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2| People and the Earth’s Ecosystem

UNIT 2: People, Forests, &
Agriculture
2.0 Intended Learning Outcomes
a. Compare and contrast a temperate forest and tropical forest;
b. Elaborate understanding on the different science-based forest management;
c. Describe the agriculture in the Philippines; and
d. Explain how human activities alter forests and cite the advantages and disadvantages
of agricultural activities.

2.1. Introduction
Sky viewing could be one of your favorite to-
do's when you and your friends go hiking or
strolling around a forest. You see the stars and hear
the cacophonies of the insects and animals around
you. What a lovely experience it could be. But what
if you go walking in the largest tropical rainforest in
the world? Would you feel overwhelmed that you're
in there? Or would you be scared after knowing that
it's completely dark in its forest ground?
The figure on the right side is what the
Amazon forest floor looks like. This forest houses the
largest biodiversity on the planet to the largest river
and provides a large amount of oxygen. In this
forest, it is believed that it takes 10 minutes for the
rain to reach the ground. This is because the forest
is so thick, and the canopy covers the forest ground Photo by Yong Chuan Tan on Unsplash
making it always dark.
In this chapter, we will be discussing more on the uses of forests by focusing on
comparing and contrasting tropical and temperate forest. Science-based forest management
will also be discussed together with agriculture, and human activities that alter our forests.

Pre-assessment
Answer the following question using the knowledge you have.
1. What are the similarities and the differences between tropical and temperate forest?
2. List some human activities related to agriculture?
3. What you think are the major environmental problems associated with industrialized
agriculture?
4. What is the defining characteristic of organic agriculture?
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2| People and the Earth’s Ecosystem
2.2 People, Forests, &
Agriculture
2.2.1 Tropical and Temperate Forests: Their Use and Management
Forests have always been important to people and significant ecosystems. This provide
many goods and services to support human society and occupy about one-fourth of Earth’s
total land area. Some trees like timber from forests is used for fuel, construction materials,
and paper products. Forests supply nuts, mushrooms, fruits, and medicines. Forests provide
employment for millions of people worldwide and offer recreation and spiritual sustenance
in an increasingly crowded world. Forests also provide a variety of beneficial ecosystem
services, such as influencing climate conditions. If you walk into a forest on a hot summer
day, you will notice that the air is cooler and moister than it is outside the forest. This is the
result of a biological cooling process called transpiration, in which water from the soil is
absorbed by roots, transported through plants, and then evaporated from their leaves and
stems. Transpiration provides moisture for clouds, eventually resulting in precipitation.
(Hassenzahl et al., 2017)
According to Botkin and Keller (2011), since the earliest human cultures, wood has been
one of the major building materials and the most readily available and widely used fuel.
Forests provided materials for the first boats and the first wagons. Even today, nearly half
the people in the world depend on wood for cooking, and in many developing nations wood
remains the primary heating fuel. At the same time, people have appreciated forests for
spiritual and aesthetic reasons. There is a long history of sacred forest groves. Forests
continue to benefit people and the environment indirectly through what we call public-
service functions. Forests retard erosion and moderate the availability of water, improving
the water supply from major watersheds to cities. Forests are habitats for endangered species
and other wildlife. They are important for recreation, including hiking, hunting, and bird
and wildlife viewing. At regional and global levels, forests may also be significant factors
affecting the climate.
Use of Tropical Forests
Covering about only 7% of the Earth’s land sur-face and about 30% of the world’s total
forest areas, tropical forests support more than half of the world’s estimated 10 million
species of plants, animals, and insects (Nasi, 2010 as cited by Saha, 2019). Tropical forest
biodiversity is increasingly threatened because of deforestation and degradation. Tropical
deforestation became an international concern in the early1980s, and the issue is becoming
more complex, because it introduces a wide range of political actors and causes global
warming, soil erosion, and destruction of biological diversity(Saha, 2019). Botkin and
Keller (2011) added that 100 million people live in rain forests or depend on them for their
livelihood. Tropical plants provide products such as chocolate, nuts, fruits, gums, coffee,
wood, rubber, pesticides, fibers, and dyes. Drugs for treating high blood pressure, Hodgkin’s
disease, leukemia, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease have been made from tropical
plants, and medical scientists believe many more are yet to be discovered. Well-known
medicines derived from tropical forests include anticancer drugs from rosy periwinkles,
steroids from Mexican yams, antihypertensive drugs from serpent wood, and antibiotics
from tropical fungi.
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2| People and the Earth’s Ecosystem
Use of Temperate Forests
The temperate forests are globally important and unique. They host the largest and
oldest organisms in the world. They serve as the world's major source of timber and wood
products and are perhaps the only forests with some proven potential for sustainable
management. The biomass of at least some temperate forests stands exceeds that of any
tropical forest. The temperate forests of the world also provide critical ecosystem services
locally and globally. Like other forests of the world, temperate forests are carbon sinks that
mitigate some of the carbon emissions produced by industrialized societies and are critical to
modulating hydrological, nitrogen, and carbon cycles. Although the biodiversity of
temperate forests is typically much lower than that of tropical forests, temperate forest
biodiversity hotspots with unique evolutionary histories and with high levels of endemism
rival in importance those of either the tropics or the boreal regions. Moreover, Northern and
Southern Hemisphere temperate forests are as different from each other as either is from
tropical or boreal forests. This contrast reflects striking differences in climate, biogeography,
evolutionary history, and the impact of humans (De Gouvenain and Silander, 2017).
The temperate rain forest is a rich wood producer, supplying lumber and pulpwood.
Overharvesting the original old-growth (never logged) forest can devastate that biome
because such an ecosystem takes hundreds of years to develop. Once harvested, the old-
growth forest ecosystem never has a chance to fully recover (Hassenzahl et al., 2017).
Temperate forests provide important ecosystem services globally, regionally, and
locally. Temperate forests contribute about 17% to global net primary productivity, versus
about 49% for tropical forest systems and 8% for boreal forests. Temperate forests are also
important carbon sinks, storing globally approximately 315 Gigatons of C. In Europe alone,
forests are estimated to be fixing between 7% and 12% of all C generated by anthropogenic
emissions. The causes of the net carbon uptake by temperate biomes are not clearly
established, but may be related to the reforestation that has occurred during the past century,
especially in North America (De Gouvenain and Silander, 2017).

