The Cordillera: a climate change bastion under siege

By Heherson Alvarez

As the season of storms and floods begin anew, interfaith leaders, environmentalists, and academicians convene in Baguio City on July 6 to re-examine the promise and the problems of the Cordillera mountain region, a major bastion of the country against climate change.

It is a region of primeval forests, of majestic beauty, and of natural wealth. Today, unfortunately, these resources continue to be exploited with impunity. Less than 50 percent of its original forest cover remains, and the resulting denudation is creating a crisis in the region’s ecosystems and endangering whole communities.

There is an on-going debate about the causes of this crisis. Some blame land conversion or the transformation of forest areas into agricultural land. Others, like the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, contend that large-scale mining is the major cause of forest destruction in the highlands.

The truth, I feel, lies with all these causes since they are not mutually exclusive. And it is important to be objective in order to arrive at fair assessments and workable remedies to the region’s environmental problems.

 

 

The Cordillera resources have been a boon to the populations and industries of Luzon. The region is host to the headwaters that irrigate and supply hydroelectric power to Luzon. It is the “watershed cradle” together with the Sierra Madre ranges, of Luzon.” These great mountains and landlocked regions provide for irrigation, for sustaining fisheries and wildlife, and for energy to lowland provinces.

The strategic assets of the Cordillera were immediately obvious to the American colonial government. Once known as “La Montanosa” during the Spanish regime, the region was of special interest to the U.S. when it was established as the Mountain Province in 1908. Organized under a “special act of a paternal character,” it fell under the administrative control of an American governor.

 

As the region’s natural resources are diminished and its ecosystems degraded, local communities find themselves increasingly at risk from erosion of productive lands, silted rivers, landslides, and declining productivity.

Illegal logging remains the region’s major problem. Periodic anti-illegal logging campaigns by the Philippine National Police appear incapable of stopping forest destruction. Thus, the replanting and greening work of the Department of |Environment and Natural Resources is enormously being undermined by the depredations of loggers, swidden or kaingin farmers, and by burgeoning corps of settlers.

Of urgent concern are the remaining forest areas in the municipalities of Bokod, Itogon and Tuba. Here, forest stands are being quietly decimated. And a main consequence, apart from the carnage of wildlife and biodiversity, is the increasing rate of destruction in the watersheds of the Ambuklao, Binga and San Roque Dams.

DENR data indicates that the region’s remaining forest occupies only about 665,603 hectares (has.) or less than half of the 1,553,599 has. total forest land area.

Significant reductions also plague the provinces within Cordillera:

• Abra forest has been reduced to 98,790 has. of the 308,522 has. total forest land area;
• Apayao, 232,199 has. out of 343,627 has.;
• Benguet, 100,977 has. out of 214,523 has.;
• Ifugao 72,955 has. out of 224,695;
• Kalinga, 84,949 has. out of 267,550 has.;
• Province 75,733 has. out of 194,683 has.

 

A critical factor undermining the environment is the mining industry, which cannot escape culpability. Destructive mining practices have impacted negatively on agriculture and forest lands. Mining has polluted and silted Cordillera’s primary river systems over the last 100 years.

 

 

A towering green region, the Cordillera is a bulwark against the disastrous periodic impacts of climate change. Its forests, rivers, and biodiversity are not only carbon sinks but key to the sustainable development and the growing energy needs of Luzon.

 

The Cordillera and its indigenous peoples should reap economic rewards for providing energy and irrigation and basic environmental services to the lowland areas. But to reap these rewards, the government must be able to shape a national program of abating the plunder and sharing the region’s resources in ways that simultaneously protect and sustains ecosystem.

The interfaith dialogue seeks to cultivate a national community and LGU support in protecting the strategic treasures of the Cordillera.

This is why the interfaith conference on CAR underscores the appeal of diverse religions that we all must work together to protect our planet.

In the words of Pope Francis, “I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.”

(Heherson T. Alvarez is a commissioner of the Climate Change Commission and currently chairman of the Advisory Board of the Washington, D.C. – based Climate Institute. A former DENR secretary, he also served in Congress as a senator for two terms and as a congressman of Isabela Province.)

 

photo credit: Imelda Abano