“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 plant.”
Between 2021 and 2024, NAMAMAYUK’s 30-hectare (74-acre) rainforestation site has been planted with 49,980 endemic trees and coffee shrubs, with a 98.8% survival rate.
The rainforestation farmers grow coffee alongside endemic tree species such as the red and white lauan (genus Shorea). Such trees support local wildlife, including the critically endangered Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) that often nests in lauan trees, Fabro reports.
Reynante Polenda, among the Manobo members involved in the project, had his first coffee harvest in December 2024. He also grows taro, sweet potato and various fruits, and said he learned farming techniques that don’t involve the use of fertilizers and pesticides.
“Since then, I’ve also noticed that wild animals, such as deer, birds and boars, have increased in my farmland,” he told Fabro.
The 40 households that have participated in the project in the past three years have earned 60,000 pesos ($1,029) per hectare ($415 per acre) for their rainforestation farming.
However, such projects are often limited by the availability of funders, so their sustainability remains a challenge, Fabro reports. The Indigenous leaders in the area said they hope people in the cities will contribute to ensure their efforts bear success over the long term.
This is a summary of “Philippine Indigenous communities restore a mountain forest to prevent urban flooding” by Keith Anthony Fabro.
Banner image of Reynante Polenda tending to his forested farmland. Image by Keith Anthony Fabro/Mongabay.