I JUST attended a two-day Zoom general assembly of the Non-Timber Forest Products Exchange Programme (NTFP-EP) in South and Southeast Asia. Programs have to empower forestry-based communities to manage their forest resources in a sustainable manner.
To this end, the NTFP-EP catalyzes and supports activities that strengthen the capacity of their partner organizations in their work with forest-dependent communities, particularly indigenous peoples.
It's fantastic to see old friends and colleagues from Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Netherlands and New Zealand from the comfort of my room. The last time we met was in 2019 in Quezon City in a face-to-face meeting. Delegates jet in from these places to talk about state policies on tenurial and resource use rights.
We normally discuss harvest protocols on rattan wild honey, almaciga resins, and sustainability issues such as thresholds before the resources can regenerate.
Then, we reviewed respected financial audit services. All of us have track records of immersing ourselves in mountain communities, especially indigenous people and indigenous knowledge systems.
We started this work with black hair. Many of us are now in our sunset years. I'm blessed to see new generations of environmentalists who share our passion for nature and the mountain poor. This is our last term before we all give up this work.
The NTFP-EP is a collaborative network of over 60 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) working with forest-based communities to strengthen their capacity in the sustainable management of natural resources in the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
The NTFP-EP aims to strengthen the capacity of forest-based communities and their support organizations. Employing a participatory strategy, the NTFP-EP empowers its partners through information and knowledge exchange of appropriate resource management techniques and experiences, technical support and training, inputs in strategy discussions, documentation of best practices and success stories, mobilization of resources and contacts, advocacy support for local initiatives, and lobby for enabling policies.
I have been able to visit many mountain communities around the world sponsored by the NTFP-EP of Asia and the Philippines and the Mountain Partnership based at the Food and Agricultural Organization.
The Canadian Rockies, the alpine mountains of Switzerland, France and Spain, and Italy, China and Vietnam, the Andes in Perú, Bali in Indonesia, the Pyrenees, and the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia. Here in Negros Island, I worked with the mountain communities of the Mount Kanlaon Natural Park and the Northern Negros Natural Park, and research work for the Foundation for the Philippine Environment in the mountains of Negros Oriental. I also had exposure to the Sierra Madre and the Cordillera mountain ranges in Luzon, Bukidnon, Mindoro and Palawan.
Now it's time to bid adieu to this kind of work before I finally close my eyes in eternal sleep to join Pastor Delbert Rice on the other side of life.