Human Activities Altering Forests

The following are activities that alter forests as presented by Sale and Agbidye (2011):

 Traditional Conservation Methods:

Research findings suggest that the maintenance of biodiversity is related to people’s
cultural identities and is usually a response to environmental, ecological and economic
uncertainty and fragility. Some of the traditional methods of conserving our genetic
resources include scattered trees in farms, home gardens\compound farms, taboo and
superstition-some trees are left on farmlands for providing shade or for economic value,
fetish grooves where natural forests are dedicated to deities and forbidden to people for their
uses or entry into them. Thus, with the use of such grooves, plants and wildlife species that 24
constitute the grooves are protected.

Establishment of National parks, Biosphere Reserves and Botanical gardens:

These conservation units form natural reservoirs of genetic resources.
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Ex-situ Conservation:
It involves the maintenance of organism outside their original habitat. This could be found
in seed gene banks, in-vitro gene banks, forest plantations etc. This method becomes
necessary when the safety of any particular endangered species in not guaranteed. Control of
desertification is complex and difficult usually impossible without alteration of land
management practices that led to the desertification. Several measures aimed at controlling
desertification include the following:
Afforestation Programmes:
In the past, afforestation programmes were practiced solely by different
countries. The approach now should be that federal, state and local government as
well as individuals should embark on massive planting of trees in marginal lands.
Plant species that have morphological and physiological features to adapt to the
environmental conditions in the savanna and Sudan zones of the country should be
adopted.

Shelterbelts:
These are strips of woody perennials established by government owned
forestry agencies primarily for environmental protection.

