Voices from the mountains: local people’s perceptions on policies protecting the karst landscape of Bohol, the Philippines

Abstract

The main thrust of modern landscape planning is the integration of the social, economic, environmental and political dimensions. Critical to the planning procedure is the aim to balance these aspects. Faithful to the Sustainable Development principles, this study aims to investigate the important role of community participation as a strategy in landscape planning. It analyzes the dynamics of human perception in evaluating environmental policies that confront them. Certain landscapes demand a certain degree of political intervention in form of a protection mechanism so as to preserve the biodiversity, protect cultural life and maintain beauty of scenery. The karst landscape of Bohol is internationally noted of its uniqueness and diversity. Such landscape is not only famed because of its Mogotes (limestone hills) scattered across four municipalities but of its extensive cave systems, elaborate river and springs systems (which serve as an important water source of the local residents), hanging and pocket valleys .The policies protecting the Karst landscape of Bohol has been challenged by lost of livelihood of the local residents, lost of property rights and human rights violations committed by forest rangers tasked at protecting the landscape. These have instigated social unrest which aggravates the half-a-century old problem on insurgency. The study extensively discusses the importance of collective and participative strategies in developing a socially-acceptable protection mechanism. As a social research it carefully considers local culture as a critical factor to consider in understanding the social dynamics of the locality. It evaluates local people’s perception of the landscape from aesthetic (visual landscape assessment) to social, environmental and economic concern. In an attempt to have a multi-faceted view of the landscape, different methodologies have been laid out. A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods is used to balance and check the lapses of respective approaches. The research was conducted in seven (7) municipalities. The survey was undertaken in one barangay in every municipality while the qualitative research was centered on eight (8) purposively sampled focal villages (sites). An online-internet survey and online forum discussion were likewise conducted to sift perceptions of local experts, students and academicians in the Philippines side-by-side with experts, students, academicians and residents in Europe.