The Philippines, particularly the Taguibo River Watershed Forest Reserve (TRWFR) is home to some of the world's most abundant mineral ore deposits. Harnessing those nested natural resources for a developmental purpose is a complex task; posing potential positive or negative environmental and social impacts. The Philippine national government has adopted several forms of decentralization with the aim to give more discretionary power to the local government units who are believed to hold the greatest capacity to be able to efficiently mobilize local natural resources for broad-based socio-economic development. Region XIII, is home to the Taguibo watershed on one hand, an on the other hand is also home to local government units and line agencies which lack extensive horizontal coordination or integration leading to institutional challenges which often prevents synergy between mining operations, livelihoods and sustainable development efforts from occurring.Four main institutional arrangements help to conceptualize the drivers of the asymmetric conflict found in the TRWFR: resource tenure and property rights; decentralization of resource management; captured power, and political rivalry; and fragmentation of authority. Regardless of the fact that there are extensive environmental and human risk management laws the local resource base results in a curse rather than a blessing.
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