Our NGO, Cordillera Green Network (CGN), is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. We started back in 2001 with three Filipinos and two Japanese women and registered as a non-profit organization (NGO) with the SEC of the Republic of the Philippines.
Our first project was an Environmental Education project with KEEP Association, Japan. To encourage indigenous people to become more interested in environmental conservation, we held an open call for artworks for poster prints. The activity was conducted to make people aware of the richness of nature and environmental problems in their community, through the artworks. We conducted the exhibition of the collected artworks in the museum lobby of the St. Louis Elementary School in Baguio City. Nowadays, we hear about "climate change" and "measures to combat global warming" in the news every day. But 20 years ago, environmental issues were only occasionally discussed, such as "garbage segregation” and "garbage incineration" in the city proper.
In the mountainous Cordillera region, where many indigenous people had lived with nature and were almost self-sufficient, forest degradation eventually became an issue due to forest fires and too much dependence on forest resources. And, health hazards caused by heavy use of pesticides in agriculture were becoming topics of discussion among some local people. For our open call for artworks for the production of environmental awareness posters, we eventually attracted nearly 250 pieces, the makers of which ranged from children to professional painters in Baguio City. At that time, there were no panels to display such a large number of artworks anywhere in Baguio City, so we made a display stand out of bamboo and hung them one by one with nylon line used for fishing. I remember that students from many elementary schools in the City came to the exhibition with their teachers. The CGN’s pilot art and environment project was a great success.
After, the staff discussed what steps we should take moving forward, we then decided that as an environmental NGO, why not plant trees? We decided to start planting trees in the Municipality of Kibungan in Benguet Province in 2003. At that time, there were no experts in forestry in CGN, and we did not know what kind of trees to plant and how to grow them, so we sought advice from Professor Tacloy of the College of Forestry, Benguet State University (BSU). We have been working with BSU ever since. Two forestry professors, including Prof. Tacloy, are still serving as CGN board members. The reforestation project in 2003 Kibungan was funded by Japan's AEON Environmental Foundation for four years. Still, contrary to our expectations, it wasn't easy. At the time, the market economy was beginning to spread to mountain communities, and the burning of forests and their conversion to vegetable fields were slowly spreading deep into the mountains. The priority of the people is to survive the hardships of life, but these people did not seem conscious of their need to have environmental security. The CGN’s objectives in helping the people to plant Benguet pine trees was to add greenery in their barren mountains, but local people preferred growing vegetables for profit and were not much interested to grow unprofitable pine trees. An incident when one of the project sites was accidentally burned by children further motivated the CGN staff to systematically and creatively strategize to address the environmental issue without compromising the livelihood of local farmers. At the time, the BSU's Institute of Highland Farming Systems and Agroforestry (IHFSA) was experimentally growing Arabica coffee as a cash crop, using the indigenous Benguet pine as a shade tree. It was proposed to us that we could experimentally plant Arabica coffee in Kibungan, CGN's project site. The integration of arabica coffee and Benguet pine in the CGN project site in the community was the pilot area for Agroforestry for CGN in 2006. These were the first Arabica coffee trees planted by CGN project in the Cordillera. Amidst of the unassured economic benefits that it will bring to the community, the people had still integrated the arabica coffee under sayote plantations, under alnus trees, under Benguet pine. Fifteen years have passed since then, and this pilot community is the biggest producer of coffee in Kibungan. With this, we have been working hard to find supporters and grants to raise funds to continue adopt this strategy to other communities.
We continue to reach out to indigenous people living in mountainous communities. "We know you need money. But you know what? If we lose all the forest, there will be no water. There will be landslides. Your family's health will be in danger from pesticides.” We kept trying to motivate them to adopt agroforestry. Agroforestry will help restore/protect the environment and enhance food supply, income, and health of the community. So far, we have planted about 200,000 Arabica coffee trees, along with about 700,000 other trees, in various communities in the Cordillera regions.
And since last year, the COVID-19 outbreak has spread to the Cordillera region. Farmers who lost their source of income due to the lockdown have opted to start commercial gardening and to sell ornamental plants, because the time of production for these is shorter and easier. Coffee production is second priority since it consumes lots of their time, particularly in processing coffee cherries after harvesting. Separating the coffee pulp during processing is time consuming, but it also affects the quality of the beans. Good coffee processing might be bothersome, but it brings economic and environmental benefits to the farmers.
With this, a crowdfunding project was initiated "Coffee that brings happiness to everyone in the world.”Your donation will be used to purchase manual depulpers, dehullers, and green bean drying facilities to reduce the heavy work of post-harvest processing that has been done traditionally with labor-intensive mortar and pestle methods.To donate, kindly visit this link below:
