Green Livelihoods Alliance 2 Philippines

The Philippines is a biodiversity rich and culturally diverse country with an estimated 14-17 million Indigenous Peoples (IPs) belonging to 110 ethno-linguistic groups. The country’s last remaining rainforests are located in indigenous territories and in areas managed by upland rural poor communities (IPLCs). IPLCs have had significant contributions to maintaining the last remaining forest cover of the country. The majority of IPLCs are dependent on extraction of forest resources for their daily survival. Poverty has driven communities towards unsustainable practices such as charcoal making (“uling”) and mono-cropping of cash crops. Since 2004, the government has been actively promoting large-scale mining for nickel, copper, gold and other metals and minerals. The pressure to open up also the last remaining forests for resource extraction, energy and infrastructure projects and plantation development is very present. The Philippine Development Plan, including the national COVID-19 post-recovery plan, is largely geared towards investments in agribusiness ventures and extractives. While the regulatory regime does feature stringent environmental regulation and compliance mechanisms, decisions around natural resources in practice are in favor of large-scale development projects, both driven by foreign and local investments. Indigenous rights to Free Prior Informed Consent are ideally effective governance counter-balance to the economic drive towards full resource exploitation but the consent process, many times, has neither been free, nor informed, nor done prior to approving economic development priorities. Recent changes in policy and practice have further constricted the civic space for indigenous peoples and community organisations, NGOs and other civil society groups to freely and safely operate. There is a need to push back and widen civic space through asserting civil liberties, challenging laws and policies which violate freedoms, and pushing for laws that compel the government to protect (women) environmental defenders and communities.