Farmers’ & Fisherfolk’s Actions To Protect

the Environment & Achieve Food Security

Orlando R. Ravanera

Center for Alternative Rural Technology (CART) 1

“We commit ourselves to a struggle for the expansion of participatory institutions and governance in all watersheds and ecosystems and at the planetary level to secure a just, equitable and sustainable world. People’s participation is the ultimate guarantee of justice and sustainability.”

4 Agenda Ya Wananchi

SOCIAL change seems elusive for those who have dreamt and struggled for it.  Political and economic structures in the Philippines, after almost two decades of martial law and two “people power” revolutions, have withstood the wind of change and remained formidable as ever. True, there have been a change of guards but the instruments of greed continue to breed poverty and social as well as ecological exploitation.

Now with social and environmental crises threatening the lethal combination of apathy and greed, civil society has stood up to become a countervailing force against all forms of ecological degradation. This time, nature joins the voices of the hungry and the helpless.  And this might just tip the balance, for nature’s wrath spares nobody – rich or poor, white or black, right or left.  A glimmer of hope flickers towards a new day.

But beware of the green palliatives, which emphasize the fish and the trees more than the communities, as if nature exists independent of people.  Do not be deceived by those who love to ride the crest of the environmental movement but protects the status quo.  For after-all, environmental issue is an issue of power. Environmental degradation will go on unabated until the current power structures, which sustain the greed of the few, are radically altered.

The people’s experience to win back the integrity of the ecosystems shows that environment is a political issue, which calls for no less than a transformational change through societal empowerment. And whether or not solutions are being applied will continue to rely on politics and policy, upon values and ethics, upon NGOs and their constituents and upon government and its leaders.

Putting Power In Its Rightful Place And To Leave It There Where It Belongs

The spontaneous development of a new strategy native to Philippine culture, called people power, has gained wide support from different sectors of society.  In its raw form, it is the exercise of inherent rights of the people to express their position on issues affecting their lives.

People power is non-violent and yet very effective.  It sets off a process of demanding accountability of government officials and of institutions, both private and public.  It also signals the level of political maturity of the people.

The difficulties in carrying out people power is not in its implementation but in the social preparation to a level where people realized that it is only they who can solve their own problems and the problems the society is facing.  To put it simply, it is not people power that is difficult but the process of empowering the people.

People Power to Stop the Philippine’s Accelerating Drive Towards Ecological Disaster

The Philippine Environment Scenario

The Philippines is facing an alarming ecological crisis, which unless soon averted will lead to an impending environmentally based ecological, economic and social collapse. Much of the country’s physical resources are already seriously depleted: only four million hectares or13% of the forest cover remains; seventy per cent of mangrove forest destroyed; forty per cent of watersheds seriously eroded; fifty per cent of fishery overfished,  degraded or polluted; and 75% of coral reefs severely damaged by destructive illegal fishing and siltation.

Ecological degradation of the Philippines could be traced to the country’s neo-colonial status. For 400 years until 1946, the Philippines had been an outright colony of imperial powers. And since 1946, we have lived as a neo-colony, a nation state sovereign and independent in theory, but so under the overwhelming influence of another as to be, in fact and effect, the latter’s colony.

Thus, when we gained our independence in 1946, the conditions and mechanisms of what would give way to the massive and systemic plunder of our natural resources by Trans-National Corporations and by the local elites were well entrenched in the national structure. It would just then be a matter of time when that beautiful paradise would become a lost Eden.

The issues of social and ecological injustice are inextricably linked and therefore need to be addressed simultaneously. Citing some of these issues will bring to the fore the direction we have to follow.

Ecological degradation in our country stems from the degradation of our sovereignty itself. It is but a logical consequence of our neo-colonial status, which has consigned our country to be exporter of cheap raw materials foremost of which, is timber. The Philippines in effect has been subsidizing the timber needs of developed countries.

Foreign debt problem further aggravates environmental degradation. Debt servicing alone eats up 43% of our national budget. This means we are paying 150 million pesos everyday for interest alone. In our frenzy to pay our debt, we relentlessly exploit our national resources. The results are devastating: timber exporting has denuded our forests, cash crops exports depended heavily on polluting pesticides and fertilizers, commercial fishing has destroyed coral reefs and mine tailings have polluted rivers and bays.

“The underlying cause of the environmental crisis can be largely attributed to a growth-centered development vision equating development with the output of goods and services despite the deprivation of our people’s livelihood, environmental destruction and depletion of our resource base,” as declared by a group of NGOs in Southeast Asia. “The resulting pattern of development only serves the consumerist lifestyles of foreign people and fellow citizens far beyond their share of the world’s natural resources. On the whole, development model introduced by the bilateral and multilateral agencies, which finance growth-oriented mega projects, filled the vast slums surrounding the cities, and added to the problem of hunger and worsening poverty.”

Today, even the fury of nature is upon us. The flash floods in Leyte brought about by deforestation which killed up to 8,000 people left a clear and resounding ecological warning: to heal the blighted land back to life or perish!

