Carood watershed shows best

practices to forest mgt experts

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol March 1 (PIA)—A Bohol watershed which is pilot area for the country’s Forest Landscape Restoration Mechanism (FLRM) hosts International Model Forest Network Advisory Council Meeting and allows international forest network experts a glimpse of the initiative that they can replicate as the world struggles to restore the earth’s critical life support system.

Carood Watershed, which is the 52nd member of the International Model Forest Network (IMFN) is a Securities and Exchange Commission registered model forest that occupies nearly three quarter of Alicia, half of Candijay and a quarter of Ubay plus smaller portions of Guindulman, Mabini, Anda and Pilar is managed by the Carood Watershed Model Forest Management Council.

A watershed characterized by vast grasslands in rolling hills and steep cliffs, years of human activity in the forest has rendered the soil infertile, erosion prone, with areas of land slide and the occasional grassfires that lick the hills here have become a concern.

In 2018, FLRM was implemented in the Carood Watershed, with the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, to make the watershed’s forest systems a pilot for this restoration mechanism.

This has become an interest among member countries of the IMFN, to see of the success of the model forest restoration could be replicated in similarly problematic model forests with population encroachments.

Restoration at the Carood Watershed forests included capability building for communities of the forest management, tree plantations, solutions to the soil fertility, the setting up of fire break lines and allowing communities residing in the watershed to cultivate cash crops in between fire lines, to lessen utilization of the resource, putting up infrastructure in access road development.

Moreover, to lessen the force of the rainwater eroding top soil and flooding into the lowlands, restoration included the building of water catch basins, which could trap some running water so farmers could use them, and control the occasional flooding.

The catch basin also allows to manage the forest temperature, which also helped the communities living on the edges of the forest to experience much better climates.

During the opening ceremonies of the IMFN Advisory Council meeting at the Parklane Resort in Anda, Bohol, February 25, Bohol governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado said he hopes this becomes Bohol’s and Carood Watershed’s Management Council’s opportunity to share the experiences and talk with peers on how to better preserve forest-based landscapes.

Aside from Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources Officials and local Carood management council members, also attending the Asia Forest Network meeting were IMFN representatives of Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Korea.

The governor said the meeting provides a platform for model forests in Asia and the world to discuss sustainable management and study best practices in environment protection.

The model forest network also aspires to create climate-change resilient forests and communities that could support each other in a symbiotic relationship, for the general development of economies. (RAHC/PIA_7/Bohol)

SHARING BEST PRACTICES. Asian members of the International Model Forest Network gathered at the Parklane Hotel for the Advisory Council Meeting hosted by Carood Watershed Management Council, which showed to the foreign experts the Forest Landscape Restoration Mechanism system used to restore the watershed here. (PIABOhol/BPEMO)

MODEL FOREST MANAGERS. Bohol hosted Asian Model Forest Managers last week, to continue exchange of information on forest landscapes restoration for climate change resilient communities, watershed acting as the lifeblood of civilizations. (PIABohol/BPEMO)