Improve permitting and establish MEL system among key policy recommendations for more effective governance of coral restoration in the Philippines – white paper

Coral restoration is increasingly adopted as a strategy to complement conservation and coastal management to mitigate the continuous decline of coral reefs especially in severely degraded areas. Its role in habitat improvement, biodiversity recovery, and resilience can potentially be pivotal. However, the effectiveness of coral restoration is hindered by persistent barriers including high implementation costs against desired benefits, the compounding impacts of multiple, often conflicting, coastal zone uses, and local sustainability in the context of stakeholders’ capacity and priorities. Enabling institutional arrangements should be able to evaluate and overcome these barriers. In the Philippines, coral reef governance can be strengthened to support more effective implementation and regulation of coral restoration.

Researchers from the Marine Environment and Resources Foundation at the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines Diliman, Macquarie University, and University of Technology Sydney have prepared a white paper entitled “Strengthening governance and institutional arrangements for coral restoration in the Philippines.” This new publication reviewed current national policy for gaps in relation to the governance of coral restoration, and recommended appropriate actions to address these gaps. The paper identified improvements to national policy in the need for a national framework and strategy specific to coral restoration, and in aspects of permitting, implementation, and monitoring.

Key policy recommendations are to:

1. Develop a national coral restoration strategy in line with the National Coral Reef Program of the Philippine government;

2. Standardize permitting with relevant technical guidelines, and streamline related processes;

3. Emphasize socio-economic and climate resilience considerations in implementation; and

4. Establish standardized long-term monitoring linked to regulatory processes.

The white paper details each of these recommendations with suggested long- and short-term actions to be implemented strategically over time, through multi- and cross-sectoral stakeholder collaboration led by national regulatory agencies.

National government and partners are working together to improve governance for more effective coral restoration in the Philippines (DA-BFAR and the Coral Restoration Governance Project during a coordination meeting in Quezon City in June 2024 © MC Quibilan)

The white paper was prepared as part of the work of the “Institutional Effectiveness and Political Economy of Coral Reef Restoration in the Philippines” (Coral Restoration Governance) Project [FIS 2021/ 112] funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, administered by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, and implemented by the University of Technology Sydney, Marine Environment and Resources Foundation, Inc., Macquarie University, and Southern Cross University.

Recommended citation:

Galpo, N. F., Horigue, V., Matorres, D. E., Baria-Rodriguez, M. V., Fabinyi, M., and Quibilan, M. C. (2025). White Paper: “Strengthening governance and institutional arrangements for coral restoration in the Philippines.” Prepared under the “Institutional Effectiveness and Political Economy of Coral Reef Restoration in the Philippines” Project [FIS 2021/ 112]. Copyright by the authors is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/rgpkh_v1

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