The plan to lift the logging ban up here in the Cordillera is over my head. My confusion springs from previous policies to balance the “sustainability” of this mountain region as a vital watershed cradle of Luzon with the need to utilize its natural wealth to spur national economic progress, vis-à-vis the imbalance against its own development as the nation’s resource base.
State forestry laws ban cutting of trees situated from 1,000 meters above sea level and beyond. Most of the unique Cordillera pine stands and all of the mossy forests above them are within that prohibitive elevation. The law of the land also prohibits titling of land 18 degrees in slope and over. The ancient Ifugao rice terraces and many other ancestral lands up here in the mountains naturally fall within that angle.
These policies were dictated to preserve this watershed cradle from denudation, and erosion dictated the tree cutting ban and the slope-based land ownership restriction. Water flowing out of here is the lifeblood of lowland farms in Regions 1 and 2. Water from these regions run the turbines of dams producing electric power to run industries, light up streets and condition the air in homes in urban centers like Metro Manila.
These policies also restricted the access of tribal communities to resources within their midst and which, for generations, they depended on for their survival and livelihood.
On the other hand, these prohibitions did not cover massive corporate extraction of the Cordillera's mineral wealth. Commercial tree cutting permits were issued to prop up the mining industry that extracted gold, silver and copper deposits that added to the scarring of the environment through erosion, ground subsidence, chemical contamination, water depletion, and river siltation. Environmental sacrifice was needed for mining to boost our dollar reserves and the national economy.
Catering Company Manhattan
Cutting readily available pine for tunnel timbering was only practical, both in terms of cost savings and safety. Seasoned miners of the Cordillera, some of whom again figured recently in the rescue of people entombed inside collapsed buildings during recent denudation-triggered floods soil erosions, know that pine logs are the best for tunnel timbering. Unlike tropical wood species, the pine does not easily give way to the weight of the mine tunnel ceiling. When it does, it gives a cracking sound that serves as an early warning for miners to escape before the cave-in.
home drinking water purification systems
Long before state policies covering watershed and forest management were formulated, indigenous peoples of the Cordillera already had institutionalized their own, in harmony with the natural environment that also dictated the development of indigenous culture. They did not have, and still do not have a term for it, but the Igorots were into ‘sustainable development’ centuries before the term emerged out of the 1992 World Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
A watershed functions by slowing down the flow of water so that it can seep into the ground and be stored by nature’s aquifers, ready and available for year-round use, instead of flooding or immediately discharging into the rivers and into the seas and leaving us dry until the rainy season comes. The ancient Ifugao ‘muyong’ or family-owned and managed tree stands and the rice terraces that they irrigate below serve that purpose.
Similar models of sustainable development were developed over the centuries by other indigenous peoples in the Cordillera long before government intervention arrived. The Bontocs in central Mt. Province have their tayan, as those in Sagada, Besao and other western parts of the province have their lakun, saguday and batangan systems of managing their pine forests, as the Isnegs of Abra have their lapat. More than modern “sustainable development” practices, these sustained the Cordillera as watershed cradle of the lowlands.
For all intents and purposes, these indigenous practices are the original models of community-based forest management (CBFM) and sustainable development. Ironically, these time-honored and tested systems remain unrecognized. While new forms of CBFM are being developed and supported, state forest policies continue to clash with the indigenous practices in resource ownership, use and management.
Imposition of state policy without cultural sensitivity contributes to the erosion of the watershed cradle and the indigenous cultural fabric that were the key to their conservation. Community involvement in, say, forest fire suppression, used to be spontaneous, until villagers woke up one morning to be told that the fire-prone pine stands they inherited, maintained and planted over the generations, were no longer theirs with the stroke of the pen on a statute.
Given the conflict between tribal and state laws, some Igorots have turned to the “legal” modes of resource acquisition and ownership. Legal pluralism undermines tradition and complicates inter-village feuds (some of which recently deteriorated into armed conflicts) which are best resolved through tribal ways of settling things.
Within these contexts, lifting the log ban here can either exacerbate the problems of the Cordillera or serve to anchor the need to rectify historical inequity in the allocation of benefits from the exploitation of its resources.
At best, the prohibition should stay on commercial logging, for only the rich and influential can undertake and benefit from it. The permits can be issued on a limited scale, and to the traditional owners of these forest resources for their own needs, whether it be to cook their food or build and light their houses or sustain their furniture and handicraft business.
These points, however obvious they are, had been glossed over and given fleeting attention only when Igorots decide to take up arms and fight for what remains of their homeland. This region had sacrificed more than enough and for so long in the name of national development. The time to exploit its remaining resources for its own development is also obviously long overdue.
Selective logging for Cordillerans can pave the way for the deliverance of their six provinces that, despite their natural wealth, belong to Club 20 of the country’s poorest.
These points are being voiced out time and again like shouts in the remaining Cordillera wilderness.
