1.1.3.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Communal forest. Communal forest refers to a tract of forest land set aside by the
Secretary of the DENR upon the recommendation of the concerned LGU for the use
of the residents of a municipality/city. Said residents may cut, collect, and remove
forest products for their personal use in accordance with existing laws and regulations
and subject to the provision that utilization of resources therein shall be in accordance
with sustainable development. For this purpose, the concerned LGU with the
assistance of the DENR shall prepare sustainable operations plan prior to any
utilization (Tortoza and Schade, 2018). The term ‘ecotourism’ emerged at the end of
the 1980s as a direct outcome of growing environmental awareness (Coria, 2012). This
type of tourism has developed considerably in the last few years, supported by various
factors: an increase in income and leisure time in first-world country households,
growing demand for experiences in natural virgin settings and greater government
awareness of opportunities to capitalise on this demand, especially in developing
countries (Clifton, 2006). Its growth is between 10 to 12% a year, three times the
average in the tourism sector as a whole (Coria, 2012). With the rising popularity of
the ecotourism concept, much ink has flowed in an attempt to define it. Clifton (2012)
suggests that while ecotourism was initially associated with nature tourism, more
recent connotations emphasise the different principles linked to sustainable
development: conservation of the sites visited, meeting the needs of the host
countries and regions. In the literature on the subject, the most frequently mentioned
aspects are the need to retain the physical characteristics of the destinations’
environment, to give local communities more economic opportunities while avoiding
the harmful social/cultural impacts of the presence of visitors, and to give visitors an
informative experience. Parks (2009) equate ecotourism with an educational trip
based on understanding the local population’s culture and preserving the ecosystem
while providing the area with economic benefits. According to Pupion (2010), natural
and cultural resources today form the underpinnings that enable tourism businesses
to thrive and to develop a competitive edge. Damage to the resources will lead to a
permanent reduction in the destination’s value added in collective terms. The
challenge is thus to promote the area’s natural and cultural capital and to make it
enjoyable for tourists, while at the same time protecting it in the long term.

Community-Based Forest Management. Community Based Forest Management

(CBFM) refers to the organized efforts to work with communities in and near public
forest lands with the intent to protect, rehabilitate, manage, conserve, and utilize the
resource in partnership with the LGUs and other stakeholders. The objectives of the
CBFM are the following: to develop, protect, conserve and utilize forestlands through
sustainable forest management practices; to generate additional income for forest
communities towards poverty reduction and hunger mitigation in the uplands; to
promote equity through the provision of long term land tenure security and access to
forest resources through issuance of CBFM agreements and certificate of
stewardship; and to enhance the capacity of CBFM agreement holders as climate-
resilient forest land resources managers.
Zoning. Zoning refers to what can and cannot occur in different areas of the protected
areas in terms of natural resources management, cultural resource management, human use
and benefit, visitor use and experience, access, facilities and Protected Area development,
maintenance and operations. Through management zoning the limits of acceptable use and
development in the Protected Area are established. Often, when there is not enough
information about the area, zoning is an action that occurs during the implementation of the
management plan. It allows areas to be set aside for particular activities such as protection of
key habitats or nursery areas and breeding sites, research, education, anchoring, fishing and
tourism. Zoning helps to reduce or eliminate conflict between different users of the Protected
Areas, to improve the quality of activities such as tourism, and to facilitate compliance. Zoning
is a widely accepted method to keep people out of the most sensitive, ecologically valuable,
or recovering areas, and to limit the impact of visitor The zones reflect the intended land use,
existing patterns of use, the degree of human use desired, and the level of management and
development required. Zoning can ameliorate incompatible land uses in given areas, while
allowing for sustainable resource extraction that benefits local communities they consistently
attempt to determine where resources will be extracted or preserved and who will claim
authority and access to these areas. It is designed to allocate geographical areas for specific
levels and intensities of human activities and of conservation. Zoning can also be temporal,
that is an area set aside for different uses at different times, within the course of the day, over
the week or seasonally (Eagles, et al., 2002).
Land-use planning. Land-use planning is one of the best methods for evaluating
land-use, economic and social conditions in adopting the best land-use options
(Fao,1993). Unplanned development is a basic problem in developing countries.
Through land use planning, which is based on regulations and capabilities for different
land use, the waste of natural resources and ruining of the environment can be
stopped. Land use, in general, consists of the coordination of the relation between
humans and the land for the proper and long-term use of provisions.
Geographic information systems: Geographic Information Systems applications enable
the storage, management, and analysis of large quantities of spatially distributed data. These
data are associated with their particular geographic features. For example, water quality data
would be linked with a sampling site, represented by a point. Data on crop yields might be
associated with fields or experimental plots, represented on a map by polygons. A GIS can
manage different data types occupying the same geographic space. For example, a biological
control agent and its prey may be distributed in different abundances across a variety of plant
types in an experimental plot. The power of a GIS lies in its ability to analyze relationships
between features and their associated data. This analytical ability results in the generation of
new information, as patterns and spatial relationships are revealed (Sonti, 2015).

GIS applications in general Anon (2015) explained that the uses of GIS, GPS, and RS
technologies, either individually or in combination, span a broad range of applications and
degrees of complexity. Simple applications might involve determining the location of
sampling sites, plotting maps for use in the field, or examining the distribution of soil types in
relation to yields and productivity. More complex applications take advantage of the
analytical capabilities of GIS and RS software. These might include vegetation classification
for predicting crop yield or environmental impacts, modelling of surface water drainage
 patterns, or tracking animal migration patterns. GIS applications can be grouped into various
categories depending on the level of integration with other forest management and financial
systems. These categories include

• Data collection and maintenance.

• Map production.

• Data viewing and query.

• Decision support systems.

Uses of GIS in forest management: Upadhyay (2009) pointed out that GIS is a good
tool for forest management because it answers the following question that helps in forest
management activities.

• Location: What is at?

Location of forest resources in the earth in many ways such as a place name, post or
zip code, or geographic references such as latitude and longitude.
• Condition: Where is it?
Non forested land of certain size distance from road or river.
• Trends: What has changed since?
It helps to find out what has changed within study forest or land use an area over time
• Patterns: What spatial patterns exist?
Determine whether landslide in forest area
• Modeling: What if?
Determine what happens, if a road network is added in a forest

Coria J., Calfucura E. (2012), Ecotourism and the development of indigenous communities: The
good, the bad, and the ugly, Ecological Economics, n° 73, p. 47-55.

Clifton J., Benson A. (2006), Planning for Sustainable Ecotourism: The Case for Research
Ecotourism in Developing Country Destinations, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, vol. 14, n° 3, p.
238-254.

Parks T.H., Parks T.A., Allen C. (2009), The Development of a Framework for Studying
Ecotourism, International Journal of Management, vol. 26, n° 1, p. 89-98.
Eagles, Paul F.J., McCool, Stephen F. and Haynes, Christopher D.A. (2002).Sustainable Tourism in
Protected Areas: Guidelines for Planning and Management. IUCN Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK

Anon (2015) Applications of GIS. Administration and finance. Mass GIS.

Sonti SH (2015) Application of Geographic Information System (GIS) in Forest Management. J George
Nat Disaster 5: 145. doi:10.4172/2167- 0587.1000145

Upadhyay M (2009) Making GIS work in forest management. Institute of Forestry, Pokhara, Nepal.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Guidelines for Land Use Planning. Soil
Resources, Management and Conservation Service, Rome.1993; p. 96.