Cagayan villagers tapped to guard protected area

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Philippines  – Villagers have been tapped to act as guardians of the remaining forest cover in Cagayan’s southeastern town of Peñablanca, which hosts the famous seven-chambered Callao Caves.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said it has awarded tracts of land within the Peñablanca Protected Landscape and Seascape (PPLS) to members of the Bugatay Upland Farmers Multipurpose Cooperative to ensure their continued protection from timber poaching and other environmentally destructive activities.

“We believe that if the people have a stake in a certain area, they are more than keen in protecting it from others who are out to destroy the environment,” said Felix Taguba, provincial environment and natural resources officer. 

The PPLS covers some 119,000 hectares of forestland together with Isabela’s Northern Sierra Madre National Park and other wildlife reserves, and the Northern Sierra Madre Biodiversity Corridor, one of the world’s environment hot spots.

The PPLS has reportedly been hounded by illegal loggers or timber poachers, wildlife poachers and small-scale miners whose activities have started to damage the environment, including the famous Callao Caves in the villages of Parabba and Quibal.

Dr. Theresa Lim of the Protected Area and Wildlife Bureau (PAWB), one of those who graced the recent awarding of the communal land tenurial instrument to the cooperative members, stressed the importance of community involvement in forest preservation.

“This, considering the fact that the remaining forest guards are already aging and the employment of new ones appears to very slim due to the DENR’s miniscule budget,” she said.

Taguba said they wanted to involve residents of protected areas to make them feel that they play an important role in conserving the environment from where they get their livelihood. 

“The department has come to realize the importance of (community) participation rather than treating them as adversaries out to exploit the environment,” he said.