| To ensure the sustainable development, management and conservation of tropical forests, reforms in the global, regional (ASEAN) and national policy directions are needed. At the global level, the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development could be a key forum for discussing options for a global forest convention. The convention should include clearer and greater financial commitments, technology transfer, capacity building, monitoring and institutional leadership mechanisms.;At the ASEAN level, the ASEAN should consider negotiating a regional forest agreement similar to the Central American Forest Convention--the Regional Convention for the Management and Conservation of Forest Natural Ecosystems and the Development of Forestry Plantations (October 29, 1993). However, the ASEAN convention, unlike the Central American version, should provide for clear and firm obligations regarding financial commitment and the need for co-ordinated implementation of national forestry action plans (NFAPs) in a manner consistent with the objectives of the regional convention.;Finally, at the national level, there should be a re-examination, re-interpretation and restructuring of Philippine laws and policies to orient the legal framework towards sustainable development and conservation of forests. The major recommendations include expressing the need for legal recognition of the communal land tenure system of Philippine forest communities, the legal adoption of a land stewardship ethic, a moratorium on all commercial logging and resource-extraction activities in existing natural forests, and the legislative enactment and enforcement of the intergenerational equity concept enunciated by the Philippine Supreme Court. |
