Frequently Asked Questions
What is PCEEM Davao Foundation, Inc?
PCEEM Davao Foundation, Inc., is a non-stock, non-profit organization registered at the Securities and Exchange Commission as People Collaborating for Environmental and Economic Management in Davao Foundation, Incorporated. It is an inclusive, impartial and collaborative organization that taps the dynamic participation of multi-sector stakeholders to ensure sustainable management of our Davao watersheds.
PCEEM Davao, Foundation, Inc. prides itself on being a vehicle for conflict resolution and it continually provides a venue for the expression of different positions from the different sectors in the watershed. It uses consensus decision-making.
What is the history of the PCEEM Davao Foundation?
PCEEM Davao Foundation, Inc. evolved from a five-year bilateral project jointly funded by the Government of the Philippines through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Government of Canada through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The project, which aimed to test a governance model using watersheds as units of management, was also implemented in Cebu, where watersheds have been degraded to an alarming stage. In Davao, PCEEM chose the Talomo-Lipadas Watershed (TLW) as its project site.
As a project, the name 'PCEEM' stood for Philippines-Canada Environmental and Economic Management; on November 6, 2002 the Securities and Exchange Commission duly approved the registration of the organization into a Foundation and PCEEM became People Collaborating for Environmental and Economic Management in Davao Foundation, Inc.
Is PCEEM Davao Foundation an environmental group?
Yes. The PCEEM Davao Foundation, Inc. works with the intent to promote sustainability by considering the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of the issues being addressed. The Foundation does not focus solely on environmental issues, but sustaining the health of our environment is a critical component of all Foundation projects.
Is PCEEM Davao Foundation a government organization?
No. The PCEEM Davao Foundation is non-government organization; it is a non-stock, non-profit, organization consists of public and private sectors of the society. The Foundation’s Board of Trustees includes eleven (11) representatives from different sectors and six (6) representatives from the National Government Agencies as Advisory Board.
What does PCEEM Davao Foundation do?
The Foundation and its partners facilitate problem solving by bringing together the people necessary to make decisions and create solutions that balance social, economic and environmental considerations. The solutions they help engineer are based on the needs of the whole watershed, rather than those of any single area, organizations, or person. The PCEEM Davao Foundation acts as a catalyst for solving issues, as a conflict resolution agent, and as a sustainability educator. By bringing decision-makers together, the Foundation helps community residents within the watershed.
What is the Foundation's vision?
People Collaborating for Life Sustaining Watersheds.
What is the Foundation’s mission?
A dynamic participation of multi-sectoral stakeholders collaborating to ensure sustainable management of our Davao watersheds.
What are the Foundation's goals ?
PCEEM Davao aims to:
Capacitate multi-sectoral stakeholders in consensus-based participation for watershed management;
Institutionalize a mechanism for sustainable watershed rehabilitation, planning and management;
Promote sustainable, environment-friendly economic activities;
Promote equitable access of stakeholders to resource utilization within the watershed;
Facilitate clarification of tenurial rights policies;
Provide forum for discussion of conflicts in the watersheds;
Generate and share baseline data and information on Davao watersheds.
Who sits in the Board of Trustees & the Advisory Board?
PCEEM Davao Foundation, Inc. established itself as an inclusive, impartial, collaborative, non-profit, non-government organization of multi-sector stakeholders that come from the eleven (11) sectors; academe, business, farmer, fisher folk, government-owned and controlled corporations, indigenous peoples, non-government organizations, people's organizations, plantation operators, women, and youth.
Due to its beginnings as a bilateral project, where government, through its regional offices sat among the project's Trustees, PCEEM Davao maintains contact with the six (6) Government Agencies that were part of its board of trustees before it became an NGO. The six agencies are: Department of Agriculture (DA), Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Davao City Local Government Unit, National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).
How is the PCEEM Davao Foundation managed?
Leadership in PCEEM Davao rests on a Management Board composed of the Board of Trustees, Advisory Board, Board Committees, and the Board Secretariat.
The Trustees provide the direction and set policies; they are composed of representatives of a broad spectrum of people who have a stake in the maintenance of the Davao Watersheds; the Advisory Board composed of six (6) Government Agencies participate in the affairs of PCEEM Davao Foundation as members of its advisory board; the Committees, which are headed by Trustees and composed of stakeholders enumerated above, study and recommend to the Trustees necessary actions that PCEEM Davao must undertake; the Secretariat, executes plans and decisions of the Trustees and coordinates stakeholder-led interventions or projects.
PCEEM Davao Foundation's organizational structure allows government and civil society a venue for open and productive discourse for better governance in the interest of watershed management.
What is a watershed?
PCEEM views a watershed as a stretch of land marked off by topographical features such as a ridge or mountain range, along which rain is caught and drained into a body of water like a river, lake, dam, irrigation system, or bay. Thus, a watershed encompasses the area that extends from the uplands to the downstream areas or lowlands, and the coast. Watersheds are also known as 'river basins' or 'catchments'.
PCEEM's conceptualization of watersheds translates to a paradigm shift in watershed management as it takes into account the interconnectedness of things no matter how distant or opposed to each other they may be.
What is Talomo-Lipadas Watershed?
The Talomo-Lipadas watershed is the source of 97% of the Davao City's drinking water. Following the PCEEM Davao definition of watersheds, the TLW cover a total of 53 barangays with a total land area of 38,000 hectares.
The TLW have all the elements of the ecosystems continuum: forests, marginal or grasslands, agricultural lands, river systems, population centers, and coasts. Within the TLWs are human constructs that are perceived threats to biodiversity as well as to the quality and quantity of Davao City's water reserves: monocrops (banana-, pineapple-, durian-, mangosteen-, rambutan-, and pomelo plantations), poultries and piggeries, cutflower business, resorts, residential subdivisions, experimental stations for agriculture, bottling companies, and the like. Moreover, unlike other watersheds that fall under different political boundaries, the TLWs are within the jurisdiction of one local government unit, Davao City. For these reasons, the TLWs were chosen as one of the sites of PCEEM Davao.
What is PCEEM Davao Foundation's framework for watershed management?
The Watershed Management Framework (WMF) of PCEEM Davao Foundation, Inc. is a product of PCEEM Davao's experience in managing the watersheds. It can be viewed as the organization's fundamental treatise as it provides the Board and its Secretariat with an overview of the principles, guidelines, structure, and processes used to support stakeholders in collaborative watershed planning and management. It lays out the preconditions for supporting ecosystem-based, collaborative watershed management by multi-sectoral stakeholders. It also sets out the rules of engagement and approaches that PCEEM Davao Inc. has adopted for the sustainable resource management.
What are PCEEM Davao Foundation's three (3) guiding principles?
PCEEM Davao Foundation is guided by the PCEEM Project’s three fundamental principles of ecosystem-based management, collaborative and integrative management, and capacity enhancement. On account of these, PCEEM adheres to corollary principles of inclusivity, impartiality, and accountability. In turn, these principles are reflected in PCEEM Davao’s value for women and youth participation and in working toward consensus in decision making and in management of conflict.
What are some of the watershed management tools that the Foundation uses?
Watershed management tools are used as support systems for interventions. Usually, one or all of these tools are used in the development and implementation of an intervention to ensure that the Board's goals are met, and that the intervention is based on sound scientific analysis and participatory processes.
Geographic Information System (GIS). The GIS is used to organize data into maps and supports the analysis of issues. It can generate models that can be used to help design interventions or make existing ones more effective. The database is continually expanded and updated.
Information, Education & Communication (IEC). This tool is necessary in the social preparation of the community where an intervention is to be implemented. It also keeps the Board and stakeholders informed of developments, achievements, and possible future actions. IEC promotes not only awareness but also the cooperation and participation of stakeholders in sustaining interventions.
Ecological Monitoring & Evaluation (EM&E). Protocols to monitor ecosystem health previously developed by stakeholders in workshops are used to provide both baseline information and updates on watersheds. A "report card" on the state of the watersheds is presented to stakeholders yearly and is used to determine new priority issues and interventions.
Where is your office located?
PCEEM Davao Foundation, Inc., hold its office at LEE BUSINESS CORNER, Second Floor Room 204 Juan Luna corner Juan dela Cruz Streets, Davao City, Philippines. Our Telefax number is
+63 82 305 06 06 and our email address is [email protected]
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