MOVIE classics of the late Fernando Poe Jr.depicted Muslim struggles against thebackdrop of pristine Mindanao. Today

Mindanao is still driven by conflict but its pristineenvironment is no more.

Mindanao—once described variously as ‘landof promise’, ‘land of plenty’, ‘food basket’— con-fronts enormous challenges to its environment.

Mindanao accounts for a third of the country’sagricultural output. Its mild climate and rich soil giveus a great variety of fruits and vegetables andsupply rice to city inhabitants within the island andaround the country.

In the latest National Forest Assessment(Acosta 2003), Mindanao accounts for 28.8 percentof the Philippine forests, compared to Luzon’s 59.2percent and the Visayas’s 12.0 percent.

Interestingly, the 2003 National Forest Assess-ment found that there has been some expansion offorest cover but forest composition and qualitycontinue to decline. This is true for the wholecountry as well as for Mindanao.

It should be noted that Mindanao is a majorsite of industrial tree plantations, which mightexplain why there’s some increase in forest coverdespite the officially admitted failure of logging bans(cf. UN- FAO ROAP 2001).

This huge southern island group was once a‘cowboy economy’ of sorts, where there’s so muchopen space for settlement and colonization.

Mindanao might have now exhausted its ecologicalcarrying capacity as its once expansive frontier hasreached its limit. The situation is best typified by therare Philippine eagle that has run out of place to hide.

Since the 1950s the region has been absorb-ing waves of settlers from different parts of thecountry, from the Visayan islands, the rebellion-racked Central Luzon, and even from as far north asthe Ilocos region. Massive migration has intensifiedcompeting claims over land and other naturalresources.

Big agribusiness corporations, like Del Monteand Dole, introduced the plantation economy andtransformed the region’s subsistence economy andsmallholder agriculture. Large enclosures requiredby plantation-type farming crowded out demand forland. It caused massive displacement and dispos-session for many small farmers hired as workers ofthe multinational companies or who becamelandless peasants.

The plantation economy hardly caught atten-tion when space and environmental degradationwere not yet on the table. The whole situationchanged when Moro separatist movements, com-munist rebels, peasant organizations and theirchurch allies raised landlessness as a major justiceissue.

People also started to realize the effects of afarming technology focused on a few cash cropsdestined mainly for export, and highly dependent on

Nature Exploitation andProtection in Mindanao

Isagani R. Serrano

Mindanao forest cover (2003) by canopy density (in has.) by region

Source: Romeo T. Acosta, State of Philippine Forests: The National Forest Assessment of 2003.

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Region Closed Canopy Open Canopy Forest Plantation Mangrove (Natural) Total % of Country

Total

ARMM 106,319 96,661 1,580 45,786 250,346 3%

Region 9 29,652 126,790 3,474 22,279 182,195 3%

Region 10 107,071 226,400 1,530 2,492 337,493 5%

Region 11 177,503 240,986 536 2,010 421,035 6%

Region 12 126,385 218,858 2,641 1,350 349,234 5%

Region 13 64,729 431,832 - 26,731 523,292 7%

Total 2,063,595 29%

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the use of heavy and high-technology machineryand massive doses of chemical fertilizers, pesticidesand herbicides. Soil degradation, land compaction,depletion and contamination of surface and groundwater became widespread.

As in a gold rush, logging and mining corpora-tions came in droves to Mindanao and created theirown enclaves there like the big plantation companiesdid. In many parts of Mindanao, especially in theSurigao and Agusan provinces in the CARAGA region,we now see vast tracts of denuded forests andwasteland around decommissioned mining plants.

Under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration,Mindanao is once again the main target location fora policy-directed resurgence of mining operations.

Mindanao has been ushered into modernitywith the construction of huge energy and infrastruc-ture development projects, like big hydroelectricdams. It used to be that an inconsequential townlike Gingoog in Misamis Oriental would pass for acity, even with only a minimal built-up around its tinypoblacion. Today much of mainland Mindanao iscircumscribed and crisscrossed by superhighwaysdating back to the 1970s.

Yet along with this process of modernizationone finds extremes of wealth and poverty. On oneend of the social divide are big plantation owners,timber, mining, construction and services compa-nies. On the other end, one sees landless peasants,

factory and plantation workers, tribal Filipinos andordinary Muslims.

