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Sta. Rosa sub-watershed had undergone shift in economic-base from agricultural to an industrial. In understanding the patterns, drivers and impacts of land-use changes in Sta. Rosa subwatershed, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) activities were conducted with selected participants from upstream, midstream and lakeshore communities. The upstream community of Brgy. Tartaria had undergone land use conversion from forested areas in the 1920's, to deforestation in the 1940's, rice planting in the 1950's, coffee planting in the 1970's, and pineapple planting in the 1980's. The main drivers of land use changes are population migration in the 1920's; food security in the 1950's; and income generation in the 1970's and 1980's. Current problems center on agriculture. The midstream community of Brgy. Sto. Domingo had undergone conversion from sugarcane plantations in the 1970's to industrial land use in the 1990's. The lakeshore community of Brgy. Aplaya was purely agricultural (rice cultivation and duck-raising) in the 1940's to 1970's and underwent conversion into industrial-residential areas in the 1980's. Increase in population and declining rice yields are the driving factors for the land use change. Recommendations to address environmental problems in the subwatershed are crop diversifi cation and use of organic fertilizers in the agricultural and agroforestry areas, proper waste management (agricultural, industrial and household wastes), strict monitoring of factories and industries on the discharge of their liquid wastes, and community activities like "Linis Ilog" (Clean the River) program. The conduct of various PRA methodologies with local communities enabled the people to articulate on the various environmental problems that beset them and propose doable solutions to address tese. Findings of this study will be very useful to local government units and policy makers in crafting and implementing policies and programs to address environmental problems in the Sta. Rosa sub-watershed.

Sustainability assessments of bioenergy production are essential because it can have both positive and negative impacts on society. Human preferences that influence trade-off decisions on the relevant determinants and indicators of sustainability should be taken into account in these assessments. In this paper, we conducted a survey with five groups of respondents including (1) government officials and employees, (2) academic and research professionals, (3) private company managers and workers, (4) farm owners and workers, and (5) "others" (e.g. students, residents, etc.) to assess their trade-off decisions on bioenergy development in the Philippines. The analysis of the survey results reveal that sustainability of bioenergy production will depend on the choice of biomass feedstock and these choices depend on people's perceptions. Heterogeneous perceptions among the different groups of respondents on the appropriate bioenergy feedstock to achieve economic, social and ecological sustainability suggest that sustainability of bioenergy is not a generic concept. The use of aggregate indices for sustainability assessments that ignore these perceptions on bioenergy production can thus be very misleading. The preference weights from conjoint analysis, which measure human preferences on different determinants and indicators of economic, social and ecological sustainability, can help improve sustainability assessments.

We elicited people's preferences on policy issues related to bioenergy through survey and investigated the cluster typologies that influence these preferences using cluster and conjoint analysis. Three typologies (i.e. idealist, ambivalent, realist) were identified from clustering the respondents' familiarity on bioenergy and opinion on its effects on food security and economy in the Philippines. The "idealist" has optimistic opinions on bioenergy production, "realist" recognises the existing land use competition between bioenergy and food production, and "ambivalent" does not have clear opinion on the effects of bioenergy on food security and economy. Majority of realists are located in Mindanao and idealists in Luzon. The segmentation of the respondents aimed to identify the characteristics of people belonging to different typologies and to understand how the typologies influence the policy preferences for the different sustainability determinants of bioenergy. These determinants were based on the STRAP (sustainability trade-offs and pathways) framework for the integrated assessment of bioenergy sustainability. The results reveal that respondents with ambivalent typology, which are mostly farmers and farm workers, lack the necessary awareness to be able to play an active role in the bioenergy production chain. As main actors in the production of biomass feedstock for bioenergy, it is important that they gain not only general awareness but also practical knowledge on bioenergy production and its impacts on agricultural development. The respondents with realist typology in Mindanao give high importance to social justice due to unrests caused by religious conflicts and widespread poverty. Hence, unless these issues are resolved, it is hardly possible to make use of the huge bioenergy potential in this region. In general, respondents in all cluster typologies give more importance to sustainability determinants that are directly associated to their daily living. However, determinants relating to energy security and technology progress, which are not location-specific, are necessary to sustain domestic bioenergy production. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.