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PHILIPPINE JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT
low cycles, and overexploitation of soil and water resources all result. A third stage emerges (often following a ‘natural’ disaster related to deforestation and upland agricultural intensification, such as the flooding and mud flows that occurred in Ormoc, Leyte, in 1990 and in southern Thailand in 1988) in which there is widespread recognition of the need for “sustainable” development. Laws and regulations are formulated and implemented that reflect a growing community demand for environmental quality and resource conservation, both on the grounds of sustainable production, and for less concrete reasons related to the amenity value of the natural environment. In the best situations, these local demands for more ecologically friendly development are complemented (or at least, not contradicted) by national laws and policies. In the best outcomes, some of which can now be observed emerging in the Philippines and elsewhere, national agencies, community groups and local governments collaborate in the design and implementation of resource management and development policies. Challenges for Policy Design Modern environmental policy in Southeast Asia faces a very different set of circumstances when compared with those of a halfcentury ago; moreover, attitudes that provide the impetus for policy formation are also changing, albeit slowly. The traditional approaches to environmental and natural resource management through direct interventions and command-and-control regulation, though arguably appropriate in an earlier era, are steadily becoming less effective, and more costly, with the growth of the private sector and of markets. Sustained growth in per capita incomes, where it has occurred, has created opportunities for governments to consider policies (such as the declaration of parks and protected areas) that explicitly posit a tradeoff between growth and the environment, and to begin to consider environmental goals more or less on a par with other developmental objectives.