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Monday, March 10, 2003
Keepers of the forest
By Jeneen R. Garcia
It all began with the need for shade. Biking up the mountains of central Cebu is no stroll in the park, as Gen. Tiburcio Fusilero will tell you. You will certainly look for shade.
And so Fusilero, with other bikers who frequented the route, started planting shade trees in Cantipla, barangay Tabunan in 1994. What began as a need eventually became a personal mission.
Today, Fusilero and his friends are founding members of the Kantipla Ecosystems Enhancement and Protection (Keep) Foundation. Keep is one of the first organizations under the Department of Environment and Natural Resource’s (DENR) Adopt-A-Mountain program that has promised to reforest, protect and rehabilitate the country’s forests.
From their original 50-hectare reforestation project in 2000, Keep now stands guard over about 500 hectares of the Lusaran watershed. Unlike contract reforestation projects and other forest management agreements with DENR, the capital for seeds, labor and maintenance comes entirely from the group. And what do they get in return?
“Do you enjoy the shade and the fresh air and the sight of the trees?” asks Fusilero, “That’s what we get in return.” Fusilero’s family often comes up here for a picnic. Here his little boy makes friends with nature freely. The pocket forest of native lauaan, bagtikan and almaciga is home to wildlife—tree iguanas, land turtles, the Philippine leopard cat, the endemic Sunbird and Black Shama—animals many would line up for to see in a zoo.
But these simple pleasures do not come cheap. Some people who cannot believe anyone would take care of a forest voluntarily accuse Keep of land-grabbing. The group often has to deal with illegal loggers and speculators who sell part of the forestland to unwitting buyers. Supposedly, since Lusaran is forested and a Protected Area at that, land there cannot be owned.
Despite being a critical watershed, Lusaran is dotted with vegetable and cut-flower plots. Migrants from other islands arrive, burn or cut the forest, and then heavily apply fertilizers and pesticides to sustain commercial crops. Often, the profits go to rich, absent landlords. Meanwhile, the absence of trees causes the rain to run off the mountains in torrents, flooding the homes below.
“Trees conserve water by providing shade that prevents moisture in the soil from evaporating easily,” says Fusilero. More importantly, trees allow rainwater to penetrate the soil. This way, even if there’s no rain, the water stored deep underground can still feed rivers and keep wells from running dry. This water reaches as far downstream as Gorordo, Mango ave. and Labangon, as evidenced by the deep wells in those areas.
In short, trees do a better job than any dam or costly water tank can do. On March 28, World Water Day, do as Keep does in your own pocket of the world: plant some trees and keep the water flowing.
(March 10, 2003 issue)
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