Mindanao gave so much of its resources tothe nation and got little in return. Neglect by centralgovernment is most pronounced in this part of thecountry.

Many of the poorest provinces in the Philip-pines who will most likely fail to achieve the targetsset in the Millennium Development Goals are to befound in this island.

Since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio we havewitnessed a leap in environmental awareness in thecountry. The Philippines was among the firstcountries which translated the Rio agreements (RioDeclaration, Agenda 21, conventions on climatechange and biodiversity and statement on forestprinciples) into a comprehensive national plan—thePhilippine Agenda 21. And being among the earlybirds, the country was also among the first benefi-ciaries of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF)that emerged out of that summit. As one of theworld’s environmental “hot spots” the Philippineswas top priority in GEF funding for biodiversityconservation.

Half of the Philippines’ 10 priority areas forbiodiversity conservation funded by the GEF arefound in Mindanao. These are the Siargao Islandsand the Agusan Marsh in the CARAGA or Region 13;Mount Apo in the Davao and Cotabato provinces of

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Region 11; Mount Kitanglad in Bukidnon in Region10; and the Turtle Islands in Tawi-tawi of theAutonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or ARMM.

The case studies and brief accounts presentedhere are part of the overall environmental protec-tion and conservation efforts by various groupsaround Mindanao. The cases are by no meanscomplete and representative. But they should providea sense of what’s happening at the local level andhow local initiatives boost overall efforts to save andsustain Mindanao’s threatened environment.

One case study looks at the impact of coastalresource management initiatives on the local com-munity and coastal resources. It describes andexamines the many years of experience of a Morofishing community organization, the SaranganiBangsa Moro Affiliates (SBMA). It tells of how SBMAhas been enabled by partner NGOs, like theTambuyog Development Center, to exercise theirshare of sovereignty over a common propertyresource and to build a comanagement regime inparts of Sarangani Bay in SOCSARGEN or Region 11.

An interesting part of this experience is thepractical demonstration of the principles of Commu-nity-Based Coastal Resource Management (CBCRM),a new mode or approach in conservation andmanagement of natural resources. The principlesinclude people/community empowerment, equity,sustainability, ecosystems orientation and genderequality.

The difficult job of protecting biodiversity inthe mining and logging region of Mindanao wasfeatured in the articles of environmental activistsand NGO workers Bona Abigail Hilario and Ma.Theresa C. Jabon. Both belong to the Convergencefor Community-Centered Area Development (CON-VERGENCE), a coalition of NGOs which comanaged,together with Spanish NGO partner IPADE, a stringof conservation projects in the CARAGA region.

Funded from Spanish development assistance,the CONVERGENCE program was about setting upcommunity-managed ecotourism and livelihoodinfrastructure. This entailed building broad-basedcooperation and partnership between the indig-enous peoples (IPs) and their NGO partners and thelocal governments. Experience proved that this wasa difficult task in light of growing conflict generatedby the impending mining operations in the region.Already, the areas have seen the massive displace-ment of local and indigenous communities dueapparently to conflict between the military andcommunist insurgents. Campaigns hyping the plightof indigenous peoples extended beyond the programareas. An example is the campaign timed with theannual Lakbayk-Tribo, a nationwide biking tourinvolving young IPs.

Martiniano L. Magdolot, executive director ofMahintana Foundation based in South Cotabato,tells the story of a project on resource mobilizationfor forest protection. The project involved theprotection of Mount Matutum, a forest reserve insoutheastern Mindanao. The case talks of projectexperiences in the broad-based mobilization ofvarious resource actors and suggests ways ofintegrating conservation with local governance.

Tomasito Villarin of SIMCARRD, an NGO advocat-ing agrarian reform and rural development, describesthe history and operation of an ecological enterprise forfishing communities in Governor Generoso, DavaoOriental. The project aims to strengthen the organiza-tional capacity of small-scale fishers for managingcoastal resources, and to promote food security throughincome-generating activities, fair trade and environ-ment-friendly fishing practices.

In all, the case studies speak of varied storiesabout resistance as well as partnerships for envi-ronmental conservation being undertaken by localcommunities, indigenous peoples, Moro people,NGOs, local authorities and a number of otherplayers. They tell about how local communities,especially those of indigenous people and rural poor,are struggling against odds to protect their environ-ment, sustain their livelihood and preserve theirtraditional cultures.