The chief mission of NATRIPAL is inextricably linked to liberation from poverty and powerlessness of the indigenous people in Palawan and the denial of their rights over their territories obstructs the distinct manner of life. Our main thrust since inception first is on security of tenure for our indigenous bothers along the countryside because we believe that access to land rights and the security of these rights is fundamental to the concept of sustainable development. Land is the primary source of wealth, social status, power, basis for shelter, food, and economic activities. Access to water and other resources, as well as to basic services such as sanitation and electricity, is often c... read more The chief mission of NATRIPAL is inextricably linked to liberation from poverty and powerlessness of the indigenous people in Palawan and the denial of their rights over their territories obstructs the distinct manner of life. Our main thrust since inception first is on security of tenure for our indigenous bothers along the countryside because we believe that access to land rights and the security of these rights is fundamental to the concept of sustainable development. Land is the primary source of wealth, social status, power, basis for shelter, food, and economic activities. Access to water and other resources, as well as to basic services such as sanitation and electricity, is often conditioned by access to rights in land.The Philippine Government's conflicting policies, capacity gaps and uncertain commitment to address IP marginalization have contributed towards low public regard for the said law and in defending indigenous people rights that had been habitually denied. Despite the enactment of Republic Act 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997, a great number of indigenous communities have yet to know the nuances of the law and the benefitsit may bring. The indigenous people are the genuine forest stewards and protectors of their ancestral domain and there had been community actions to address forest deforestation and degradation, however their community actions aiming to address these threats just arrive to a losing end. Without formal ownership of their land, such as the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT), they always find themselves in the losing end since they do not have legal documents that endow them with the right to care for and protect their lands. And to realize this, we had provided technical assistance on ancestral domain claims titling process to the IP communities and enable them to exercise their right to self-governance (pursuant to RA8371 or the IPRA (Indigenous Peoples Rights Act) Law. The security of title (CADT) will result into lower incidence of land grabbing, displacement, encroachment, and illegal intrusion of non-IPs. With the tenure, the IPs can freely exercise their cultural practices and tradition without prejudice for conservation and promotion of the overall well-being of the indigenous communities. Our second mission is to strengthen their capacity as forest stewards of their ancestral domain. Thus, this capacity building component also takes cognizance of improving their organizational structures, management systems and administrative procedures. Hence, we provide technical assistance in the conduct of periodic planning, audit and review of institutional activities and performance towards improved organizational management structures gearing towards self-reliance of local associations as it serves as a catalytic role in promoting IP rights and their importance in sustainable natural resource management. We mobilized the community participants to undergo training on various topics that will equip them with the necessary knowledge, skills and practices in fulfilling their duties as forest and biodiversity stewards and in asserting their rights as indigenous people. This component will ensure that new skills and technologies support IKSPs in enhancing ecological processes and protecting biodiversity in the target sites. NATRIPAL hopes that its conservation actions will be at a level of standards acceptable to both national and global measures. We also support efforts to gather systematic ethnographic data about gender in the cultural settings of member IP communities to determine the degree of gender stratification. Data are used to develop advocacy plan for gender mainstreaming. While numerous numbers of women are already actively participating in its activities and even and hold leadership position in their local associations, there is still a dearth of information generated so far as gender and land tenure issues are concerned. It remains a paradox that though indigenous peoples are known to be responsible for the conservation of forests today, it is the newcomers who benefit from these efforts. In this field, NATRIPAL, with their legal expertise and advocacy works on assisting organized communities in the development of comprehensive management plans to ensure balanced utilization of resources within ancestral domain areas. With the guide of a well planned ADSDPP we can ensure good and sustainable resource management Technical assistance on preparation of management plans called ADSDPP are given to communities with ancestral domain claims through the use of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) technique, through which various details are documented. Ancestral Domain Sustainable Development and Protection Plan (ADSDPP) also outline the policies prevalent in the community to balance utilization and conservation of these resources, as well as the people's customary beliefs and practices. The details include the system used by the indigenous communities in managing their natural resources, that are within their ancestral domain. Coupled with the realization of the importance of Natripal's organizational sustainability, it started to manage its own enterprise with the end objective of making it sustainable to continue its advocacy initiatives in strengthening the community for their rightful claims of their ancestral domain and increased family income through livelihood out of non-timber forest products. NATRIPAL acts as consolidator of their produce and directly sells it to the market. In this way, the community are protected from unscrupulous traders that take advantage of the IP's lack of awareness in the conduct of doing livelihood activity. The almaciga enterprise encountered a lot of quality issues in the community as well as supply limitation. Although it was not able to penetrate big institutional company, we had penetrated various market segments and all we need is working capital to revitalize the social enterprise. The regulated utilization of resources and equal access to them for the people most dependent upon them are crucial challenges that need to be addressed and the sustainable income stream is hereby provided. Continued market access will mean sustainable income source for them that will allow them to have means to support at least their basic needs. We become the overall market consolidator for the community chosen enterprise such as almaciga and honey and to ensure full community participation, we provide community trainings on leadership and enterprise management that includes proper management of forest products, site preparation, permit and licensing. We have devolved a management system in the community that the local project management team consolidates products from gatherers a have a gradual withdrawal upon seeing dependency. We also see to it the continuous market for the community products and ensure prompt payment of these products delivered to NATRIPAL. We are also entailed to maintain their cultural values that are gradually degrading especially some of the elders were dying without transferring their indigenous knowledge system and practices to their next of kin so that there would be continuity. Our lobby and advocacy efforts had gain very fruitful with the integration of mother tongue to the curriculum of pupils. We have also partnership with the National Commission on Culture and Arts regarding this matter and indeed it is a good convergence. For our last mission is health, we had been diligent in our campaign on health and sanitation in partnership with the Department of Health. We had encouraged our rural health units to provide trainings for our tribal health workers that serve as our partners on the ground. We encountered also some difficulties in changing mindset and beliefs of our indigenous brothers when it comes to sanitation practices that they were not used to.
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