Palawan on Fire: An Update from the Philippines
Seacology's
Field Representative in the Philippines, Ferdie Marcelo, maintains a blog documenting his experiences
working to conserve the rich natural resources and ecosystems in the
Philippines. His most recent entry discusses the threat of slash-and-burn
farming on the country's Palawan Island.
Often called the Philippines' last
ecological frontier, Palawan's rich biodiversity is very impressive but also so
very fragile. Yet for the month
of April this year alone, in northern Palawan alone, the burning of swathes of
mountain slopes was a near daily occurrence. Plumes of smoke could be seen from
surrounding mountains signaling slash and burn activity. It was as if a
concerted effort to destroy the island's capacity to support life is being
waged.
Travelling toward the eastern
side of El Nido, we passed quite a few blackened areas, tell-tale signs of
swidden farming or kaingin.
Meriam Arzaga of the El Nido
Foundation provides
an interesting observation: that incidences of kaingin increase after a tag-hirap year - a year when crops fall short
of what is needed. It is a method farmers seem to resort to, to augment
harvests from their regular rice fields.
Swidden farming, or kaingin, is most obvious during the dry
months when plots are prepared by burning vegetation therein, awaiting the
first rains
before planting. It has been in practice for generations in many parts of the
world, benignly, even favorably, viewed in such literature as Alan Paton's Cry, the
Beloved Country (1948) and
NVM Gonzales' Children
of the Ash-Covered Loam (1954).
It is a method developed over the centuries as a means to reduce pests and
facilitate the migration of biological control agents, such as insect parasites
and predators, from the surrounding forests.
For the system to be sustainable
(myopically ignoring its impact on global
warming and ocean siltation, that is), a plot, after being used for a few
years, must be allowed to fallow for about 20 years before beginning the cycle
again. In this period, the soil is allowed to rest and regain the nutrients
that only time left alone can provide. But when the number of people the land
has to support becomes so great that the fallow periods are drastically
reduced, productivity declines and the system becomes destructive, eventually
working its way into new areas in the forest.
When a farmer begins cutting the
fringes of public land in preparation
for burning, Meriam explains, no one else but the farmer who torched it gets to
plant on it when the rains come. It is a tradition of respect among kaingin farmers that has been observed for
as long as anyone can remember.
But if kaingin activity is that plain to see and
the culprits so easily identifiable, why isn't anyone doing anything to
apprehend the offenders? To be sure, unauthorized burning of forest and grazing
land
is illegal under the Revised Forestry Reform Code. Moreover, a 1998
presidential proclamation declared all of El Nido and Taytay, its adjacent
municipality, as a Protected Area, putting it under the supervision of the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources, with its own Protected Area
Superintendent. Whether it is for lack of political will or simple bureaucratic
laziness, solutions, for now at least, do not seem to be forthcoming from any
government enforcement effort.
It isn't that the farmers are not
aware of the illegality of kaingin or its implications; often, they do it
because they feel they need to.
Apparently, if farmers have to choose between putting food on the table and
obeying some law, the former will always win hands-down. The answer must lie in
providing an alternative to kaingin.
At the eastern villages of Mabini,
New Ibajay, Sibaltan and Villa Paz, Seacology provided cashew production equipment, among others, as an
alternative livelihood enterprise in exchange for the establishment of a
470-acre marine protected area and 2,408-acre mangrove protected area. In this
project, the villagers have committed
themselves to actively protect these resources, with the municipal government
and DENR relegated to a supporting role. Even the local parish priest, Fr. Ed
Parino, has taken an active role in the enforcement of the protected areas, and
has been instrumental in the apprehension of poachers from out-of-town. And as
alternative livelihoods go, the brisk sales of their cashews at the upscale
resorts of El Nido are certainly encouraging.
There is still much to appreciate in
northern Palawan in terms of rich
natural resources. But to preserve it, the focus has to shift from what the
communities should not do, to what they can do instead.
All pictures from Ferdie Marcelo. To see more of Ferdie's images from Palawan, visit the original post on his blog, Nature Calls.
