Farmers on the Forefront

Written by Larry Maurin | June 18, 2014


Last week I had a remarkable opportunity to visit the island of Mindanao. Since I am no longer a Peace Corps Volunteer, I am allowed to do dangerous things like ride motorcycles, climb the Mayon Volcano, and visit Mindanao under my own risk and without a crackdown from Washington.


The island of Mindanao is known in most media circles as the site of much of the Communist and Islamic rebel group activity in the Philippines. My intention in visiting Mindanao was to visit several agroforestry and permaculture farms in Bukidnon province adjacent to the Mt. Kitanglad Range Natural Park. The area is known as one of the most ecologically pristine parts of the Philippines. Human ecology is a topic that I have really focused on so much in this blog.

The Philippines is a great place to see the role that humans play in ecosystems because of the population density, the prevalence of subsistence lifestyles, and the natural disaster vulnerability. Many farmers in Bukidnon province and other mountainous areas in the Philippines have embraced a scientific, socially conscious, and ecologically sound relationship with their land bases. This lifestyle and the formation of a deep relationship with a land base has been a calling of mine for years, and I aimed to meet some Filipino farmers who have been doing just that for decades.

The United States Embassy in Manila advises that Americans use caution in visiting certain parts of the island. Mindanao, however, is a large island (second largest in the Philippines after Luzon) and like in most places in the world, generalizations are grossly unfair. In general, militant Islamic rebel groups such as Abu Sayyaf are based in the western part of the island and more especially in the Sulu archipelago on the islands of Basilan, Jolo, and Tawi-Tawi. The more loosely organized New Peoples’ Army (NPA) tends to be restricted to isolated pockets in remote, mountainous areas throughout the Philippines.

I don’t consider myself a political person, and I generally consider any political ideology as regressive to human progress, protection of life, and the formation of friendship. I didn’t consider much the political situation in the areas that I was visiting, and instead tried to focus on how people interacted with nature, the cultural values, and geographic setting.

I was also interested in seeing some of the bird life which the Kitanglad Range is well known for. It is one of the best places to see some of the rarest bird species on earth including Philippine Eagle, Mindanao Lorikeet, Bukidnon Woodcock, Grey-hooded Sunbird, and Mountain Serin. I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to get up high into the really pristine areas because of the tight schedule and bad weather, but I was able to see some of the more common high elevation species in the forests near the farms we visited.