Biodiversity Conservation Network
12. Abaca Fiber and Rattan from the Forests of Mindanao, Philippines
Location: Bendum, Pantaron Forest, Bukidnon, Mindanao, Philippines Partners: Institute of Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC) formerly Environmental Research Division, Manilla Observatory (ERD) BCN Funding: $426,798 Partner Contribution: $340,408 Grant Period: May 1, 1995 - April 30, 1998
What's at Stake?
Mindanao's Pantaron Range is one of the Philippine's most critically important watersheds, giving rise to several major rivers, including the nation's second largest river -- the Pulangi. It is one of the few remaining refuges for the highly endangered Philippine Eagle and the Bleeding Heart Pigeon. Yet the area's forests are threatened by conversion and over-harvesting.
The Institute of Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC), formerly known as the Environmental Research Division (ERD), is working with a community of indigenous people, the Bukidnon, to try to improve their quality of life by marketing non-timber forest products including abaca fiber. (Abaca comes from banana plants valued for their vascular fiber rather than fruit.) They are also making preparations to market rattan in two to three years time including obtaining a rattan cutting license for the community, promoting sustainable rattan harvest practices and developing the financial management skills of community members.
This forest management project is attempting to formalize community-controlled rattan concessions, which is an important step toward the sustainable use of this and other forest products. As part and parcel of this, ESSC is laying the necessary groundwork for the indigenous people of the area to obtain a certificate of ancestral domain claim (CADC) from the Philippine government. This is considered the most binding form of government recognition.
The major BCN-funded activities at Bendum have included; 1) planting and monitoring six community trials of abaca for eventual production and weaving of high quality fiber, 2) skills training and production of prototype handicrafts, 3) developing marketing links and identifying potential traders in the neighboring village of St. Peter, 4) selecting local forest guards and translating training materials, 5) biological monitoring (training of community members as team leaders, community mapping of rattan resources), and 6) socioeconomic monitoring including looking at resource ownership, land use, classifications, oral histories and kinship mapping which support Ancestral Domain claims, (non-BCN funding used), ongoing monitoring of family groups' status and community dynamics, and development of cultural economic indicators.
1997 Update
Abaca production from old pre-project stocks increased during the period as more of the community gained confidence in the activities. There has been an overwhelming response in part due to the prices several people have received for their wild abaca fibers. In support of broader livelihood activities initiated by the women, the livelihood committee started community mapping to identify abundance levels of resources used in making handicrafts. Greater emphasis was placed on facilitating local marketing activities, both with the abaca and handicrafts.
Some community members went to Agusan Province to interact with traders and now have an understanding of the abaca fiber grading and marketing dynamics. During the Kaamulan (annual cultural celebration), the women organized a products display in the community as a venue to barter or sell goods. Afterwards, the activity was evaluated and it turned out that the community preferred barter transactions rather than cash. The women perceived this activity as a valuable learning experience because they were able to practice their new skills in a context that was familiar to them.
The Water and Forest Committees responsible for formulating policies that directly affect conservation efforts finalized many of the policies on resource use. Their understanding of policies and the importance of the resources had deepened due to the series of seminars held. Even though the meetings were fewer due to peace and order difficulties, a recapping process was achieved to address some of the issues and problems.
Several meetings with local and national government representatives were held to discuss concerns regarding issues on ancestral domain claim, rattan licensing, mining, and the peace. Women played an important role in the discussions as they are seen as capable of diffusing the situation while presenting the community's concerns.
Success Stories and Challenges
Bendum, a mountainside community, lies just below the cloud line, and when seen from a distance, appears as unoccupied and idyllic forest lands. Nobody from the lowland towns knows the people in the mountains or sees them as being of any importance. It is the land beyond the Pulangi River at best ignored by the lowlanders. Yet they have undeclared expectations of it providing sustained water supply, illegal lumber, and contributing to the broader weather balance of the central Bukidnon plateau. In the dry season, the land below the forest burns. This was most dramatic during the El Niño of 1983.The area has been disturbed by militarized activities for several decades. For the Bendum community, the last few years have been a test of endurance and of relations -- relations between the traditional communities and their environment as well as relations with lowland migratory communities. Relations too have been difficult with the growth in development programs that destabilize the margins and feed the political center from which they come. More than ever before, the people's ability to protect their forests is jeopardized by the political and economic pressures of the present time.
Last year the cultural community grew strong in its internal leadership and responsibility. The people were tested by illegal logging activities from neighboring communities yet managed to hold out. December last year was critical in maintaining a balance of peace in the midst of larger forces. The community struck an understanding with all elements concerned -- they wanted peace and an improvement in the quality of life as they were now again beginning to experience it. Of nine other villages in the area, Bendum was the only village not evacuated during the troubles. The development of leadership through their own self-evaluation has grown beyond the project and community and has enabled them to face broader movements of society. This year when prospective miners appeared, they had a more direct response to approaching concerns and making a decision they could stand by as a community.
