Following World War II, the richly forested watersheds of northeastern and southern Mindanao were targeted for logging. Based on the parity agreement signed at the Philippines' independence, U.S. multi-national companies took full advantage of their "equal" rights to resource exploitation. American timber firms such as Weyerhauser, Georgia-Pacific, Boise Cascade, and Findlay Millar operated in rapid and systematic fashion to extract Mindanao's valuable commercial dipterocarp forests (
FN 27). The logging momentum continued after these companies were privatized by Filipinos. Today, the ecological aftermath of decades of rampant upland forest destruction continues to unfold in the valleys below. Logging in Mindanao's primary watersheds between the 1950s and 1970s has resulted in massive upland erosion and lowland siltation, combined with rapid runoff and flooding. In 1981, heavy rains spilling into the Agusan River were blocked by huge silt deposits near the mouth of the river, causing a series of floods which killed hundreds and left thousands homeless (FN 28).
Upper Pulangi watershed with valley farms and upland logged-over forests
Corn sprouting in Bukid-non household's swidden field.
Visayan migrant's home adjacent to his cassava and corn patch in the Upper Pulangi Valley above St. Peter village
Bukid-non boys playfully climb papaya trees in the family's swidden field
The Pulangi watershed, the Philippines' second largest, covers an area of 1.8 million hectares. The upland forests are ecologically fundamental to the vast Pulangi agricultural basin to the south, as well as the smaller Augusan River basin to the northeast (see Figure 17). The upper watershed also protects a major dam at Maramag which supplies hydroelectric power and irrigation water to southern Mindanao. The dam has never reached full capacity since it was completed in the early 1980s and is now rapidly silting up. Furthermore, additional proposed dams will dislocate lowland communities and place further pressures on upland resources.
Figure 17
Pulkangi Watershed on Mindanao Island
Today, the loggable commercial species have been nearly exhausted in Mindanao. Satellite imagery indicates that only 5.5 percent of Bukidnon Province, which encompasses the Upper Pulangi, still retains old growth dipterocarp forest, with 7.7 percent under mossy upland forest, most of which is confined to critical mountain ridges and slopes (
FN 29). Despite their hydrological and ecological values, and their extreme scarcity, these final dipterocarp remnants are still being logged.Historically isolated, the Upper Pulangi watershed was originally inhabited centuries ago by indigenous Lumad people, comprised of Bukid-nons, Tala-andigs, Matig-salugs, and Manobos, as well as other cultural groups. Most of the land was extensively covered with primary forest. In exchange for salt, sugar, cloth, and liquor, the Bukid-nons engaged in cultivation and trade of a variety of crops, including corn, abaca (hemp), coffee, rice, and copra, with wealthy coastal Visayan and Chinese merchants. In combination with increasing contacts with coastal traders as markets expanded, the church began influencing traditional cultural patterns in the late nineteenth century by baptizing and settling the Bukid-nons in grassland townships. Starting in 1907, a campaign was initiated by the Americans to protect the Bukid-nons from dominance and economic exploitation by lowland migrants, primarily those from the Visayan Islands (
FN 30). In the process, the Bukid-nons were forced into lowland settlements to plow fields and take advantage of public education. Those Bukid-nons who resisted resettlement and remained in their homes in the mountains risked attack by constabulary soldiers. The decline of the American presence in Bukidnon Province during the 1920s and 1930s ushered in a period of increasing migration. From the end of World War II to the late 1970s, the provincial population burgeoned, increasing by over 700 percent (63,470 to 532,818). Large multinational agribusinesses expanded, intensifying land-use pressures and generating conflicts between the Lumads and the migrants (FN 31).The Lumads' movements progressively deeper into the forest in an attempt to escape domination by Visayan migrants and logging companies continue today. Even before the war, migrants had penetrated into the uppermost narrow valley of the Pulangi headwaters as far as Indalasa and Caburacanan. Since the early 1960s, four major logging concessions have shifted from Malaybalay into the area (see Figure 18). Following the logging roads over the past few decades, significant numbers of additional migrants have entered the upper reaches of the Pulangi, clearing remnant forest tracts to plant corn and rice. The migrants have generally become the dominant group within the local community structure, resulting in the quiet retreat of the Bukid-nons up the mountainous watershed (see Figure 19). Concessionaires have also forced Lumads to abandon their ancestral lands and move further into the watersheds to practice a combination of kaingin and hunting/gathering on marginal forest lands.
