Pray once more, forester, for your childhood playgrounds (Part 4)

WHEN I WENT for a walk-through of the project area, I was in the company of two cousins, a nephew, and two foresters that DENR assigned to oversee the on-going preparation of terraced nursery beds and nursery bunkhouse at the time. Like what happened during the general meeting, I could not help but wax nostalgic again as we passed by sites that I last set foot on decades, nay, half a century ago... and which I never thought I would be with again.

A key takeaway from that hiking tour was that my grandfather’s pasto has become open ground for the entry of whoever was bold and tough enough to clear whatever area caught their interest.

For instance, I was surprised to see a hectare or so of beautiful rice terraces where there was none when I was young. Even as I was delighted to find the source of their irrigation was a gurgling creek with good prospects for a mini dam where water could be piped for the Project’s nursery and bunkhouse, and for the increasing number of households farther down the hills, I remembered the term “tragedy of the commons.”

I first came across that term and its meaning – “when there are no limits on use, members of a group take advantage of a shared resource until it is exhausted” – in a course I took many, many years ago under Dr. Ben S. Malayang III who was then teaching environmental science at UPLB before he became DENR Undersecretary.

Indeed, I shuddered at the thought that the open-resource status of formerly fenced-off pasture lands might embolden more people to enter and convert critical areas into pure seasonal cropping and monoculture agriculture, instead of growing trees and other perennials in sustained soil-&-water-conserving systems.

This is the reason why I’m personally thankful that the DENR and its Japan-assisted Forestland Management Project came to my hometown, especially in Palabotan, to show us how to properly and sustainably manage our hilly-land and river ecosystems, which had been my playgrounds long, long before I became a forester and also years before the barriotic me came to know that the tiny mountain streams in our little corner of the Philippines are significant tributaries of the Magat River that in turn flows down to contribute Dupax-flavored water to the mighty Cagayan River.

A tributary of the Benay River that in turn flows to Magat River and then to Cagayan River.

WHILE WRITING this (in New Jersey), I was buoyed by the prospects that my attempt at making ecological footprints in my childhood barrio would one day be appreciated – and be continued – by my grandkids. 

    I was also playing in my mind other site-enhancing activities I could still do – such as making a series of small ponds on the ephemeral creek in the upper part of the stewardship area assigned to me and my sisters. Aside from storing the oversupply of water in the creek during the monsoon season, the ponds will also catch rainwater off-season rains and thus prolong the availability of water for keeping the surrounding areas moist and favorable for raising more agroforestry crops. 

    Also a strong possibility is the conversion of  the ponds for raising tilapia, suso, native kuhol, and kangkong -- and thus attract wild ducks and/or make the area more conducive to other wildlife.

Right now I’m dreaming I’m already out there among the hills… breathing unpolluted air, saying hello to the wild guava and arosip/binayuyu trees in the area assigned to us grandkids of the late Pedro Pudiquet for stewardship... listening to the cicadas and the bulbul birds sing in the remnant forests while admiring the merry mix of trees and food plants now growing in the agroforestry demo farm put up  in our stewardship area – with the generous help of Manong Bert Tortoza and Ading Melody Marcelo Bad-e (both BS Forestry graduates of UPLB).

I’ll be home till early next year, enough time to add more plants to the narra, bignay, kalamansi, lemon, guyabano, atis, mabolo, marunggay, alukon, betel nut, cassava, okra, camote, dippig, vetiver, gabi, maladapdap, utong, patani, and a couple of malabulak (this last beautifully flowering species from retired PENRO Moises Butic) already growing in the area. 

And so, to whom it may concern, in case I can’t be “rich” by iPhone, most probably I’d be in Dupax, closer to the hills and rivers of my youth, making up for my pandemic-scared years of absence – this time doing agroforestry hands-on and no longer only via Messenger or Facebook.v