What has all these got to do with biodiversity conservation? For conservation to be lasting, the web of relations of people, land, water and life demands a deep understanding, and these people have acknowledged this in holding tightly to their love of the land, even through such uncertain times. The project has played a small but significant role in this, allowing people to revitalize their cultural expression, their clan relationships, and the broader daily discussion of their values, their needs and their relations. They value the forest and all its life, they need the forest for their way of living, but under changing times, it has been hard to clarify the viable relations -- social and environmental.
A return to a practice of abaca growing (banana plants valued for their vascular fiber rather than fruit) has given them proximity to the forest edge that protects it. It helps take the strain from over -- extraction of remaining resources and from an over dependence on short term returns gained from increasing pressure to clear more land for intensive agriculture. This practice has created a buffer in time as well as in land use. For this to be sustainable, much more has to come out of the diversity of relations with the environment. Conservation requires the development not only of policies, programs and projects, but also an empowering of the social mechanisms by which communities become the managers.
Meanwhile, on a more personal note, there has been the simple enjoyment experienced when local community forestry survey teams return telling stories of the previous days' camping in the forest. The teams reveal that there are still the full range of woodpeckers, hornbills, and doves in the area. They report that, though few in number, the bleeding heart pigeon still survives. Such fauna are recognized by the community as their source of protein, but increasingly as having a role in seed distribution and forest regeneration, a natural relationship that must be allowed to continue. Recently during planning, the Forest Committee formulated a policy that prohibits hunting of dove species because of their cultural values. This excitement is the basic sensitivity to life in the forest, and has been picked up in the development of alternative education programs for the community, which have become part of so many other aspects of daily living for all in the community.
What of the challenges? There are many! Let's be honest -- none of these threats are in the hands of the community. Because of this year's El Niño: a drought of even greater severity than in 1983 is anticipated and people are asking about food availability. People are hungry for two months of the year as it is -- a further two months would warrant calamity by government definition. The people will suffer. There will be far greater potential for forest fires and forest resources will be all the more threatened for the limited cash they can provide. At this point, the initial abaca activities cannot adequately chip into the cash equation. However linkages with local government are already identifying the community as one potentially in need, and efforts are being made to better understand appropriate action in the face of drought.
In the Provinces of the Region, political developments of a complex nature are leading to massive land claims by tribal groups sometimes extending up to 60,000 hectares. One such claim threatens the stability of this area, although the community has expressed its interest in an independent smaller claim. Still the government process dithers. Will the national program of granting Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claims (CADC) empower the people in the forest, or those closer to the urban centers? The people have been clear in the presentation of their case and have gained attention, yet rights are not yet theirs.
These people are improving their quality of subsistence but it is naive to think of them as entrepreneurs. Cash is not primary, yet dealing effectively with external market forces is essential to them. Traditionally, these people barter and there is hard bargaining too, but today there is little bargaining of a familiar nature for these people, they just have to take what they can get. Other support must be sought over time, like broader abaca growing that will form a significant portion of the local market so much so as to influence it, along with the identification of interested parties to invest in the resource development. The biggest challenge is to work with reality and not be confined by the prism of project accomplishments which have a short lifetime. It is essential to reckon with the broader socio-environmental process that has to buffer a sustained biological diversity -- the vital life of our forest -- against unpredictable markets and trade winds.
Cultural values and relations have been reawakened in an effort to protect the forest life and this has gone hand-in-hand with empowerment. It is most important that the right relations with all elements of broader society are established, so that this effort is confirmed by slowly increasing lowland environmental concerns, rather than by the latter's aggressive demands and disregard for its origins and responsibilities.
The truth is coming through, that any effort to sustain biodiversity has to build on what people are already doing. It cannot be sustained if we fracture the social process with unreliable interventions. BCN's focus is "to collect information and to systematically use this to make better natural resource decisions -- a process called adaptive management." Meanwhile, adaptive management in the forest coming from the people involves them adapting to the regenerative capacity of the forest and surviving the socio-political pressures while meeting at least their basic needs.
Any resource decisions coming from above must have adequate flexibility to allow the people to adapt them to their circumstances rather than become a further burden upon the community. Adaptive management as it occurs from below and above can be part of the one and the same social process as long as there is this flexibility. Already there are adaptations seen in biodiversity conservation: that of recognizing that people cannot wear an entrepreneurial hat in three years; that biodiversity is not a taxonomic list but a cultural relationship that mutually sustains life together; and that pilot areas will remain unique and irreplaceable unless the NETWORK -- ESSC humbly faces its responsibilities in opening up the necessary flexibility in the political and economic related spheres of a broader dialogue within the countries where it operates. In this closer alignment with the broader spectrum of related activities, effects will move beyond the sites chosen.
Authors: The ESSC team. ESSC is a research institute that aims to develop an Asian science that assists in actual social changes affecting the environment. ESSC investigates different relationships in the environment -- bio-physical as well as social. The Jesuit orientation of ESSC further directs the work towards a search for social justice in the changes happening within and between the environment and society. For this particular project, Karen Lawrence facilitates the interdisciplinary team in Mindanao. Pedro Walpole provides overall coordination.
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