Why smallholders plant native timber trees away from the forest margin Lessons from Leyte, the Philippines

Findings 1 Smallholder upland farmers plant native timber trees depending on several interlinked factors:-If land is available and they can achieve security of land tenure.-If access to natural forest is restricted or forbidden.-If they have enough land and it is not divided into disparate portions. 2 A number of native timber species in early stages of domestication are suitable for intercropping with maize at a range of planting densities, matching labour availability and household livelihood strategy. 3 Farm-gate profitability of on-farm tree production is negatively affected by policies that tax timber as a 'forest product' and subsidize food crops and fertilizers. Implications Programs to support tree • planting on-farm are more likely to succeed in areas that are already deforested or where remaining forests are effectively protected, and where farmers have secure land tenure. To support tree planting, • governments can focus on enabling conditions, rather than providing tree seedlings. As long as natural forests can be accessed as local sources of timber, there is little incentive for farmers to grow timber on their own land. Early successes with national programs for farmer tree planting in the Philippines were achieved with fast growing trees – that brought disappointingly low levels of income once harvested, as the quality of wood was low. Meanwhile, some farmers took the initiative to grow high-value, slower-growing native timbers on their farms, planting trees between their maize. What are the prospects for this? Which types of farmers are doing it? Is it profitable? What policy measures could support or enhance such agroforestation of the landscape? A recent study looked at several of these questions at the island of Leyte in the Philippines. The results have implications for other forest margin locations.