Figure 18
Timber License Agreements: Upper Pulangi Watershed
Figure 19
Bukid-non Retreat from Migrant Settlements in the Upper Pulangi
Tree stump of a rainforest giant stands alone in farmer's field
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Once loggers leave the area, tribal and migrant people use saws and mallets to split boards for domestic needs |
Near the ridgetops of the Upper Pulangi watershed, tribal children ascend on the lianas of large forest species |
Upper Pulangi River snakes through dense secondary forest growth but runs muddy brown due to erosion from upstream logging and farming.
While still ecologically strategic the remaining old growth and mossy forest of the Upper Pulangi is confined to ridgetops above 700 meters' elevation. The majority of the logged-over secondary forest at lower elevations suffers successive degradation due to increased clearing for corn, unsustainable cultivation practices, and cyclical fires (see Figure 20). Although it has attracted very little attention, this portion of the Upper Pulangi, which flows through a narrow, 70-Hometer valley, is a crucial catchment area for the larger Pulangi basin.
Figure 20
Forest Cover in Upper Pulangi: 1987
The Bukid-nons have inhabited the Upper Pulangi for generations, tapping their rich ethnobotanical knowledge to hunt, gather, and cultivate small swidden plots within the forest environment. Datu Nestor, an elder leader of the Bendum village community, originally migrated with his family one generation ago from Mahayag. First moving down to Caburacanan in the 1950s, he proceeded to St. Peter in 1979 and finally settled in Bendum in 1985. Other Bukid-non families followed him. In the early 1970s, the trade in rattan grew, and many families engaged in the collection of small diameter (aroroq) and larger diameter (tumaten) species. Trucks would arrive monthly to haul the rattan away. Competent collectors could harvest 400 poles (9-foot lengths) of aroroq per day, worth up to P120 ($5). Today, the practices of unregulated overexploitation have greatly diminished the natural stock. Although there is still gathering in the upper watersheds, former collectors are seeking other sources of livelihood. Datu Nestor believes that aroroq could be planted along the streambanks, where it thrives, and then systematically harvested, still leaving an adequate supply for regrowth. Expressing the need for a longer-term management perspective, he reports that the rattan can typically grow to harvestable size in six years, although the larger diameter varieties would require a ten-year gestation.
The community in remote Bendum continues to be highly dependent upon the forest, hunting wild boar, birds, snakes, frogs, and the rare macaque. In addition, they gather rushes for weaving, betel nuts, calmansi citrus, ferns, mushrooms, and honey. Gum from the almaciga tree (Decussocarpus wallichianus) is also collected and sold. Banana hemp or abaca is dyed and woven by women into traditional kamuyot cloth, now becoming popularized and marketed domestically.
Lowland migrants have typically established rice fields along the rivers and corn on the lower slopes. During the 1980s, coffee was cultivated alongside corn on the valley mid-slopes. Bukid-non households also compete for land to grow corn and coffee on these slopes, while continuing with their traditional mixed gardens in logged-over areas higher up the valley slopes. Rattan-collection and hunting ranges begin only after a several hour walk far into the secluded patches of secondary and primary forest (see Figure 21).
Figure 21
Numerous problems arise for slope-dwelling communities in the watershed, including moderate to high soil erosion, nutrient leaching, rapid runoff, declining productivity, and general lack of social services. Families in the valley suffer from inadequate water supply in the dry season and limited geographical areas in which to expand their wet- land cultivation. Crops such as coffee and corn tend to generate low returns due to infestations with the coffee bean borer, minimal fertilizers, high transport costs, and poor markets (see Figure 22).
