Reaping rewards from protecting forests

By Maurice Malanes Philippine Daily Inquirer FOR DECADES, they have regarded the forests as their lifeblood, and have never lusted for the big volume of logs and lumber they could extract. Instead, they have harvested only fruits and other edibles from the wild to be processed for selected markets. As responsible stewards, they get just enough to help keep the balance in the ecosystem. This is the way of the indigenous Ikalahan (population: 49,000). Home to most tribal members is the forested community of Imugan village in Sta. Fe, Nueva Vizcaya. Their place is part of the Caraballo Mountains, which link the Cordillera and the Sierra Madre mountain ranges in northern Luzon. During a recent national indigenous peoples’ conference on ancestral land rights in Baguio City, the Ikalahan have been cited for their “ecosystems approach” toward managing and protecting their land and resources. “We view ourselves as part of ecosystems, so what we do to one species affects the rest of us,” their leader, Sammy Balinhawang, said. The meeting was organized by the Tebtebba and the Philippine Traditional Knowledge Network, two nongovernment groups helping to educate indigenous peoples about their rights as enshrined in the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (Ipra) and in international conventions, such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Sustainability The Ikalahan have been asserting that, as part of their collective right, the land where they now live and its resources belong to the community. “But alongside this right, we know our responsibility: To protect our watersheds and every nook and cranny of our domain,” Balinhawang said. The livelihoods the forests provide are the main incentives for doing their responsibility. For example, water from the mountains irrigate their farms, which produce food for their families and bring income if they sell their surplus. By asserting this collective right and the livelihood and other benefits they derive from the forests, the Ikalahan have stopped government plans to reroute a national road that would have cut through their community. But they cannot expand their farms and pasture lands because the ecosystems of their community would suffer from imbalance. So they resort to gathering wild fruits, processing and selling them as guava jams, wines and vinegar from wild berries, and dried bignay (which resembles raisin). The products have reached not only markets in Metro Manila and other cities but some overseas markets as well. The Ikalahan harvest only 15 percent of the wild fruits. The rest belong to the bats, birds and other wild animals that help propagate the very sources of their food and income. With seedlings from their nurseries, they have reforested areas under threat of going barren. They cull or remove disease-infested trees and replace them. To safeguard the ecosystems and keep their food chain clean, the Ikalahan have long maintained a natural and organic system of raising vegetables and other crops. Still in poverty Despite the community-based enterprises they have started, the Ikalahan have remained poor, Balinhawang said. In some developed countries, people who maintain watersheds, which supply the water needs of lower communities, are given incentives and monetary rewards by their governments. Not in the Ikalahan community, whose well maintained watersheds and headwaters also supply the water needs of wealthier lowland communities in Central Luzon. Since 1994, the Ikalahan, through the Kalahan Educational Foundation, have explored the possibility of engaging in carbon trading. An American Protestant missionary, Rev. Dr. Delbert Rice, helped establish the foundation. At the same time, they have begun protecting another 10,000 hectares of forests for the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) project by the UN Environment Program (UNEP). The REDD, according to the UNEP, is designed to support countries “to develop best practices for avoided deforestation and forest carbon stock retention initiatives.” It encourages environmental and social safeguards through improving community livelihoods, conserving biodiversity and protecting water resources. As responsible stewards, Ikalahan folk harvest only a certain amount to help keep the balance in their ecosystems Published in Philippine Daily Inquirer August 25, 2010.