Forestry:
Efforts should start now to encourage social forestry in the country, with the
attractive objective of providing benefits to rural people in terms of fuelwood,
fodder, sawn timber and raw materials for cottage industries as well as contributing
to environmental stability and providing income and employment to the
community. The social forestry programme takes forms such as farm forestry, strip
plantation, community self-help and village woodlots. The programme will greatly
increase the land under forest reservation.
25
Scientific Research-based Forest Management
Forest Management (A Forester’s View of a Forest)
Traditionally, foresters have managed trees locally in stands. Trees in a stand are
usually of the same species or group of species and often at the same successional stage.
Stands can be small (half a hectare) to medium size (several hundred hectares) and are
classified by foresters on the basis of tree composition. The two major kinds of commercial
stands are even-aged stands, where all live trees began growth from seeds and roots
germinating the same year, and uneven-aged stands, which have at least three distinct age
classes. In even aged stands, trees are approximately the same height but differ in girth and
vigor. A forest that has never been cut is called a virgin forest or sometimes an old-growth
forest. A forest that has been cut and has regrown is called a second-growth forest. Although the
term old-growth forest has gained popularity in several well-publicized disputes about
forests, it is not a scientific term and does not yet have an agreed-on, precise meaning.
Another important management term is rotation time, the time between cuts of a stand
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(Botkin and Keller, 2011).

Foresters and forest ecologists group the trees in a forest into (Boktin and Keller, 2011):
 Dominants- the tallest, most common, and most vigorous
 Codominants- fairly common, sharing the canopy or top part of the forest
 Intermediate- forming a layer of growth below dominants
 Suppressed- growing in the understory

The productivity of a forest varies according to soil fertility, water supply, and local
climate. Foresters classify sites by site quality, which is the maximum timber crop the site can
produce in a given time. Site quality can decline with poor management. Although forests
are complex and difficult to manage, one advantage they have over many other ecosystems is
that trees provide easily obtained information that can be a great help to us. For example, the
age and growth rate of trees can be measured from tree rings. In temperate and boreal
forests, trees produce one growth ring per year.

Harvesting Trees
Managing forests that will be harvested can involve removing poorly formed and
unproductive trees (or selected other trees) to permit larger trees to grow faster, planting
genetically controlled seedlings, controlling pests and diseases, and fertilizing the soil. Forest
geneticists breed new strains of trees just as agricultural geneticists breed new strains of
crops. There has been relatively little success in controlling forest diseases, which are
primarily fungal (Botkin and Keller, 2011).
Harvesting can be done in several ways. Clear- cutting is the cutting of all trees in a
stand at the same time. Alternatives to clear-cutting are selective cutting, strip-cutting, shelter
wood cutting, and seed-tree cutting. The following alternatives to clear-cutting are described
below (Botkin and Keller, 2011):
In selective cutting, individual trees are marked and cut. Sometimes smaller, poorly
formed trees are selectively removed, a practice called thinning. At other times, trees of
specific species and sizes are removed. For example, some forestry companies in Costa Rica
cut only some of the largest mahogany trees, leaving less valuable trees to help maintain the
ecosystem and permitting some of the large mahogany trees to continue to provide seeds for
future generations.
In strip-cutting, narrow rows of forest are cut, leaving wooded corridors whose trees
provide seeds. Strip-cutting offers several advantages, such as protection against erosion.
Shelter wood cutting is the practice of cutting dead and less desirable trees first, and later 26
cutting mature trees. As a result, there are always young trees left in the forest.

Seed-tree cutting removes all but a few seed trees (mature trees with good genetic
characteristics and high seed production) to promote regeneration of the forest. Scientists
have tested the effects of clear-cutting, which is one of the most controversial forest practices.
For example, in the U.S. Forest Service Hubbard Brook experimental forest in New
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Hampshire, an entire watershed
was clear-cut, and herbicides were applied to prevent regrowth for two years. The results
were dramatic. Erosion increased, and the pattern of water runoff changed substantially. The
exposed soil decayed more rapidly, and the concentrations of nitrates in the stream water
exceeded public-health standards.
Clear-cutting on such a large scale is neither necessary nor desirable for the best timber
production. However, where the ground is level or slightly sloped, where rainfall is
moderate, and where the desirable species require open areas for growth, clearcutting on an
appropriate spatial scale may be a useful way to regenerate desirable species. The key here is
that clearcutting is neither all good nor all bad for timber production or forest ecosystems. Its
use must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the size of cuts, the
environment, and the available species of trees.

