Forests, Farms, Fruits, & Flowers Forests, Farms, Fruits, & Flowers

I spent the eve of the Chinese New Year in the beautiful Garden by the Bay near our home here in Davao City and my thoughts were all about forests & farms & fruits. I was alarmed that the high tide of the new lunar moon covered to the brim the jetty for boats to a nearby beach across the Davao Gulf. Certainly, it is not due to the mythical water dragon of the lunar New Year but for sure it is another evidence of climate change. 

I am grappling about forests because my next advocacy is about reforestation. Anything that relates to policy, laws & development & disadvantaged communities are within my area of interests. Also during the week, I met with women informal settlers from the downtown coastal area of Davao City; they were women who have made homes in a sandbar in Isla Verde which grew out of siltation and mud from the denuded mountains of Davao City. I was so touched by their tale during Southwest monsoons ( Habagat). They said their belongings are always packed for quick evacuations in the event of strong storm surge. So, their dream is to be relocated to a safe place to be able to sleep soundly.

Oceans & mountains are so intimately related. In the case of resort islands with beaches, much of the garden is under the sea in its coral reef. The siltation and mud which flows during floods through its riverways to the sea will destroy the marine coral reefs and various marine fishes. Various communities will have to be taught the concept of Agro Forestry for their own sustainability and to preserve the tourism industry of the island cities. Also, since forests constitute a very small percentage of total land use in many of our islands, our water systems will not be sustainable.   

Can our farmers still have income if their farms are planted to forests? I recall now a line or so from P-NOY’s 2011 State of the Nation Address (SONA). The two words for environment were about trees and floods. A stipend program was proposed for the safeguarding of trees while farmers are waiting for the harvest of coffee and cacao and will be offered to informal settlers. For now, most farmers are very poor and they use few purchased inputs and adopt cultivation techniques which maximize current incomes. The agricultural practices of planting corn, vegetables, & other cash crops tend to be neglectful or destructive of the environment in particular and of soil cover in particular. There is convincing evidence, verifiable by ocular inspection that the long term implications are potentially very serious. They include both the direct loss of productive potential and thus the impoverishment of the already poor farmers who are dependent for their livelihood on farming in slopes.

I have seen one environment conservation technology worth replicating on a large scale in Mindanao : A Sloping Agricultural Land Technology ( SALT) to prevent soil erosion and siltation of marine corals, flooding, and gullying in water worn ravine. SALT has been a project of the Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center, whose former director, Harold Ray Watson was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award (“Asia’s Nobel “ ) for peace & international understanding and promoting this farm forestry project here and abroad. 

Slopeland areas, officially classified as those of a slope between 18% and 40% contain a third of all farmers in Mindanao. These slopeland areas are also exempt from agrarian reform.

This agro forest technology as practiced in a few pilot areas in Mindanao ( i.e. Bansalan, Davao del Sur, ) includes combinations of land shaping, terracing, contour ploughing, mulching or use of crop residues ; management of cropping patterns to increase soil cover; changes in tillage practices (especially reductions in tillage frequency); and especially introduction of forest species which reduce tillage requirements and help stabilize soil. The forest cover will preserve the water resources found in many parts of Mindanao. 

I recently passed by Bukidnon & Malaybalay on my way to Cagayan de Oro & I find again that many parts of Bukidnon are rockies and so trees will not grow on them. But, also, many parts of Malaybalay just before Cagayan de Oro are planted with cash crops such as pineapple and grains. Should we not also convert these to agro forests? Also alarming is that Marawi City, source of hydro- electric power supplying energy for Mindanao is already in need of serious reforestation. We found out that the landscape artist who developed Baguio City, a hill station, is the same landscape artist who designed another hill station that is Marawi City, during the colonial period. Both cities are now denuded, with Baguio much worst as a mall mania threatens the cutting of precious pine trees.

A decade and a half ago, I literally planted with my own hands almost a hundred trees and now it is a beautiful orchard & a forest: my legacy to the next generation.   

photo credits :
a) MSU Marawi City by Kim Loraine Castillo
b) Hagimit Waterfall and Forest by Leah Marie Moral