Ecological nightmare threatens Mt. Kitanglad

LANTAPAN, Bukidnon – Results of a seven-year study show that an ecological nightmare now threatens Mt. Kitanglad, the highest peak in Central Mindanao.

The study, conducted by the volunteer group Tigbantay Wahig (Binukid for Water Watchers), monitored the water quality and quantity of four rivers here.

Partly processed at the nearby Central Mindanao University and analyzed comprehensively by the International Center for Aquaculture and Aquatic Environments at Auburn University in Alabama under the auspices of Heifer International-Philippines (HPI), the study showed incontrovertible proof that Mt. Kitanglad’s watershed is dying, if it is not in its death throes yet.

"We fear for the very survival of our town and the entire ecosystem," Mayor Narciso Rubio admitted after attending a briefing on the results, facilitated by HPI’s Mindanao coordinator Janeth Bago-Libis.

The study showed that between 1994 and 1996, the rivers suffered from soil erosion and e-coli bacteria contamination in a distinct pattern showing that the problems were positively correlated with massive deforestation and an increase in human habitation.

For instance, while Tugasan and Maagnao Rivers in the town’s western part recorded only an average of 5 mg/L of total suspended solids (TSS) based on 476 samples taken between August 1995 and July 1996, the Alanib River toward the town proper in the east had an average of almost 15 mg /L of TSS, and Kulasihan River in the heart of the town logged more than 40 mg/L of TSS. (TSS is the measure of soil erosion flowing into water systems).

Once, during a two-hour period of heavy rain, TSS increased 1,000-fold and reached 18 kg of soil per cubic meter of river water.

During the El Niño and La Niña periods of 1997 to 1998, the water flow of Tugasan and Maagnao Rivers remained constant at around two cubic meters per second, while that of Alanib and Kulasihan Rivers swung wildly from no water flow at all to as strong as 10 cubic meters per second.

But after La Niña, data gathered between 1999 and 2001 showed the shocking phenomenon that all four rivers suffered similarly from poor water quality and quantity.

Even the "healthy" Tugasan and Maagnao Rivers were now approaching the 1994 level of degradation of the eastern rivers of Alanib and Kulasihan.

All this was summed up by Jim Oprecio, country director of Heifer International-Philippines, which facilitated and coordinated Tigbantay Wahig’s pivotal seven-year study on water quality here, into three factors: "population pressure, unsustainable agricultural practices, and lack of access to technical information, which also leads to unsustainable agricultural practices, so it’s a cycle actually."

HPI is an international NGO whose mission is to alleviate hunger and poverty and to help restore the environment by providing livestock, training and related services to farming families in the context of sustainable agriculture and holistic development.