Proposed Microwatershed Management Units in the Upper Pulanri
Over the past decade in Bukidnon, community groups have organized to protest logging and its negative environmental externalities. In 1989, villagers barricaded logging roads in San Fernando, located in the southern Tigwa watershed of the Upper Pulangi. Thirteen community representatives traveled to Manila and fasted in front of the DENR office in an effort to obtain a government order which halted logging in the residual old growth forest. Letters from the protesters were sent to influential individuals and institutions, requesting immediate cessation of the logging. Both the public and private sectors were very supportive of the community representatives in Manila. High-profile meetings were scheduled between the fasters and the DENR, including select government officials such as President Aquino. On the eighth day of the fast, an agreement between the villagers and the DENR was publicly announced. The agreement reiterated the government's concern for the forests in Bukidnon Province and outlined activities and processes for implementing forest protection. Among these were the enlistment of twenty forest guards (mainly tribal Manobos) to patrol and protect the Tigwa forests, the suspension of agribusiness rattan licenses, and a promised enforcement of a future logging ban in Bukidnon. There was also a promise to provide major funds for community reforestation in the area. Unfortunately, many of these commitments by DENR were either short-lived or have yet to be realized.
Nonetheless, environmental problems are becoming the leading political issues for community activism in the lowlands. While the escalating concerns of migrant farming communities over a degrading environment are significant, the tribal Lumads possess the in-depth, practical knowledge of the environment needed to manage and monitor these resources effectively. Yet due to their historic and progressive socioeconomic marginalization, a concerted effort will be required to bring them into a dialogue with other resource user groups and vest them with the authority to participate actively in the formulation of management policies and regulations.
In the past, central government reforestation schemes have bypassed tribal peoples, encountering numerous technical and institutional problems due to an inadequate understanding of the local ecosystem, including its socio-political context. Tree survival rates have been low because local groups have not been empowered to ensure proper plantation protection, management, and benefit-sharing. Efforts to establish an institutional basis for sustainable forest management systems which are not adequately rooted in the highly localized ecology and traditions of indigenous resident communities will likely meet with a similar fate.
As part of the process of formulating an integrated management plan for the Upper Pulangi, migrant peoples and indigenous upland tribal communities will need to work as partners with government and private sector interests to resolve existing resource conflicts. Emerging watershed management strategies must focus on stabilizing Lumad community resources as a top priority. According to current planning, community organizers will assist villages in developing long-term resource management plans for their respective microwatersheds. Some community groups have already initiated efforts to reach agreements regarding the territorial divisions of the upper watershed into operational "microwatershed" management units.
Twelve small tributary streams feed the Pulangi River. It is proposed that jurisdictional responsibilities for the protection and management of these twelve microwatersheds be allocated to those tribal communities which are both motivated and strategically situated at critical access junctions of each catchment (
see Figure 22). These hamlets would be assisted in forming resource management committees, which in turn would be affiliated with the more centralized lowland barangays. The proposed microwatershed management planning will include an initial land-use site analysis, complemented by extended negotiations with the community to identify local problems, priorities, and opportunities (see Figure 23). This process will include microwatershed mapping and community profile surveys. Through steady interaction and dialogue with the communities, villagers will be encouraged to explore various options for protecting the remaining forest, while also increasing its productivity. In light of the rapid depletion of natural rattan stock, enrichment planting is one of the silvicultural strategies under consideration. As the price of corn is extremely low and the quality of coffee very poor, certain crop management improvements and species alternatives are also being explored. It is clear that many institutional and technical options are available to improve the watershed's productivity and management. Ultimately, communities will need usufruct tenure security in order to invest their labor and resources in protecting the environment and utilizing the resource base sustainably.