How do we then reverse this accelerating drift into ecological disaster?

The NGO Response

It is quite clear that a successful struggle for environmental protection and sustainable development could be waged only with the wholehearted and militant support of the people themselves as the task at hand calls for no less than the dismantling of the conditions responsible for ecological degradation and the widespread poverty of the people.  Real change will only be possible if people are mobilized and take the future in their own hands. NGOs and POs have a vital role to play in mobilizing the citizenry.

As articulator of the people’s vision and political will and as facilitator of empowerment, the non-government organizations are in the forefront of organizing the people who understand ecological degradation in its rawest forms. To them, destruction of ecosystems has meant dwindling fuelwood supplies, dried-up wells, polluted rivers, farms turning into wastelands, empty fishing grounds, drought and periodic flashfloods.

To carry forward the struggle for sustainable development, the people have to be conscienticized on development issues. And as the struggle heightens, the people’s consciousness on fundamental issues affecting the environment and development rises and develops which propels them to act. This movement from below creates the necessary ripples when these fundamental issues are advocated at different levels, a task, which has been done by the Philippine NGOs.

Investment in Human and Social Capital

THAT empowering process which comes in the form of community organizing geared towards increasing their capabilities, of increasing ecological awareness, of mobilizing their collective energies and of harnessing their potentials reeled-off in the communities in Mindanao where CART promotes community-based resource management.

Indeed, community-based resource management has come of age that has become a leading edge in sustainable  rural development as people are becoming increasingly in control and taking responsibility for their communities.  The lessons in project implementation has provided CART some interesting insights, the result of on-the-ground experience and fine-tuned with CART’s development workers’ continuing development discourse with multi-stakeholders.  A simple “building blocks” concept (shown below) exemplifies the outcome of the multi-disciplinary and holistic approach.  The communities’ greater participation in resource management has brought several concrete well-connected outcomes that are central to resource management.  The intangibles (creating new mindset and inculcating clear and coherent values) are the driving forces (KRAs) which are manifested in the sustainable resource management of the bio-physical units of the coastal zones.

Conscientization has broken the people’s apathy with the marginalized communities remaining no longer as passive recipients have but metamorphosing into active partners.  They have begun to assume the role of development actors after having been drawn into the mainstream of development work.

Massive information work proved to be effective in creating a collective consciousness sufficient to prod them into action to protect and nurture the environment’s productive resources. The “laderized” approach in training has paved the way to systematically develop their potentials, opening-up a floodgate of opportunities.

Through development of the human capital, the people’s choices are being enlarged through the formation of social capital.  By enlarging the communities’ options and capacities, they are put in the position to take on broader and holistic approach that considers the ecological, economics and local governance as “building blocks” of development.

All told, the work to develop the human as well as the social capital has paid off in terms of reversing the unsustainable pattern of resource use.  The shift in paradigm in resource management can be aptly presented in the diagram below:

The communities are now gaining access and control over their productive resources, shying away from the traditional legal concept that the ecosystem is res cumonis (no one owns but every one can use and even abuse) to reach a heightened level of consciousness with a high sense of ownership.  With that increasing degree of responsibility, they have stood-up to take the cudgels of being the environment’s vigilant caretakers

The shift in perspective from individualistic to collective, from a sense of powerlessness to a realization that binding together can make them a potent development force was the take-off point for them to scale the heights in environment protection.

The CART’s Experience in Environmental Protection

INDENTIFYING these crises in the area, NGOs and POs have taken bold steps to protect their environment and their livelihood. Cagayan de Oro became a ground for a new type of environmental movement engaged in organized non-violent streets actions, court cases, bantay-dagat patrols and people’s anti-logging checkpoints. These actions were integrated with the active organization of the poor communities, livelihood activities, agricultural extension services, and negotiations with agrarian rights and stewardship contracts.

Sometime in 1985, the CART was formed as an environmental action group in Cagayan de Oro City. It serves as an apex organization for about a hundred people’s organizations in Northern Mindanao. Its constituency includes over 88 coastal and 50 upland barangays, and 7 lumad tribal groups.

CART’s work is a living testimony of the people’s struggle against environmental destruction brought about by government’s neglect and other man-made activities. CART’s operations over the past five years was characterized by its ability to link environmental protests with affirmative action, in its effort to build a broad environmental constituency. They build partnerships among poor communities and with the city’s growing middle-class. They also deal with environmental issues as survival questions for the poor.

TASK FORCE MACAJALAR: CDO’s Multi-sectoral Coalition

IN 1991, CART initiated the creation of a multi-sectoral coalition called Task Force Macajalar (TFM). With a refurbished fishing boat, it conducts patrols against illegal fishing with the support of the fishing communities. TFM includes local journalists and correspondents for Manila-based dailies, community and sectoral organizations, and concerned citizens. It also sustains “open dialogue” and “critical collaboration” with the city and provincial governments; the local agencies and the government’s line agencies.