Plantations
Sometimes foresters grow trees in a plantation, which is a stand of a single species,
typically planted in straight rows (Figure 2.1). Usually plantations are fertilized, sometimes
by helicopter, and modern machines harvest rapidly—some remove the entire tree, root
and all (Botkin and Keller, 2011).
In short, plantation forestry is a lot like
modern agriculture. Intensive management like
this is common in Europe and parts of the
northwestern United States and offers an
important alternative solution to the pressure on
natural forests. If plantations were used where
(Botkin and Keller, 2011)

Figure 2.1. Chemical cycling (a) in an old-

growth forest and (b) after clear-cutting.
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forest production was high, then a comparatively
small percentage of the world’s forestland could
provide all the world’s timber (Botkin and Keller,
2011). 27

Can We Achieve Sustainable Forestry?

There are two basic kinds of ecological sustainability: (1) sustainability of the harvest of a
specific resource that grows within an ecosystem; and (2) sustainability of the entire ecosystem—and
therefore of many species, habitats, and environmental conditions. For forests, this translates
into sustainability of the harvest of timber and sustainability of the forest as an ecosystem.
Although sustainability has long been discussed in forestry, we don’t have enough scientific
data to show that sustainability of either kind has been achieved in forests in more than a few
unusual cases (Botkin and Keller, 2011).

Certification of Forest Practices

If the data do not indicate whether a particular set of practices has led to sustainable
forestry, what can be done? The general approach today is to compare the actual practices of
specific corporations or government agencies with practices that are believed to be consistent
with sustainability. This has become a formal process called certification of forestry, and there
are organizations whose main function is to certify forest practices. The catch here is that
nobody actually knows whether the beliefs are correct and therefore whether the practices
will turn out to be sustainable. Since trees take a long time to grow, and a series of harvests is
necessary to prove sustainability, the proof lies in the future. Despite this limitation,
certification of forestry is becoming common. As practiced today, it is as much an art or a
craft as it is a science (Botkin and Keller, 2011).
Worldwide concern about the need for forest sustainability has led to international
programs for certifying forest practices, as well as to attempts to ban imports of wood
produced from purportedly unsustainable forest practices. Some European nations have
banned the import of certain tropical woods, and some environmental organizations have
led demonstrations in support of such bans. However, there is a gradual movement away
from calling certified forest practices “sustainable,” instead referring to “well-managed
forests” or “improved management.” And some scientists have begun to call for a new
forestry that includes a variety of practices that they believe increase the likelihood of
sustainability.
Most basic is accepting the dynamic characteristics of forests—that to remain sustainable
over the long term, a forest may have to change in the short term. Some of the broader,
science-based concerns are spoken of as a group—the need for ecosystem management and a
landscape context (Botkin and Keller, 2011).
Scientists point out that any application of a certification program creates an experiment
and should be treated accordingly. Therefore, any new programs that claim to provide
sustainable practices must include, for comparison, control areas where no cutting is done
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and must also include adequate
scientific monitoring of the status of the forest ecosystem (Botkin and Keller, 2011).

28

Deforestation
Deforestation is believed to have increased erosion and caused the loss of an estimated
562 million hectares (1.4 billion acres) of soil worldwide, with an estimated annual loss of 5–6
million hectares. Cutting forests in one country affects other countries. For example, Nepal,
one of the most mountainous countries in the world, lost more than half its forest cover
between 1950 and 1980. This destabilized soil, increasing the frequency of landslides, amount
of runoff, and sediment load in streams.
Because forests cover large, often remote areas that are little visited or studied,
information is lacking on which to determine whether the world’s forestlands are expanding
or shrinking, and precisely how fast and how much. Some experts argue that there is a
worldwide net increase in forests because large areas in the temperate zone, such as the
eastern and midwestern United States, were cleared in the 19 th and early 20th centuries and
are now regenerating. Only recently have programs begun to obtain accurate estimates of the
distribution and abundance of forests, and these suggest that past assessments overestimated
forest biomass by 100 to 400%.
On balance, we believe that the best estimates are those suggesting that the rate of
deforestation in the 21st century is 7.3 million hectares a year—an annual loss equal to the
size of Panama. The good news is that this is 18% less than the average annual loss of 8.9
million hectares in the 1990s.

