Learning about agroforestry initiatives in the Philippines
The Explore programme organized a monitoring and learning visit to partner organizations in the Philippines from 19 to 23 August 2024. Explore’s programme manager, Hao Zhuang and RECOFTC’s deputy executive director, Chandra Shekhar Silori, were part of the visiting team representing the Explore secretariat.
They met with senior members of the Forest Foundation Philippines (FFP), which financially supports two Explore-backed research teams in the country. The Explore delegation updated the FFP on Explore’s programme implementation in the country. Upcoming activities were also discussed. The FFP will spearhead the establishment of a National Advisory Committee for Explore to support policy outreach in the Philippines. FFP is also leading and supporting in-person training activities under Explore capacity building initiative in the Philippines.
In subsequent meetings, Explore representatives met principal investigators and members of the two research teams based at the Department of Social Forestry and Forest Governance and the Institute of Agroforestry at the University of Philippines, Los Baños. Both teams provided progress updates on their research, and shared challenges and lessons learned during implementation.
The Social Forestry team works across Indonesia, the Philippines and Viet Nam. Their research project, Enhancing Community Resilience of Socioecological Production Landscapes within Agroforestry in Southeast Asia, aims to gain a better understanding of community resilience, gender and agroforestry in the region.
The Forest Governance team, on the other hand, is active in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. Through their Collaborative Forest Landscape Governance Towards a Resilient and Sustainable Future research project, they are implementing action research with the aim of developing a model for collaborative forest landscape governance that can guide forest landscape restoration.
RECOFTC and FFP teams with research team members from the University of Philippines, Los Baños.
The Explore secretariat and research team members also joined a field visit to Barangay Luquin, one of the research sites, where a participatory action research approach is being used to identify and implement the most suitable agroforestry interventions.
The visit provided valuable insights and helped strengthen RECOFTC’s partnership with our Explore partners. The debriefing sessions with research teams and the field trip further facilitated networking, collaboration and cross-learning opportunities, including on project activities, research methodologies and potential policy advocacy opportunities.
###
About Explore
Explore is a research network and community of practice dedicated to expanding and applying knowledge on forest landscape governance in Southeast Asia. The network is funded by the government of Sweden. It is hosted by RECOFTC, in partnership with the CIFOR-ICRAF, in collaboration with universities, research institutes, governments, civil society organizations, local communities and the private sector in Southeast Asia.
For more information about Explore, contact explore.secretariat@recoftc.org. To become a member of Explore, visit https://recoftc.com/projects/explore/about-explore.
RECOFTC’s work is made possible with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Government of Sweden.