Growing beyond the Carood Watershed: Bohol

Who is in the Carood Watershed Management Council

One area of ESSC’s engagement in Bohol is the Carood Watershed Management Council (CWMC). The CWMC is a consortium of the six local government units and people’s organizations implementing community-based natural resource management programs and projects within the Carood Watershed. It also includes NGOs with community based natural resource management projects or support programs in the area.

Purpose of the Council

All members of the Council work together for to ensure resource management is both effective and sustainable in the Carood Watershed whilst balancing development needs of local communities. It acts as a collective body responding to issues and concerns identified within the Carood Watershed.

The Carood Watershed Management Council is the first formal watershed council in the province. It is unusual in the Philippines because it did not result from a proclamation as a watershed or protected area neither did it originate from an official instruction from government. Its existence is rooted in a common desire to protect the environment

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The Approach

The Carood Watershed Management Council started as a working group in November 2002. This working group was composed of local governments, representatives from people's organizations and technical personnel from the Bohol Environment Management Office and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. This working group held regular meetings to discuss local environmental concerns and explore mechanisms to manage the area's resources through a watershed approach. As a result, the working group identified resource-related issues and concerns that later became the 10-point action agenda for the Watershed Council.

The issues identified were:

• No integration of water resource management in the Carood Watershed
• Seasonal flooding affecting approximately 3,000 hectares
• Unregulated extraction of sand and gravel affecting a stretch of 10 km riverbank
• Improper waste disposal this impacts on about 1,000 ha area affecting both water quality and quantity
• Oil palm plantations of about 50 ha area in the headwaters have an unknown impact on the water source
• Lack of empowerment in communities affecting 2,616 ha of forest with Community Natural Resource Management rights and causing 716 ha of fire damage in forest plantations
• Extensive area of land is used unproductively, about 10,000 ha
• Limited data available on land use in Carood Watershed
• Extreme soil erosion along many river banks (active undercutting and land slipping) causing the riverbed to silt up.
• Illegal fishing practices (use of dynamite and cyanide) affect about 2,000 ha of coral reef in Cogtong Bay

The working group was formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the stakeholders binding the Council members to their decisions. Later an Executive Order was sought subsequently issued by the Governor of Bohol (Erico B. Aumentado) on September 2003 creating the Carood Watershed Management Council. In 2004, the Council was formalised and given legal status thus giving it more authority to strategize, implement and oversee development programs within Carood watershed.

The Council works by building on the environmental and economic development plans of the Local Governments. It serves to enhance the implementation of these plans using participatory and consultative processes. Through various consultations the Council identified several environmental and resource base concerns and issues, which now form the Council’s primary agenda for action, see above.

Its participatory approach has enabled many members to recognise the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in management. The Council is now being considered by National Government as a model to approach watershed management.

In an effort to sustain the work, the Council has submitted to Bohol provincial government a proposal of their management strategies and plans. To sustain financial support for the proposed activities, the Council members and ESSC are discussing with the different municipalities the possibility of allocating municipal funds to the Watershed Council. The Bohol Governor has already assigned provincial funds for its operations, but it still needs to fund the implementation of the 10 point action agenda.

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