Watershed rehabilitation and sustainable forest management is promoted through land tenure reform with a specific focus on increasing land ownership among women.

Nature-based Intervention:

The Philippine Environmental Governance Project (EcoGov) assisted the local government in creating and implementing a Forest Land Use Plan (FLUP) for the municipality of Wao that awarded individual property rights (IPR) to farmer-claimants under the condition that they follow a set of conservation-oriented agroforestry principles and forest land-use guidelines. Such guidelines include having to prepare and implement a plan for cultivating perennial fruit or native trees and monitoring any forest violations. Addressing a historical lack of attention to gender differences in other iterations of land tenure reform, this project also aimed to increase land ownership among women. The involvement of a Gender and Development team ensured that at least 20% of current IPRs were awarded to women. Furthermore, the IPRs were assigned within a watershed of almost 2,000 hectares and land-claimants were required to contribute to a watershed rehabilitation program through the plantation of rubber and fruit trees.

Overview of context and outcomes:

Although Wao’s forestlands are large, nearly 20,000 hectares in size, they have suffered significant deforestation which leads to increased intensity of flash flooding and water shortages during long periods of drought, issues that the watershed rehabilitation program aims to alleviate.