Between men and trees

In 1990, US-based Caltex Petroleum Corp chairman and chief executive officer Raymond Johnson committed to financially support a five-year agroforestry program in the Philippines where Caltex has been doing business for almost 75 years. The project is now in its 11th year.

Like a sapling planted in a forest, the Good Roots-Ugat ng Buhay agroforestry project funded by Caltex (Phils) Inc. has grown into a mature tree over the past 10 years.

"It has proven that rural environment reclamation and economic development may be effectively implemented with dramatic results by helping farmers help themselves and by encouraging farm families to place their future in their own hands," said project director Ben Wallace.

Two project sites

Good Roots started in 1991 with a P13 million, five-year funding commitment from Caltex. The project site in Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte was an isolated community with mixed upland and lowland communities. Deforestation caused by illegal logging and slash and burn farming methods was aggravated by the lack of propane or cooking gas. As a result, farmers also cut down trees to use as fuel to cook their food.

"As expected, the people were initially suspicious of our intentions. But we immediately involved the participants and their families in most aspects of planning and decision-making, and in organizing associations to manage the communal nurseries of tree and vegetable seedlings," said Wallace.

At the end of five years, 70% of 43,587 seedlings distributed to farmers survived. It was time to move on.

"Good Roots was successful in Pagudpud. The Good Roots model needed to be tested in a different environment with a different set of social and economic variables," said Wallace.

In 1997, Caltex unhesitatingly set aside P14 million over the next five years for the second project site in Lobo, Batangas. Like Pagudpud, Lobo was somewhat isolated. Unlike Pagudpud, however, Lobo was a predominantly hilly area with a long economic history based on coconut plantations.

"In Lobo, a more long-term approach was taken in the selection of tree species. Effectively, there was no primary forest left in Lobo. The environment needed to be stabilized, so relatively slow growing but very valuable hardwood species, particularly mahogany and narra were emphasized," said Wallace.

The endangered Philippine teak, commonly called malabayabas in Lobo, also got some help from the project. Although difficult to propagate, 250 windlings have been planted in the last five years and have survived.

Today, 416,377 seedlings have been produced and distributed in the two project sites, with farmers continuing the project through their own Good Roots associations.

"When the Good Roots team leaves the area, the participants continue the project and often improve on it. The finest compliment Good Roots can receive is to be told we are no longer needed. We are out of a job. This means we have succeeded," said Wallace.

Beginnings

The reforestation experiences of the Pagudpud and Lobo projects are recorded in a book entitled, "Good Roots II: Inheriting the Earth". The book, which will be formally launched today, is written by Wallace, an anthropologist who has been visiting the Philippines since 1965.

Wallace conceived Good Roots after having worked on a number of expensive projects. "Most environmental and livelihood development projects follow a ëtop down’ approach where experts instruct the people and the people may or may not respond well. When the money is gone, the experts leave and the project ends. So often, most of the money is spend on overhead like building, personnel and vehicles," said Wallace.

His ideas led to Good Roots, which focused on environmental reclamation as a joint effort among academe, science, industry, government and the people affected by deforestation. Good Roots and government would provide scientific direction, industry the funding and the people themselves the labor.

In 1990, Wallace sold the idea to Dallas-based Caltex Petroleum Corp chairman and chief executive officer Raymond Johnson.. "It was decided that we would do the project because of my years of research experience in the country and because of Caltex’s almost 75 years history in the Philippines," said Wallace.

The Philippines was also one of the most deforested areas in Asia, with about 200,000 hectares of land destroyed every year. Since 1980, the country’s annual deforestation rate has been placed at 3.3%.

In an agreement signed on Earth Day 1991, Caltex Phils. then headed by Francis Ablan entered into a Good Roots joint venture with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man of Dallas-based Southern Methodist University. Wallace is currently director of the International Office and assistant provost of SMU.

Under the agreement, Caltex agreed to fund the project. For their part, the ISEM-SMU project team would provide technical expertise and planting tools and a counterpart team from DENR would monitor the project’s progress.

Since then, Caltex Phils. has seen four country managers come and go. Good Roots has, however, remained the company’s flagship social and environmental project.

For its third five-year project, Good Roots has chosen Pugo, La Union, an environment transition zone which is not as isolated as Pagudpud and Lobo. Caltex has set aside P3 million for this year’s operation.

"Good Roots has proven immediately replicable in most areas of Southeast Asia, where hillsides are denuded and kaingan cultivation is practiced," said Wallace, who has recently agreed to initiate a similar project among the hill minorities of northern Sarawak in Malaysia.

"Good Roots is a business model rather than a government model because it shows results in a short period of time and is cost effective," said Wallace, who calculated that a $100,000 Good Roots project would have cost an international donor agency at least $5 million.

Perhaps the most important lesson Good Roots teaches people, however, is that they are responsible for taking care of the environment. In doing so, their children’s children to have a better future.