A group of indigenous people (IP) in Bataraza, Palawan, may soon become local biodiversity heroes by planting high-value crops—cassava and ube (yam)—while acting as protectors of Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape (MMPL) against environmental crimes in their ancestral lands.
Members of the Kusor Upland Farmers’ Association (Kufa), a duly registered association with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), are now learning how to make their ancestral land more productive.
Kufa, in partnership with the Municipal Agriculture Office of Bataraza, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Community Environment and Natural Resource Office (Cenro), Lutheran World Relief, and Philippine Root Crops Institute of the Visayas State University is getting the much-needed boost from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through its Protect Wildlife Project.
The group has established a 1-hectare demo farm for cassava and ube to improve and make sustainable the production of high-value commodities.
The demonstration farm has a multipurpose shed courtesy of USAID Protect Wildlife Project and is serving as a training venue for community members and as production area for other crops for improved planting materials.
The USAID-Lutheran intervention in Bataraza aims to develop community enterprises in the multiple-use zones or production areas of MMPL and public lands of the five local government units (LGUs) in southern Palawan.
While Kufa was still starting, both as an organization and as a conservation enterprise, the members are optimistic of having the right market linkage for their produce.
Prior to joining the association, Kufa members have already been engaged in upland farming, with banana as their primary crop and source of income.
Many IP in Palawan are also known to plant root crops, such as sweet potato and cassava, upland rice and corn for food subsistence.
The Protect Wildlife-supported livelihood activity, to increase their income, then introduced vegetable farming, which was participated in mostly by women, both for selling and food subsistence.
With the introduction of vegetable, improved variety of cassava, and ube as additional crops for farming, both in the demonstration farm allotted for Kufa’s livelihood activity and in the members’ farmlands, members now have diverse sources of income and are not dependent on one type of crop only.
Kufa currently gets material support of mainly farm inputs from different sources, including vegetable seeds that were bought from commercial sellers and cassava cuttings for the next planting season taken from the previous season’s harvest.
On the other hand, ube planting materials are provided for by Sunlight Foods who has invested in Kufa through its contract-growing scheme.
Rubenita Once, 52, president of Kufa, said last year, they started learning best practices in cassava and ube farming in Cebu and Tacloban, Leyte, last December.
The 55-strong Kufa is dominated by women with 42 women members.
Once, or Aling Inday to her members, used to be the wholesaler of IP members’ produce, which she, in turn, brought to the town’s trading center.
“Before, our members are mere housewives. Their primary job is taking care of their children. Now, as members of Kufa, they get to earn from upland farming,” she said.
According to Once, IPs have indigenous knowledge in upland farming, but the slash-and-burn method is no longer allowed in Bataraza.
“From this batch of ube, after harvesting, members of Kufa will be given planting materials for them to use and continue planting. Sunlight Foods will buy all our products from this demo farm, and soon, the produce of our members in their respective farms, too,” Once said.
She said planting ube and cassava, in a way, will help protect and conserve Mount Mantalingahan with the help of IPs instead of them cutting trees and hunting threatened species.
MMPL, which is named after Mount Mantalingahan, is the first protected area in Palawan. Its area is shared by five LGUs, including Bataraza.
A key biodiversity area (KBA), it is one of the 10 sites for the Alliance for Zero Extinction in the Philippines and one of the 11 important bird areas in Palawan.
Most of the threatened and restricted-range birds of the Palawan Endemic Bird Area are in this protected area. MMPL is critical for providing various ecosystem services that benefit the local communities.
The Total Economic Value of Mount Mantalingahan is estimated to be worth $5.8 billion. These ecosystem services include water, soil conservation, flood control, carbon sequestration, nontimber forest products, and the high potential of waterfalls, caves and other areas for tourism.
MMPL has a total of 33 watersheds making it a vital source of water in southern Palawan.
Mount Mantalingahan is also the source of income and livelihood of many upland-dwellers. Slash-and-burn farming has become rampant on the mountain, aggravating occasional timber poaching and hunting of threatened species like the talking mynah and blue-naped parrot, which are popular pets even among the locals.
By introducing a better source of income or livelihood, the USAID Protect Wildlife Project partners hope to reduce the human pressure on Mount Mantalingahan.
For every sack of ube a member produces, Once said a member is assured of P300 additional income. Extra income from cassava or vegetable they chose to plant in their farms will improve their livelihood.
This, Once said, is a big help for members whose family sometimes have only cassava or root crop to share on the table.
“At USAID-Protect Wildlife Project, we are introducing behavioral-change communication. This is a different approach to environmental campaigns. We are introducing it in Palawan. We have trained LGUs staff and local campaigners on this approach in promoting positive change and behavior that will contribute to better conservation actions,” said Lawrence San Diego, communications manager of Protect Wildlife in southern Palawan USAID-Protect Wildlife.
At Kufa, San Diego said a multi-faceted approach was applied for improved conservation action.
“Protecting the forest and stopping illegal wildlife trade is a livelihood issue. We cannot just tell them to stop hunting birds without offering alternative livelihood,” he said.
Members of Kufa, he said, are trained and provided an alternative source of income, to discourage them from hunting wildlife or practicing destructive agriculture, such as slash-and-burn farming.
Image credits: Jonathan L. Mayuga
1 comment
hello sir
my name are chidi prince ozurigbo how are you, please i want to know type of cassava crop we have to day,I will also need to how may product are uses of cassava.thank you chidi