to the Provincial level. This will provide the inputs necessary for timely modifications on the report card template and the monitoring framework so that it can be modified to serve the users. Upon its final format approval, the Iloilo Water Management Council (WMC) should convert these documents into a community-level user friendly brief to ensure that it will be easily understood by the community members. The IWMC and all the Technical Working Groups of the watershed units should design activities to ensure that the communities and the grassroots-stakeholders will be educated on the importance and the impact of sound watershed management through the use of these tools. The Local Government Units and the Watershed Councils should aim to educate all community residents especially those residing along critical watershed resources such as forest areas, water resource buffer zones, and Key Biodiversity Areas. There is a need to advocate for a legislative instrument (Province level) to ensure that these tools will be treated as regular watershed management instruments and share these with other Provinces within Panay Island to ensure a consistent approach across the island
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