Activity and cost standards for forest development and rehabilitation in the Philippines.

The study developed a spreadsheet model that automatically updates the different cost components of forest development given a planting spacing and prevailing wage rate. It also examined and refined the critical standard activities needed to ensure the success of forest plantation development. The costs of forest plantation development are mainly focused on operations and project management. Operation activities include nursery operations comprising 15.0 % of costs on the average, plantation establishment at 17.4%, plantation maintenance and protection at 49.8%, and infrastructure at 4.7%, while project management constitutes 13.1%. The bulk of the cost comes from labor ranging from 73 to 86% of the total operation costs. Forest development cost is sensitive to prevailing labor wage rate in the locality and spacing. As to cost distribution, the first year accounts for 55% of the total cost, 26% for the second year and 19% during the third year of forest plantation development. Lessons from the past forest rehabilitation efforts showed that aside from the proper site species matching, enough attention should be given to proper maintenance and protection to ensure that the investments in forest plantations would succeed.