resistance and criticism from the sector regarding the scope and coverage of the law. Most National Parks and Protected Areas are situated within traditional lands and territories. Many communities decry the establishment of new governance structures such as the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) and the formulation of Protected Area Management Plans as an expression of disrespect and infringement on their rights as the ‘owners’ of the land. Map 2. Forest cover and mining tenements in the Philippines. Map by PAFID Forest Management (CBFM) was adopted as the national strategy for the sustainable development of the country’s forestland resources. It is noteworthy to underscore that under the 1987 Philippine Constitution, the NIPAS Act of 1992 is the very first law of the republic that expressly defines indigenous cultural community “as a group of people sharing common bonds of language, customs, traditions and other distinctive cultural traits, and who have, since time immemorial, occupied, possessed and utilized a territory” (NIPAS Act, Section 4d). The same law provides that “ancestral lands and customary rights and interest arising shall be accorded due recognition” and government shall “have no power to neither evict indigenous communities from their present occupancy nor resettle them to another area without their consent” (NIPAS Act, Section 13). Notwithstanding the acknowledgement of the rights of IPs in the NIPAS law, there has been 102 Extraction, Utilization and Development Policies The Mining Act of 1985 (RA 7924) The economy of the Philippines is the 46th largest in the world, with an estimated 2010 gross domestic product (nominal) of $189 billion. A newly industrialized country, the Philippine economy has been transitioning from one based on agriculture to one based more on services and manufacturing. Hence, the enactment of laws that shall support, enhance, encourage and provide incentives to industries that shall generate the necessary revenues needed by the government to jumpstart its economy. In a further bid to secure the status of a newly emergent economy, the identification of additional sources of revenue was expanded. Mining was deemed to be the most effective way of generating the needed revenues of the Philippines. In response, the Philippine Government along with the mining industry worked for the passage of a new Mining Law, which would invigorate the underperforming industry in the Philippines. Republic Act 7924 was passed into law in 1985 Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC)