Deforestation
Pine and Oak Forests: 1930–1980
Although pine is vital for local subsistence, government policy under both the American and the Philippine regimes has always favored industrial users, especially the large mining corporations. The state long ago awarded the pines of greater Buguias to the Heald Lumber Company, which constructed two sawmills in the vicinity (at Bad-ayan and Sinipsip on the Mountain Trail) before the war. Not all of the region was logged, however, and several healthy stands survived in and near Buguias Village. To ensure an adequate supply of mine supports, the state has, at various times and with variable success, attempted to prevent the Benguet people
from cutting trees in the concession areas. But through the American period timber was plentiful and most forestry agents were lax in the enforcement of official rules.
By the late 1950s, however, the Buguias people and the government foresters came into sharp conflict. Forest guards were now ordered to require official approval for every pine cut. Furthermore, local residents could no longer make new tax declarations unless their plots were certified as containing no pines. Since agriculture had to expand, gardeners were forced to clear new plots surreptitiously, uprooting all potentially incriminating pine seedlings before the inspection teams could arrive. Although this entailed needless destruction, farmers felt they had no alternative.
Foresters classify the high-elevation oak woodland as non-economic, since its stubby and gnarled trees are worthless as lumber. They do consider it vital watershed, however, a function that became particularly important after two hydroelectric dams were installed on the middle Agno in the 1950s. Most recent government forestry reports have accordingly advocated cloud-forest preservation (see, for example, MPDA 1964). Yet no safeguards have been implemented. The cloud forest of Mount Data, for instance—the source of the four major rivers of the Cordillera (the Agno, Chico, Abra, and Ibulao)—officially lies within a national park, yet most of it has long since been abandoned to cabbage fields. Benguet conservationists, led by Sinai Hamada, publisher of the Baguio Midland Courier , fought hard to protect the Mount Data forests, but to no avail.
Through the late 1960s, the pine forests of Benguet continued to dwindle under pressure from both corporate and indigenous logging. Even when National Power Company agents joined the foresters in pressing for conservation the state could not act effectively; as with other environmental issues, conflicting interests demanded contradictory actions. For example, in January 1969, Marcos banned all cutting in the upper Agno watershed, but Heald Lumber Company protested and within a few days he rescinded the order (Baguio Midland Courier March 9, 1969). In 1975 a more far-reaching ban protected all pine trees within 50 kilometers of Baguio, but a year later, when lumber ran short in the gold mines, Heald again received special exemptions (Baguio Midland Courier Sept. 12, 1975).
Although the Marcos regime could not thwart corporate logging (if indeed it had ever intended to), it could harass Igorot farmers and woodcutters. During the early martial law period, forest guards often arrested decree violators. This period witnessed a renewal of purposeful seedling destruction by local farmers resisting forestry interference. By 1976, however, the enforcement power of the state simply began to evaporate; with the New People's Army (NPA) on the rise, forest guards rapidly retreated. Although the NPA later withdrew from the Buguias region, the state did not attempt to reassert its forestry authority.
Meanwhile, through the 1970s the novel oleoresin industry seemed to portend the salvation of the Benguet pines. The insular pine produces copious, high-quality resin, long used by the Igorots in the form of saleng. When forest researchers discovered that resin extraction would not harm the trees (Veracion 1977), development agents began to encourage local tapping. If the Igorots could tap commercially, foresters reasoned, they would protect old trees and nurture saplings. On February 1, 1970, the Baguio Midland Courier hopefully announced that the solution to the "kaingin problem" (Tagalog for swidden field) had at long last been discovered.
The Buguias people quickly moved into the naval-stores industry. Individuals who had been instructed in the proper tapping techniques obtained licenses; these persons invited others to tap under their permits in return for a percentage of the profits. For a few years a number of residents of the higher reaches of Buguias extracted a substantial supplementary income. But the practice soon proved to be unsustainable; few tappers followed regulations closely, and most trees were over-drained. The fire threat was also heightened since resin often continued to dribble out of the tap scar, and the accumulated deposit would easily combust during a grass burn, in turn igniting the entire tree. Moreover, the tappers seldom realized the desired profits. By the early 1980s, the oleoresin industry lay in ruins.
Recent Forestry Practices in Buguias
Although the state's withdrawal from the forests of Buguias allowed the local inhabitants to develop the resource as they wished, the community government has been unable to reconcile the inevi-
table conflict of interests within the village. A few entrepreneurs have discovered great profits in cutting, hauling, and selling wood, both for lumber and fuel, to outside interests. This small-scale commercial logging owes its existence to the chainsaw, an expensive but profitable investment. By the early 1980s, the buzz of chainsaws emanated daily from the slopes above Buguias, seeming to foretell the demise of the remaining pine stands.
Few Buguias citizens are pleased when the sawyers sell local wood to outsiders. But firewood is in strong demand, especially in Lo-o, where large-scale farmers must provide meals for their many hired workers. Even more profitable is the traffic in construction lumber. The same chainsaws used to fell trees also mill them, and the boards thus crudely produced fetch a high price in the expanding metropolis of Baguio. Four men working half a day can (in 1986) reportedly earn as much as 1,000 pesos, provided they cut a timber stand with good road access. Even under less favorable conditions, saw owners commonly pay their workers 50 pesos for half a day, an impressive wage by Philippine standards. Because of community opposition, commercial loggers usually work surreptitiously, often at night. But this does not substantially limit their operations. In 1983, one particularly valuable stand located on the northeastern border of Buguias Village yielded an estimated 50,000 board feet over a three-month period.