Causes of Deforestation
Historically, the two most common reasons people cut forests are to clear land for
agriculture and settlement and to use or sell timber for lumber, paper products, or fuel.
Logging by large timber companies and local cutting by villagers are both major causes of
deforestation. Agriculture is a principal cause of deforestation in Nepal and Brazil and was
one of the major reasons for clearing forests in New England during the first settlement by
Europeans. A more subtle cause of the loss of forests is indirect deforestation—the death of
trees from pollution or disease.
If global warming occurs as projected by global climate models, indirect forest
damage might occur over large regions, with major die-offs in many areas and major shifts in
the areas of potential growth for each species of tree due to altered combinations of
temperature and rainfall. The extent of this effect is controversial. Some suggest that global
warming would merely change the location of forests, not their total area or production.
However, even if a climate conducive to forest growth
were to move to new locations, trees would have to reach these areas. This would take
time because changes in the geographic distribution of trees depend primarily on seeds
blown by the wind or carried by animals. In addition, for production to remain as high as it
 2| People and the Earth’s Ecosystem
is now, climates that meet the
needs of forest trees would have to occur where the soils also meet these needs. This
combination of climate and soils occurs widely now but might become scarcer with large- 29
scale climate change.

Goals of Parks, Nature Preserves, and Wilderness Areas according to (Botkin and Keller, 2011):
1. Preservation of unique geological and scenic wonders of nature, such as Niagara Falls and
the Grand Canyon
2. Preservation of nature without human interference (preserving wilderness for its own
sake)
3. Preservation of nature in a condition thought to be representative of some prior time (e.g.,
the United States prior to European settlement)
4. Wildlife conservation, including conservation of the required habitat and ecosystem of the
wildlife
5. Conservation of specific endangered species and habitats
6. Conservation of the total biological diversity of a region
7. Maintenance of wildlife for hunting
8. Maintenance of uniquely or unusually beautiful landscapes for aesthetic reasons
9. Maintenance of representative natural areas for an entire country
10. Maintenance for outdoor recreation, including a range of activities from viewing scenery
to wilderness recreation (hiking, cross-country skiing, rock climbing) and tourism (car and
bus tours, swimming, downhill skiing, camping)
11. Maintenance of areas set aside for scientific research, both as a basis for park management
and for the pursuit of answers to fundamental scientific questions
12. Provision of corridors and connections between separated natural areas.

2.2.2 Agriculture
Although the human population is growing, the amount of land and water
available to grow food is not. In fact, land area for food production has decreased, as
many urban areas are built on land ideally suited for agriculture. Urban agriculture
can address two challenges simultaneously: the loss of agricultural land and the decrease
in food availability faced by urban residents. The production and distribution of food,
both locally and globally, is one of our greatest challenges. Agricultural skills need to
be practiced in new places and by new growers if we are to meet this challenge
(Hassenzahl et al., 2017).
Agriculture can be roughly divided into two types: industrialized agriculture and
subsistence agriculture. Most farmers in highly developed countries and some in
developing countries practice high-input agriculture, or industrialized agriculture. It
relies on large inputs of capital and energy (in the form of fossil fuels) to make and
run machinery, purchase seed, irrigate crops, and produce agrochemicals such as
commercial inorganic fertilizers and pesticides. Industrialized agriculture produces
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high yields (the amount of
food produced per unit of land), which reduces the amount of land needed to be 30
cultivated, but it requires a high energy input relative to the food calories produced
(Hassenzahl et al., 2017).

