Abaca Fiber and Rattan from the Forests of Mindanao, Philippines

by Biodiversity Conservation Network Staff

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.

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