Such profiteering demands protection over and above the cover of dark; usually it entails the complicity of government agents, especially military officials. In exchange for a share of the profits, officers of the Philippine Constabulary have ensured black-market loggers uninterrupted felling and safe transportation. In a few instances, military men have instigated cuts, contracting for lumber that they then sell through their own networks. Barangay officials have lodged protests with the Bureau of Forest Development (BFD), but the foresters are powerless to challenge the military hierarchy.
Conflicts have also erupted between professional sawyers and tax declaration holders. Although some individuals declared pine stands precisely with an eye to their potential timber harvests, in other cases woodcutters have descended on stands without the declaration holder's knowledge. Some woodsmen willingly placate angered declaration holders with cash payments, but others argue
that a tax declaration gives only cultivation rights, and that the plot's trees should be free for the taking. With the rapid rise of such conflicting claims, even tong tongan proceedings have difficulty resolving the contentious issues surrounding local commercial logging.
Yet in a few other Cordilleran regions pine forests have expanded in the postwar period. This is particularly true in Sagada (in Mountain Province), where villagers have assiduously planted seedlings in abandoned swiddens (Preston 1985). But in Benguet, and especially in Buguias, pine stands are in retreat. A few villages in the Buguias region have established communal forests to protect the diminishing resource, but even here removal outpaces growth. Thick stands remain only in the few rough and roadless areas; wherever soils are fertile, gardens encroach and road development follows. Knowledgeable individuals predict that few if any sizable pines will be left near Buguias by the year 2000. Seedlings continue to sprout vigorously, but few seem likely to reach maturity.
The cloud forests face less immediate threats. Valueless for lumber and disdained as firewood, oaks are cleared in large numbers only for garden expansion, or occasionally for speculation. Although the Mount Data forest is now gone and the oaks of eastern Buguias municipality are falling fast to expanding gardens, along the main Cordilleran ridge and eastward into Ifugao province wide expanses of cloud forest remain virtually untouched. They too may disappear as roads push eastward, but not for some years into a very uncertain future.
Development Plans: Social and Agroforestry
Benguet foresters despair over current forest trends. Their daunting challenge is to design programs that at once protect watersheds, ensure timber availability, and yet do not interfere with the Benguet farmers' livelihoods. With this in mind, officials of the Bureau of Forest Development have attempted to foster local participation in arboriculture.
Several Cordilleran scholars have excoriated the very notion of "social forestry," claiming that it represents yet another attempt by outsiders (or by capital, more generally) to gain control of local re-
sources (see Parpan-Pagusara 1984:59). While this may well be true for some projects, the recent plans implemented by the BFD office in Abatan and forwarded by the scholars at Baguio's Forestry Research Institute (FORI) seem neither so ambitious nor so threatening.
For many years forestry officials have touted the Japanese alder (Alnus japonica ), a fast-growing species that both protects slopes and fixes nitrogen. At various times they have distributed free seedlings, which school children were required to plant in the early 1970s. Yet the program has enjoyed only marginal success. As of 1986, seedlings were scarce, and since alders do not regenerate spontaneously here, they are at best maintaining their position. Another social forestry program of the 1960s encouraged farmers to plant pine seedlings around their gardens, but this could not help but fail. Pines shade crops and extract nutrients, while, at the time, the mere presence of trees could jeopardize a land claim. This is the kind of project rightly denounced by Baguio activists, but such approaches have by now been largely abandoned.[1]
More recently, development agents have begun promoting fruit crops. Orchards would not replenish wood supplies, but they could protect watersheds, minimize erosion, and provide an alternative income should the vegetable industry again falter. In 1976, Benguet planners unfortunately gave top priority to coffee and mango culture (Baguio Midland Courier March 28, 1976). Although coffee is an old Cordilleran crop, disease and market fluctuations have kept it from fulfilling its early promise, and mangoes thrive only on the lowest slopes, where they are still out-competed in the market by the lowland groves.
Temperate fruit offers another possibility. Although winters are not cold enough for true dormancy, Bauko municipality in Mountain Province is able to produce meager crops of both apples and pears, and a team of development workers has suggested temperate fruit culture in the Lo-o basin as well (Duhaylungsod n.d.; Dar 1985). Citrus is another option; several farmers near Baguio have derived excellent returns from small plantings of improved orange and lemon varieties, and one Buguias resident is now nurturing a small orchard. Viral diseases, endemic in indigenous trees, pose a threat, but a joint Philippine and German development program now provides resistant root stocks and advises participants in control methods.
Even if diseases could be eradicated, most Buguias farmers would probably resist fruit growing. The single annual harvest would translate into fewer jackpot opportunities, and growers find the prospect of waiting several years before the first harvest as disconcerting. New orchards also require substantial amounts of capital, and Buguias farmers fear predatory children would deprive them of the long-awaited harvest. Nevertheless, the one citrus grower persists in seeing tree crops as Buguias's hope, a possible substitute for the imperiled vegetable industry. That the community at large could be persuaded to make such a drastic change cannot be ruled out. It would not be the first time the Buguias people had completely reoriented their production system.