In Pangasinan, community strives to save rain forest
MANGATAREM, Pangasinan—Dominador Gagaza, 77, remembers that in his youth, the forest in his hometown of Mangatarem, Pangasinan, was a lush jungle that would have been a perfect home for the fictional character Tarzan.
“It was thick with old, towering trees with clinging vines. There were springs, waterfalls and a river full of big rocks. Wildlife was abundant—boars, birds like kalaw (hornbill) and woodpecker, ducks, monkeys,” Gagaza says.
Ernesto Briones, 72, agrees. “Even in the 1960s when I was new in the town, the neighboring towns of Aguilar and Bugallon were still thickly forested. But logging had decimated most of the forests, and now we only have this place,” says Briones, who is originally from Tarlac.
Briones is referring to the Manleluag Spring Protected Landscape (MSPL), a 1,935-hectare national park which is part of the 13,863.61-ha forest of Mangatarem.
The tropical rainforest comprises 44.7 percent of the town’s total land area and is Pangasinan’s largest remaining forest. It is listed as an “important biodiversity area” (IBA) by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
But like most IBAs, the MSPL is threatened by conversion, encroachment and forest fires. Gazaga and Briones admit that many residents themselves had contributed to its destruction.
“We were forest dependents. We did not know that we had to care for the woodland. There was hunting for wild animals, there was poaching, there was collection of trees for wood and charcoal. There was burning of areas for deer hunting,” says Gazaga, a member of the MPSL management board.
“But now we know better and we are helping in protecting the forest. The problems are still there, but no longer as rampant as before,” says Briones.
The MPSL is Mangatarem’s pride, Mayor Teodoro Cruz says. “We are helping in protecting it by not allowing logging there,” he says.
But it is still a long way before the entire community cooperates in protecting and bringing back the forest to its once glorious state, says Augusto Bautista, superintendent of the protected area.
Apathetic
“Many are still apathetic and it may take a while before they finally realize that everyone should help in forest protection,” he says,
Local officials say they are doing their best to get the people’s cooperation—one organization at a time.
Several peoples’ organizations (POs) have been tapped by the DENR for seedling production to expand the forest area. These include the Kabalikat ng Manleluag sa Pangangalaga ng Kalikasan (Kamapaka), which Briones heads, and the Nagkakaisang Mangangalaga ng Catarataraan sa Pangangalaga ng Kalikasan (Namacapaka).
These were organized by the Haribon Foundation Inc. for its Golden Forests (Governance and Local Development for Endangered Project), a five-year project that aims to “protect tropical rain forests by reducing the rate of deforestation in IBAs in the Philippines.”
The POs used to collect “wildlings” (saplings or young trees gathered in the wild) which they pot until it was time to transfer them to the forest. But collecting saplings has been prohibited so residents gather seeds to grow into seedlings and sell them to the DENR.
“We only grow native trees now,” Bautista says. These include palosapis, apitong, kamagong, yakal, tanguile, narig, piling-liitan and molave.
Leduina Co, provincial environment and natural resources officer, says most of the young generation’s knowledge of trees has been limited to what she calls “exotic trees,” such as mahogany, teak, gmelina and mangium.
Co says these imported species have been introduced by the DENR to reforest mountains and for tree farming projects as they are fast-growing species and good for immediate revegetation. A total of 150 ha have been planted to these species at the MSPL.