Hassenzahl et al. (2017)

Figure 2.2. Energy inputs in industrialized agriculture

Most farmers in developing countries practice subsistence agriculture, the production of

enough food to feed oneself and one’s family, with little left over to sell or reserve for hard
times. Subsistence agriculture also requires large inputs of energy, but from humans and
draft animals rather than from fossil fuels. Some types of subsistence agriculture require
large tracts of land, they are (Hassenzahl et al., 2017):
Shifting cultivation is a form of subsistence agriculture in which short periods of
cultivation are followed by longer periods of fallow (land being left uncultivated), during
which the land reverts to forest. Shifting cultivation supports relatively small populations.
 2| People and the Earth’s Ecosystem
Slash-and-burn agriculture is
a type of shifting cultivation that involves clearing small patches of tropical forest to plant
crops. Slash-and-burn agriculture is land-intensive; because tropical soils lose their
productivity quickly when they are cultivated, farmers using slash-and-burn agriculture
must move from one area of forest to another every 3 years or so.
Nomadic herding, in which livestock is supported by land too arid for successful crop
growth, is a similarly land-intensive form of subsistence agriculture. Nomadic herders must
continually move their livestock to find adequate food for the animals.
Intercropping is a form of intensive subsistence agriculture that involves growing a
variety of plants on the same field simultaneously. When certain crops are grown together,
they produce higher yields than when they are grown as monocultures. (A monoculture is the
cultivation of only one type of plant over a large area.) One reason for higher yields is that
different pests are found on each crop, and intercropping discourages the buildup of any
single pest species to economically destructive levels. Polyculture is a type of intercropping in
which several kinds of plants that mature at different times are planted together. In31
polyculture practiced in the tropics, fast- and slow-maturing crops are often planted together
so that different crops can be harvested throughout the year.
Agriculture in the Philippines
The following information were taken from the Food and Agriculture Organization website:
Agriculture plays a significant role in the Philippine economy. Involving about 40
percent of Filipino workers, it contributes an average of 20 percent to the Gross Domestic
Product. This output comes mainly from agribusiness, which in turn accounts for about 70
percent of the total agricultural output (CIDA-LGSP, 2003).
The main agricultural enterprise is crop cultivation. Others are chicken broiler
production, including operation of chicken hatcheries (20.4 percent), agricultural services
(19.8 percent), and hog farming (18.4 percent) (NSO, 2002).
The general trends in the last two decades present a dim picture of the agriculture
sector. Significant decrease in productivity, high production costs, and low government
support to the sector, among other things, have led to a crisis in Philippine agriculture
(CIDA-LGSP, 2003).
The neglect of the agriculture sector and the uneven distribution of resources worsened
the poverty situation in rural areas. Only the remittances of migrant workers to their families
have enabled the latter to survive crippling poverty brought about by stagnant agricultural
productivity, stiff competition from cheaper food imports, and periodic droughts and floods
that devastated crops and livelihoods.
Forestry
The Philippines' total land area is 300 179 sq km, 49 percent of which is classified as
forest (although only 21 percent is under forest cover) (EIU, 2001/2002). It directly supports
approximately 30 percent of the population, including indigenous peoples. Three percent of
the total land area is still unclassified (DENR, 2004).
With a per capita forest cover of about 0.085 ha, the forest cover of the Philippines
ranks as one of the 11 poorest among 89 countries in the tropics. It declined from 70 percent
of the total land area in 1900 to about 18.3 percent in 1999, or just over 5 million ha of
 2| People and the Earth’s Ecosystem
residual and old-growth forests
(ESSC, 1999a as cited in FAO, 2001).
Among forest-based industries, more women are employed in saw milling than in
logging, veneer and plywood manufacturing, and other wood-based products
manufacturing. On the whole however, there are more men than women employed in forest-
based industries (DENR, 2004).
There is a need to expand women's participation in ENR programmes and projects,
particularly as these affect their roles as:
a) heads of households who might benefit from forestry-related programmes;
b) entrepreneurs in forestry-related occupations needing assistance and extension
services;
c) technical workers and researchers especially in the private sector, and as supervisors 32
