Join IP Children & Elders Replant 1000 Trees

The summer heat this year in the Philippines is reaching 40 to 45 degrees and looks to be the new normal.  The El Nino predicted to be long is feared to dry up large  vegetations making these susceptible to forest fires.  Recently , in Northern Philippines where we have sustained a community reforestation  effort with indigenous elders and children, dozens of forest fires have occured.   

Just this April in the Province of Apayao Northern Philippines,  a forest fire broke out in Mt. Sicapoo as reported by the Northern Dispatch News (see photo) .  The local government has halted tourist influx momentarily into this area to secure safety of trekkers as more forest fires are happening.   It's been reported that 16 more baraggays (villages) in this Province alone was hit  by fires in April alone.    The local government together with the Municipal Environment and Natural Resources and the Bontoc Fire Protection Office recently held a meeting on how to prevent fires and containing these in events that this would happen. 

It is fortunate that our local community, the Lapat Farmers Association in Nabuangan Conner Apayao where forest planting are on going was spared from the fires' reach.   We hope there will be no more incidents such as this to occur.  To prepare any eventualities, the community organization  included  forest fire incidents  in their agenda in there recent organizational assembly and discussed measures to secure their watershed when forest fires break out and may hit their sancturies. 

The community admitted this to be a daunting tasks.  At the same time they are very much aware that doing nothing  would not help as damage might be irreversible.  All their efforts of planting trees  will be lost and may affect severely their communities.  They are dependent on the forest for stable water supply especially  from rivers where they source water for rice crop irrigation and for their microhydro power system that provides them with electricity

As they are faced with this threat every year, they strenghten resolve to observe faithfully their "Lappat System".  This is their indigenous customary laws to protect their natural resources like forest and water by enforcing its provisions. Among these is prohibition of indescrimante cutting of trees, doing "kaingin" of slash and burn cropping where they clear certain areas and prepre these for planting in the coming rainy season.  Most importantly is continuing their communty effort to regulalry plant trees from outgrowths of endemic species in areas that are denuded.  They do this little by little, tagetting  a few hundred square meters one at a time given the far distances of the areas to be covered.  

SIBAT also plans to include in its future trainings school involvement.  We hope to expand formally participation of children in the planting effort and educate them of the importance of trees to combat climate change. 

We  will also  reach out to the local government in the area and consult on their policies and plans as regards forest protection, and concrete measures in forest conservation.  We thank you for continually supporting these efforts and hope we will also expand this intiative not only here in Nabuangan Lapat but in other areas where we are implementing energy projects. 

We hope to update later a more dedicated effort from communities to address these concerns.  In all we thank you for helping us in your capacity to contribute to forest conservation...an action we need to implement as we grapple with local impact of climate problems affecting subsistence indigenous  communties. 

Thank you very much !