Polillo folk as guardians of biodiversity

Living on Polillo Island in Quezon province, surrounded by water and swaths of forests, one need not look far to survive. Go fish, farm and hunt—it wasn’t named “Polillo” for nothing, after all, as it means “beautiful island with plenty of food.”

But people learned, only in recent years, that the bounty must be shared with the rest of the natives—the birds, deer, boars, frogs and geckos that are rare and mostly endemic to the Polillo Group of Islands.

“Several species … were first discovered and recorded in Polillo, [such as] the tiny Polillo forest frog and the colorful Polillo green-scaled gecko,” according to a case study by the Polillo Islands Biodiversity Conservation Foundation Inc. (PIBCFI).

The PIBCFI is part of the Foundation for the Philippine Environment and the US Agency for International Development’s Kalikasan Knowledge series.

“[N]umerous other subspecies are known to occur only in this group of islands,” the study said. It cited, as examples, the Polillo tarictic hornbill, blue-naped parrot, blue-backed parrot, crested goshawk, Polillo trogon, Polillo greater flameback and Polillo white-browed shama.

Loss of forest cover

Maintaining the tenuous balance between the need to protect the environment and the necessity to eat three square meals a day has always been a challenge for anyone living amid the gifts of nature.

Rampant, commercial logging between 1950s and 1980s reduced the forest cover to less than a quarter, the study said. Most of the trees have since been lost to human settlement and permanent agriculture, coconut plantations in particular, it added.

Coconut trees were everywhere, painting a refreshing, pastoral view a city dweller could only dream of. Decades ago, however, the trees used to be narra, lawaan and yakal, which had served as playgrounds of shamas, hornbills and cockatoos.

Only 19 percent of Polillo remains forested to this day, rendering many of the endemic species homeless.

Watershed

A visit to the Sibulan watershed takes a two-hour hike from the center of Sitio Sta. Maria. One passes by rows upon rows of coconut trees, young and old, and mounds of coconut shells from one corner to another, proving that the numbers do not lie: 54 percent of Polillo’s total land area are now made up of coconut plantations.

Even without a stone marker, the border of Sta. Maria and the Sibulan watershed is quite distinct: the environment shifts from green to greenest and the temperature change is drastic.

The lush canopy of the watershed breaks the midday sun into narrow streaks of light, adding to the magical touches of the forest filled with the songs of native birds. The endemic white-browed shama, locally known as manipol, carries an 11-second lovely tune of rising and falling whistles.

Biologist Virtito Natural Jr. of the PIBCFI said that if not for the proliferation of coconut farms in Sta. Maria, the barangay (village) would have still been part of the watershed.

Coconut farming is one of the primary sources of livelihood on the island, and landowner Norberto Briñas admits that the relentless clearing of forests to make way for agriculture has largely contributed to the near-extinction of many of the prized species.

“Back in the day when coco farms were just starting to grow, people without conscience cut down trees, and the government failed to control the deforestation right away,” Briñas said. His family has a five-hectare coconut plantation which they acquired in 1974.

“We cannot really blame the people for wanting to have their own farms, it’s the only way they could survive,” he said.

Forest volunteers

But enough is enough, Briñas said. He is now a volunteer forest guard, climbing the mountains and combing through the forests every month to make sure no one is out for another clearing job.

The cutting of towering trees couldn’t go on forever; people have already taken their share of the Polillo bounty. It was time to save the birds and the bees, flowers and the trees—most on the edge of total extinction. The government had to step in.

Acquiring the “protected area” tag from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), however, was a tedious process, and the unique conditions of Polillo worsened red tape.

“Polillo is made up of patches of forests, so that would mean, each block of forest would have to be processed for it to be tagged ‘protected’ by the government,” PIBCFI program manager Lea-Jim Villanueva said. “Declaring an area protected is a 13-step process that takes four to seven years.”

Three biodiversity sites in Polillo have long been cited as protected areas. But given the remote location of the island group, a three-hour boat ride away from the port of Quezon, these has been left out by the government agencies involved, the PIBCFI study said.

Local intervention

The birds and frogs that are losing their habitats cannot wait forever. Hence, an initiative pushing for a local government intervention ensued.

A major project, titled “Pioneering Community-Based Conservation Sites in the Polillo Islands,” was developed and implemented from 2005 to 2008, with funding support from the Darwin Initiative, through FFI (Flora and Fauna International) and the PIBCFI.

It enabled and facilitated the implementation of what is now popularly known as the local conservation areas (LCAs), the study said.

The LCA is the local equivalent of the DENR’s protected area. Aiming to hasten the protection mechanism for the biodiversity areas, the LCA concept, coined by the PIBCFI’s Errol Gatumbato, heavily involved the mandate of the local government as well as the commitment of the communities, Villanueva said.

Declaring LCAs through the LCA Management Council, chaired by the municipal mayor and the DENR, takes only seven steps that can be processed in two to three years, reducing the usual red tape to almost half, she said.

The project led to the establishment of a network of 10 separate LCAs, totaling about 7,000 hectares, the study said.

“The council is a policymaking body that has an enforcement arm, including the Bantay Kalikasan (BK) group (of which Briñas is a member) that volunteers for the protection of LCAs,” Villanueva said.

Conservators

Policies are in place, preventing the further expansion of coconut plantations. Residents are now aware of their roles in conservation, building up the success story of conservation efforts in Polillo.

“Polillo biodiversity management appears to be one of the few monitoring sunshine events we have in the country, both in terms of sustainability, involvement and conservation action progress,” said biodiversity expert Arne Jensen in the PIBCFI study.

One need not be a biologist to step up and become a forest steward like Briñas. In fact, it is by experience that the guards of Polillo have learned of their responsibility to the island. Most of the stewards of many conservation sites in the country—from the mountains to the seas—are poachers-turned-gamekeepers.

Dionisio Leynes, 59, used to be an illegal logger cutting down hardwood trees for a living. Now that he’s a full-fledged forest steward leading a BK group in his area, he shivers at the thought.

“Residents are now aware that the trees cannot be cut and the animals in the forests cannot be hunted,” Leynes said. “In fact, the awareness is now very high.”

Leynes and his BK group regularly patrols the forests, checking on trees and making sure that no poacher is in the area.

Monitoring around 7,000 ha of lowland evergreen forests, 60 BK volunteers have been recorded in Polillo mainland and 45 of them have been deputized environment officers by the DENR, the PIBCFI study said.

Tree nursery

“Aside from going around the forests, we also have to start reforestation projects in the sites that have long been abused and denuded,” Leynes said, showing the narra nursery that his group was tending.

And it is not enough for them just to do their usual monitoring and tree-planting routine. They know that the forests of Polillo will outlive them so they have to ensure that their stewardship would live on generation after generation.

“We’re getting older, we would need the young to take over sooner or later,” Leynes said.

“We are hopeful because today, many young people are volunteering, they know how much the forest, the seas and the biodiversity mean to their hometown. I’m glad they’re stepping up,” he added.

Their commitment to their role as stewards has grown deep that even without their modest honoraria, they go out in the woods and do their job.

“We do our duties even without our allowance because we don’t do it for the money,” Leynes said. “We do it because we know we have to protect our island’s treasures—the birds, insects and other animals that can only be found here.”

Like most tales of conservation efforts in the country, Polillo’s success story started with its residents calling it not Polillo Group of Islands but “our island.”

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