The inaugural year of the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) project in Mt. Kalatungan in Talakag, Bukidnon recently celebrated its project milestones for what has been deemed an “emerging financial tool for environmental conservation.”
Datu Rio received the 1st check from XU Science Foundation for PES by MILALITRA in Mt Kalatungan
Built on research and community collaborations, the rehabilitation project has introduced to Northern Mindanao a market-oriented “rewards mechanism” with a “seller” who protects and provides ecosystem services to a “buyer” who reaps the benefits from “intangible” products.
“PES was and still a big challenge because it’s very difficult to convince people to pay for environmental services,” notes Raoul T.Geollegue, senior technical consultant of Relief International – Enterprise Works Worldwide Philippines (RI-EWWP), one of the lead partner institutions for this project.
“There is a disconnect between what we consider forest goods and services. Our mindset is that we pay for goods, but not for something that is not concrete, like fresh air,” Geollegue added.
The Miarayon–Lapok–Lirongan–
P.E.S. was officially launched on May 21, 2014 with leaders and representatives from public and private institutions. After a month, the first wave of project implementation and tree-planting activities took off for the pilot three-hectare area.
The first-year harvest
Mt. Kalatungan is among 18 protected areas provided with PES technical and management assistance by public and private groups. With its diverse species of flora and fauna, it was identified as part of a “Terrestrial Biodiversity Corridor,” the Kitanglad-Ligwasan Corridor, in the Greater Mindanao biogeographic region with “extremely high critical” conservation priority.
In his presentation during the “Modalities, Practices and Experiences in the Implementation of PES” forum on July 17, 2015, Xavier Science Foundation (XSF) executive director Roel R. Ravanera said that the pilot year of PES in Mt. Kalatungan has yielded a “very encouraging” result.
PES Launch & MOA Signing
“Different sectors and groups have shown their support in this project since we launched it in May 2014,” Ravanera recounted. “Over the past year, we were able to gather Php1.3M, which is a very encouraging response from the people of Cagayan de Oro City despite the difficulties of selling ecosystem services.”
“The 3-hectare pilot phase was funded by the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) to make it easier for the project holder to promote the PES Mt. Kalatungan Project to potential buyers,” said Lordilie Enjambre, MinDA Development Management Officer for Northern Mindanao. “We are already mobilizing our other regional offices– the Area Management Offices in Caraga, Western Mindanao, South Central Mindanao, and Davao to implement PES projects following our success in Northern Mindanao.”
XSF acts as the fund manager for the PES project in Mt. Kalatungan. The fund will be used to implement the 5-year development master plan of MILALITTRA for environmental protection, cultural preservation, youth development, and education and health services.
MOA signing on Mindanao Bgy StrTREEgic Forest Project
The group’s Community Development Plan (CDP) targets to reforest 832 hectares, of which 816 will be used for agro forestry within their ancestral domain.
“The forest is an extension of our identity as a tribe,” MILALITTRA leader Datu Dungkoan “Rio” Besto said in the vernacular. “We are committed and we will do our tasks in protecting and preserving the environment of Mt. Kalatungan to ensure that we deliver our part of this project.”
A champion of environmental conservation, Datu Rio (whose name means “river,”) is optimistic that this endeavor would help develop and preserve their culture.
“This project is not just for the present generation but also for the future of our tribe,” he added.
MILALITTRA also looks forward to the construction of their tulugan (a sacred place for community dialogues and rituals) and providing incentives for the Bantay Lasang volunteers using the income and support generated from PES.
The shadows of Sendong
The destruction wrought by Tropical Storm Sendong (international name: Washi) in December 2011 was a shocking revelation to the people of Cagayan de Oro who once promoted the region as “typhoon-free”.
“Sendong was very traumatic for Cagayan de Oro City,” Ravanera expressed. “We need to really work together in hope that we can mitigate such disasters in the future.”
Based on the flood maps produced by the XU – Engineering Resource Center (ERC) in coordination with national and international research organizations, most of the water and silt which ravaged the city originated from the headwater of the Cagayan River tributaries in Bukidnon.
PES now seeks to bring together the communities from the downstream and highlands of the region to provide the ecological services aimed at preventing floods in catchment areas like CDO.
“The people who contributed to this PES were the ones who experienced T.S. Sendong so it was easy for them to relate,” Ravanera said.
To ensure the project’s sustainability, Ravanera said the stakeholders need to meet the challenges of getting the trust and confidence of the buyers, ensuring the delivery of results and services, and providing efficient management.
As PES faces its next year, the issue of sustainability has been stressed by the key players of this project. PES in Mt. Kalatungan has been listed a priority project supported by the Cagayan de Oro River Basin Management Council (CDORBMC) which hopes to get the support of the local government units in Region 10 by making it part of their environmental policies.
Del Monte Foundation, Inc. (DMFI) has committed P1.25M worth of endemic seedlings for the project during the ceremonial signing of a memorandum of agreement last July 17.
The VEST posts and hashtags
To mainstream the principles of PES and raise awareness among Kagay-anons to encourage their participation in the fund drive to reforest Mt. Kalatungan, Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan, through its Research and Social Outreach (RSO) and McKeough Marine Center (MMC), launched the Valuing Ecosystem Services Together (VEST) campaign in November 2014.
VEST Seal of Green Excellence
“After the grand launch, VEST has produced more IEC materials and conducted a lot of activities to promote the importance of working together for PES,” said VEST social marketing supervisor Evans I.Yonson, a Development Communication professor at XU.
“We applied different social media strategies to invite people to our events and encourage them to inVEST in nature using catchy hashtags such as #VESTfriendofNature, #inVESTinNature and #50ShadesofGreen,” he added.
The social marketing team along with volunteers from XU will visit Miarayon on July 31 to distribute water jugs to schoolchildren as part of the “Jug for Education” project of VEST. The team is also producing a photo book chronicling the journey of this campaign, which will be launched during the ceremonial turnover of management of this environmental campaign to the XU – Center of Communication for Development (CC4D).
In a span of one year, VEST has built a network of student volunteers, conducted school orientations, produced two albums of songs about conservation, organized speaking engagements and film festivals about the PES project and collaborated with different organizations for local and global environmental celebrations.
“With these milestones, we can see that it was already a good start,” Yonson said. “The VEST journey continues because caring for Mother Nature doesn’t stop.” (Text by contributed by Stephen J Pedroza| XU Communications Office)
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