System Dynamic Modeling of Top Harvested Plant Bioresources in Northern Negros Natural Park

The planning for management initiatives of Northern Negros Natural Park (NNNP) as a protected area needs datasets on plant bioresources mostly harvested from various zones in the park. This paper aims to 1) develop a modelthat could predict the forest cover change in NNNP, 2) project scenarios on the impact of harvesting plantbioresources (PBRs) on forest cover change; and 3) analyze the scenario projections on their impact to policy andmanagement practices for PBRs use and forest cover in NNNP. System dynamics modeling methodology wasutilized to develop the logistic growth model utilized for scenario projections. The scenario projections made use ofthe data from the household survey and floral assessment in NNNP. Results showed that the developed projectionmodel entered in STELLA software can project scenarios for top harvested PBRs and forest cover of NNNP. In allprojected scenarios, the collection of top PBRs is still below the species’ tipping point of local extinction. Onaverage, the annual harvest is at 0.57% of its estimated stock population in the business as usual scenario,intensified harvest scenario (1.68%), and reduced or ideal harvest rate scenario (0.18%). A low to moderate risk ofextinction was observed in the estimated average species density. The harvest of these species was regulated bythe Expanded National Integrated Protected Area Systems (ENIPAS) Act of 2018. However, the weakimplementation of these regulations contributed to the continuing illegal collection and commercial activities insideNNNP. The results presented in this paper provided a 20-year projection and trends for the PBRs mostly harvestedas important data set needed in planning and management initiatives in the protected area.