People living in mountain areas heavily affected by kaingin farming in southern Palawan should be relocated to population centers and provided with sustainable sources of livelihood if the province hopes to slow its worsening forest loss.
Palawan Council for Sustainable Development Staff (PCSDS) Executive Director Atty. Teodoro Jose Matta said Monday that simply implementing and enforcing laws will not be enough to stop deforestation if people continue to depend on destructive farming inside forest areas for survival.
“Bring people down, then give them sustainable jobs so they no longer have to depend on the mountains,” he said.
“You have to give them livelihood. You have to give them a means to support themselves,” he stressed,
His proposal comes after the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) reported and continue to reiterate that kaingin, or slash-and-burn farming, accounted for 77.4% of the 57,715 hectares of forest lost within Environmental Critical Areas Network (ECAN) core and buffer zones in southern Palawan from 2001 to 2023, triggering public debate over the agency’s findings.
Matta pointed out that the figures should not be interpreted as blaming indigenous peoples (IPs), saying destructive kaingin is carried out not only by some indigenous communities but also by non-IP residents and migrants who have adopted unsustainable upland farming practices.
“Kaingin is not merely the activity of indigenous people,” he said.
“This is the activity of people whether they’re IPs or not. We’re looking at the general population, whether homegrown or migrant,” he clarified.
Many people immediately associated the findings with indigenous communities, but according to him, the issue extends outside ethnicity.
“Yes, indigenous people do commit kaingin, but on a smaller scale,” he said.
“Pero hindi tayo tumitingin sa isang grupo lamang,” he added.
Instead, Matta said the province needs what he described as social and economic reforms that will reduce people’s dependence on clearing forests for farming.
Local governments, he emphasized, should continue enforcing the Environmentally Critical Areas Network (ECAN) maps while simultaneously creating jobs and other livelihood opportunities outside forested areas.
“Enforcement of ECAN maps is important, but we should not trap ourselves there. Ipababa natin ang mga tao, tapos bigyan natin ng trabaho na sustainable,” the PCSDS executive director said.
He likened the situation to Panama, where communities are prohibited from settling in mountain watersheds that supply water to the Panama Canal, one of the country’s primary economic assets.
However, he stressed that relocating people should go hand in hand with government support.
“You have to give them livelihood. You have to give them a means to support themselves. That’s what we’re advocating now,” he said.
Several municipalities have already begun coordinating with PCSD to restore degraded forests, according to Matta, although he acknowledged that current efforts remain far behind the pace of forest destruction.
“You have so many LGUs that have signified intention and are now actually helping us recover lost grounds,” he said.
“But it’s not enough. The rate of destruction is immense,” he said.
Matta said PCSDS first released similar findings in 2022, but many local officials were reluctant to accept the data because they believed mining was the province’s primary deforestation issue.
But now, some municipalities have expressed agreement.
“There were LGUs that told us the data wasn’t true and that mining was the real problem,” he said.
“Sometimes it takes time for people to accept the truth because it’s painful,” Matta said.
While mining remains an environmental concern in some parts of Palawan, Matta said the agency’s data shows that kaingin has become the largest driver of forest loss in southern Palawan.
He cited Brooke’s Point as one example, saying selected barangays in the municipality lost about 4,000 hectares of forest to kaingin in 2023 alone.
He warned that if the current trend continues, Palawan’s remaining forests could disappear much faster than many people expect.
“The increase is almost geometric. At that rate, in 10 years’ time, baka wala na tayong gubat,” Matta asserted.
Matta also said restoring degraded forests now requires active intervention because natural regeneration is no longer enough, particularly as stronger typhoons continue to damage recovering forests due to climate change.
The town hardest hit by kaingin in southern Palawan, he said, is Dr. Jose P. Rizal, where there is no mining.
Today, the PCSD posted again about its position on forest loss due to kaingin. Matta said it is “an uncomfortable truth” but they are standing by their findings.
“Let us be clear: Palawan is losing its forest,” the PCSD stated.
