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Environmental Governance
Objectives
Illegal and destructive fishing and severe overfishing in this global biodiversity "Hotspot" threaten not only biodiversity but food security and the productivity of the natural resource base. Illegal logging threatens livelihoods, lives, and biodiversity, and is the driving factor in deforestation in the Philippines-at the highest rate in Southeast Asia.
In response, and in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, USAID assists local governments and communities to close open access and improve governance of natural resources through greater transparency, accountability, responsiveness, and participation. Without it, de facto open access and weak governance allow entrusted resource managers and outlaw groups to manipulate extraction of natural resources-often to finance efforts to destabilize democratically-elected governments.