“Rainforestation” projects led by Indigenous communities in the southern Philippines are reaping benefits for both native trees and local wildlife, reports Mongabay’s Keith Anthony Fabro. On the island of Mindanao lies Mount Kalatungan Range Natural Park, a protected area that’s two-thirds primary forest and is home to Manobo tribespeople. Since 2021, NAMAMAYUK, an Indigenous organization of more than 200 Manobo households in the area, has partnered with local NGO Xavier Science Foundation (XSF) in an agroforestry project locally called “rainforestation farming.” Under rainforestation, selected households grow coffee, a valuable source of income, while planting native trees in between to help restore forestland degraded by past commercial logging and agricultural expansion, Fabro writes. The rainforestation farming is combined with a “payment for ecosystem services” mechanism where the local communities are paid to plant, maintain and monitor the trees for at least three years. Rainforestation farming, first developed by Visayas State University in the 1990s, is a deviation from the government’s centrally managed reforestation efforts that often involve planting tree species not native to the area, without much value to local farmers. Instead, rainforestation is community-led and considers farmers’ needs by encouraging planting of native trees that have both ecological and economic value. The tribe’s leaders and members are involved in the planning and selection of plant species. “We consult the IPs [Indigenous peoples] because they are the ones who truly know the land,” XSF executive director Roel Ravanera told Fabro. “What they really want are indigenous species — those they used to…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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