and managers in both private and public sectors in ENR development and management
(PPGD, 1995-2025).
The continuous destruction of the environment threatens everyone, but has graver
consequences for marginalized women and indigenous communities. The immediate effects
of environmental problems on them include not only the loss of traditional sources of
livelihood and food, but also serious damage to health and life (FPW, 2001-2004).
Since time immemorial, women and indigenous cultural communities have taken part
in the maintenance of ecosystems. A corollary of this is that they are especially affected by
the deterioration of the environment. There is a need therefore to harness women and
indigenous groups as active agents in the preservation of the environment: as advocates
supporting programmes for environmental maintenance; as vigilant groups deterring
polluters; as educators advocating values on conservation/development of natural resources
and preservation of the environment; or as agents of technology generation for
environmental sustainability (PPGD 1995-2025).
Fisheries
Fisheries is an important sector in the Philippine economy. The fisheries industry
accounted for 15 percent ($1.22B) and 18.6 percent ($618.2M) of the Gross Value Added
(GVA) in the agriculture, fishery and forestry sectors at current and constant prices,
respectively, with the second largest share next only to agricultural crops (BFAR, 2004). The
sector provides substantial employment and income for some segments of the population,
contributes to export earnings, and supplies a major part of the dietary protein requirement
of the population as a whole (DA, 2004).
With regard to employment, the fisheries sector provides direct and indirect
employment to over one million people, or about 5 percent of the national labour force, of
whom 65 percent (675 677) are in municipal fisheries, 26 percent (258 480) in aquaculture and
6 percent (56 715) in commercial fisheries (BFAR, 2004).
Of the total employed workers, women consisted of only 8.2 percent, dropping to 6.3
percent in 2002. Whereas men fishers are primarily involved in catching fish, women are
engaged in pre- and post-fishing activities. Women undertake 50 percent to 70 percent of
local fish processing and marketing activities. They are also involved in mending the nets
and tending the fishing equipment, among others (Philippine NGO BPA+10 Report, 2005)
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Currently, the fisheries
sector is besieged with major issues and concerns brought about by the open-access policy in
fisheries resources use, the rapid increase in population size of the poverty-stricken fishing
communities where the exploitation of natural resources is most intense, and the inability of
the government to provide for an environment that can support the fishery industry's 34
growth and development (DA, 2004)
Livestock
Livestock production contributed 12.7 percent to total agricultural output. The most
common livestock raised in the Philippines include broiler chickens, carabao, cattle, ducks,
goats, and swine. The livestock subsector, which contributed 13.53 percent to total
agricultural production, posted a negative growth of 0.41 percent in 2004. This was largely
attributed to the decline in hog and cattle production (DA, 2004). In lowland irrigated and
rainfed farming systems, households generally raise a brood of chickens, ducks and or geese,
and one or two pigs. On the other hand, cow and/or carabao (water buffalo) are among the
other animals’ households keep (Illo, 1994).
2.3 References
Botkin, D. B., & Keller, E. A. (2011). Environmental science: Earth as a living planet. Wiley
Global Education.
De Gouvenain, R. C., & Silander Jr, J. A. (2017). Temperate forests.
Food and Agriculture Organization. (n.d.). Agriculture.
http://www.fao.org/3/ae946e/ae946e03.htm#:~:text=The
%20Philippines'%20major%20agricultural%20products,bananas%2C
%20pineapples%2C%20and%20mangoes.&text=From%201999%20to%202003%2C
%20women's,in%20land%20preparation%20and%20furrowing.
Friedland, A., Relyea, R., & Courard-Hauri, D. (2011). Environmental science: Foundations and
applications. Macmillan.
Hassenzahl, D. M., Hager, M. C., & Berg, L. R. (2017). Visualizing Environmental
Science. John Wiley & Sons.
Saha, N. (2019). Tropical Forest and Sustainability: An Overview.
Sale, F. A., & Agbidye, F. S. (2011). Impact of human activities on the forest and their effects on
climate change. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 5(8), 863-867.
Urry, L. A., Cain, M. L., Wasserman, S. A., Minorsky, P. V., & Reece, J. B. (2017). Campbell
biology. Pearson Education, Incorporated.

2.4 Acknowledgment
 
The images, tables, figures and information contained in this module were taken
from the references cited above.
 
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