Labor migration and sustainable resource management : A case of the Philippines

Research Project

Project/Area Number	08041031
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for international Scientific Research
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	Field Research
Research Field	Human geography
Research Institution	RIKKYO UNIVERSITY
Principal Investigator	UMEHARA Hiromitsu RIKKYO UNIV., DEPT.of ARTS,PROF., 文学部, 教授 (00160325)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	NAGAI Hiroko ATENEO DE MANILA UNIV., JAPANESE STUDY PROGRAM,LECTURER, デ・マニラ大学・日本研究講座, 講師 BALLESCAS C.P. PHLIPPINE UNIV., DEPT.of SOCIOLOGY,PROF., 社会学部, 教授 BAUTISTA G.M. ATENEO DE MANILA UNIV., DEPT.of ECONOMICS,PROF., デ・マニラ大学・経済学部, 教授 NAYASE Shinzou OSAKA CITY UNIV., DEPT.of ARTS,ASSI.PROF., 文学部, 助教授 (20183915) NAGANO Yoshiko KANAGWA UNIV., DEPT.of FOREIGN LANGUATE,PROF., 外国語学部, 教授 (60148252)
Project Period (FY)	1996 – 1997
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1997)
Budget Amount *help	¥8,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥8,800,000) Fiscal Year 1997: ¥4,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,100,000) Fiscal Year 1996: ¥4,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,700,000)
Keywords	labor migration / pioneer settlement / migrant fisherfalk village / environmental change / survival strategy / land conversion / sugarcane estate / commercial logging / 工業団地建設 / ココナツ農村
Research Abstract	This study attempts to document the environmental degradation and survival strategies of inhabitants in upland areas. Followings are major findings. (1) A great number of people have migrated from lowland to upland areas where deforestation was done by the commercial logging opperations for the past decades. (2) Our rural-upland migration hypothesis is clearly supported. (3) Although migrants from lowlands start practicing swidden agriculture at the beginning, they intensify their land use once they introduce commercial crops. (4) Major culprits for forest disappearance are not population increase, but the government policies on forest development, encouragement of commercial logging for the external debt payment, enclosure of public land by forest concessionaires, construction of timber road, employment absorption of logging workers. (5) Factors that accelerate upland migration are deprivation of land rights of natives by modern system of land ownership, eviction of tenant farmers by landlords, agricultural commercialization, conversion of agricultural land for the development of industrial estates in suburban areas.