Wolfram Dressler (@dresslerwolfram.bsky.social)

An analysis of expanding road infrastructure on indigenous land rights, food security and forest cover in southern Palawan, the Philippines : Find an Expert : The University of Melbourne Across the Southeast Asian uplands, expanding road infrastructure increasingly penetrates remnant forests and Indigenous territories, with major consequences for land rights, food security, and biodiversity (Clements et al., 2014; Reddiar and Osti, 2022). In the Philippines, where only 10 percent of original forest cover remains, new road networks linked to critical minerals mining, oil palm and tourism estate expansion are affecting forests long managed by Indigenous peoples (Sze et al., 2022; Nolos et al., 2023; Mason et al., 2025). As the country’s last ecological frontier, Palawan loses roughly 5,500 hectares of forest annually as roads penetrate forest reserves and ancestral lands (Nolos et al., 2023), yet their impacts remain poorly understood. Research Question: What are the origins and impacts of road networks on land rights, food security, and forest cover in southern Palawan? How and why do different types of roads emerge, and who wins and loses from them? This PhD project examines the historical and contemporary rise of road networks penetrating the upland forests of southern Palawan, where Indigenous communities face intersecting pressures on land, resources, and governance. It analyses how roads intersect with ancestral domain claims, livelihood changes, shifting land classifications, territorial disputes, and changing accessibility, and how these processes affect Indigenous food security, forest cover, and biodiversity. Using spatial analysis and ethnographic methods, the project traces the spatial and temporal dynamics of road expansion, land use conversion, livelihood changes, forest degradation and biodiversity declines. It integrates satellite imagery, planning documents, and community sketch maps to quantify forest cover change and model relationships between road density, agricultural transitions, and biodiversity. Grounded in political ecology and Indigenous land politics, the project examines how competing claims intersect along roads as socioecological corridors that facilitate market integration while catalysing dispossession and reconfigurations of customary authority. Through ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and spatial analysis, it generates a multiscalar account of road building as a political project reshaping ancestral lands, food systems, forest cover, and biodiversity in southern Palawan. References: Clements, Gopalasamy Reuben, et al. (2014) “Where and how are roads endangering mammals in Southeast Asia’s forests?.” PloS one 9.12 (2014): e115376. Dressler, W. (2021). Defending lands and forests: NGO histories, everyday struggles, and extraordinary violence in the Philippines. Critical Asian Studies, 53(3), 380-411. Mason, D., Dressler, W., & Novellino, D. (2025). Extracting Value, Losing Ground: The Critical Minerals Boom in Palawan. New Mandala. June 13, 2025. <a href="https://www.newmandala.org/extracting-value-losing-ground-the-critical-minerals-boom-in-palawan/">https://www.newmandala.org/extracting-value-losing-ground-the-critical-minerals-boom-in-palawan/</a> Nolos, R. C., Zamroni, A., & Evina, K. F. P. (2023). Drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in Palawan, Philippines: an analysis using social-ecological systems (SES) and institutional analysis and development (IAD) approaches. Geography, environment, sustainability, 15(4), 44-56. Reddiar, I. B., & Osti, M. (2022). Quantifying transportation infrastructure pressure on Southeast Asian World Heritage forests. Biological conservation, 270, 109564. Sze, J. S., Childs, D. Z., Carrasco, L. R., & Edwards, D. P. (2022). Indigenous lands in protected areas have high forest integrity across the tropics. Current Biology, 32(22), 4949-4956. https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/opportunity/1687-an-analysis-of-expanding-road-infrastructure-on-indigenous-land-rights--food-security-and-forest-cover-in-southern-palawan--the-philippines