In 1992, Northern Mindanao was in the limelight when CART conducted its first mass mobilization. CART became instrumental for exposing the illicit logging trade and the full extent corruption in the government and military. Three hundred men, women and children for CDO’s poor farming communities set up the CART-led all-night vigil along Lumbia Airport Road, leading to the people’s confiscation of two illegal logging trucks and a pick-up, and the arrest of six logging workers. But the bias against environmental protection was manifested by the eventual release of the seized trucks and logs, and the continued government inaction. This however did not stop the people in setting up more people’s checkpoints, the occupation of DENR offices, documentation of illegal logging activities and negotiations with the DENR, the city and provincial government, the police and the military, and broader public education. They also conducted Earth Day public concerts and World Food Day activities to drumbeat their concern.

In March 1997, the public displayed once again their non-violent protect against this illicit trade. Over a thousand people took part in an overnight vigil, seized two illegal logging trucks and later occupied the main Cagayan-Iligan highway for three hours. Very recently, over 3,000 farmers, fisherfolk, students and professionals trooped the DENR office to deliver their concern and call for a dialogue with the government on April 22, 1998, Earth Day. But instead of honoring the people’s struggle, they were shutout by the DENR. The most recent affirmative actions against logging took place in 1999 which dramatically lasted for 5 months, mobilizing thousands of people to stop the flow if illegally cut logs.

In 1999, the fisherfolk and farmers had staged a five-month human barricade which led to the issuance of Congress of House Resolution 1508, requesting the President to issue an Executive Order to stop logging in Mindanao.

This year (2001), thousands of people gathered once more and for six months now, sustained the on-going people’s barricade as CART has commanded actions to recall the recently issued permits to cut a total volume of 40,000 cu. meters. To allow logging operations of this magnitude is virtually an ecological suicide. A harvest of this size will virtually wipe out all remaining biodiversity of Mindanao. A harvest of 40,000 cu. meters is enough to fill 4,000 logging trucks.

We were successful in getting the support of Secretaries Leonardo Montemayor and Heherson Alvarez as  they  requested for the  immediate  issuance of an Executive Order. Recently, all of the bishops of Mindanao signed a position paper supporting CART and its people organizations under Task Force Macajalar, appealing for the President to stop all logging activities now. These are some of the positive trends. The last defense to our vanishing biodiversity is people direct affirmative actions. The blockade has begun 17 April this year which has effectively stopped the flow of logs. 

Over the recent years, CART has also filed numerous court cases in behalf of public interest. Two key examples were against the Del Monte Canning Plant and the CCPC. Both were eventually closed down by the DENR, and allowed to resume only after imposing fines and installing waste treatment facilities. The CCPC case still continues to this day.

CART has continuously linked protest to positive action and initiated self-help activities, such as goat raising and cattle farming. They also engaged in land tenure improvement and court litigation. It has run programs under RMN’s DXCC and NBC’s DXCL, and recently started a four-hectare “Farmer’s Academy” in Brgy. Dansolihon, Cagayan de Oro city through its self-reliance activities.

Today, CART operates from an interlink network of barangay field offices willingly provided by barangay councils, and run by farmers and fisherfolk themselves. Among its numerous successes are: the awarding of 700 hectares in CDO, and 100 hectares in Valencia, Bukidnon to poor farmers; the awarding of CLOAs covering 147 hectares in the sugarlands of Valencia, Bukidnon; the documentation and litigation of cases against illegal loggers, polluting industries, and illegal fishing boat operators; the establishment of voluntary “people’s checkpoints” along the “logging roads” from Lanao and Bukidnon leading to CDO; and the implementation of the Coastal Resource Management Project of the Department of Agriculture for Macajalar Bay—by organizing fishing communities around the bay, and involving them in nightly “Bantay-Dagat” patrols against illegal fishing.

The CART, TFM and other “still-nameless” people’s movement in CDO and Northern Mindanao continue to operate amidst contradicting forces: armed threats and harassments arising from affected economic interests and political ambitions, on one hand, and the broad-based active support form a growing environmentally-conscious and active citizenry, on the other.

CART, together with other POs and NGOs affirm their continuing commitment as they pledge: “We, the people’s organizations, NGOs and communities around CDO have, over the past 8-10 years, taken great efforts to protect our livelihood, and to ensure food and basic services for our families and communities. At the beginning, we engaged in various forms of self-help. But later, we were forced to take on new roles in resource management, environmental protection, anti-logging and pollution, and even direct law enforcement. Today, we, the POs and NGOs are no longer just working for ourselves, but we provide concrete services for or larger communities and society as well, oftentimes performing duties that government itself should be doing, but has been neglecting.”

In closing, we would like to quote that, “like birds, the cloud ignores the frontiers and because today’s global problems call for a response on a planetary scale..... the earth brings all men and women together, without regard for geographical and ideological boundaries”

1 164 Puntod, Cagayan De Oro City, Philippines

Tel. No. (063-88-22) 710635, Fax No. (063-88-22) 710635, email: cart@webgate.com.ph