Abaca Fiber and Rattan from the Forests of Mindanao, Philippines

by Biodiversity Conservation Network Staff

Partners:

Institute of Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC) formerly Environmental Research Division, Manila Observatory (ERD)

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.

	"OK...So What?"
... or, return to this Project's Main Menu

WHY BIODIVERSITY   FIELD STORIES   PARTICIPATE   RESULTS   MARKETSPACE ABOUT THE NETWORK   WHAT'S NEW   LEARNING MATERIALS   SEARCH   LINKS   SITE MAP   HOME