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Natives or indigenous
people of Sitio Tiling, Barangay San Fernandino of the municipality of
R.T. Lim in the province of Zamboanga Sibugay welcomed the
representatives from the Community Environment and Natural Resources
Office (CENRO) based in the municipality Ipil for a session of awareness
and orientation on the important points of the Certificate of Forest
Stewardship Agreement (CFSA) which was held recently.
A team of CENRO personnel headed by CENRO Serena Cabrera went to a
remote area in R.T. Lim where majority of the settlers were members of
the indigenous people to intensify their information drive on teaching
people living in forest areas on the importance of forest preservation.
In an interview with CENRO Cabrera, she stressed that their goal was to
promote and advocate the idea of forest conservation, preservation and
protection of forest trees against illegal loggers and prevent
calamities like landslides and flash floods in their area as well as
their neighboring communities.
Cabrera also added that it is also the obligation of the people who live
near areas known to have many trees to protect nature particularly the
trees against loggers who just make use of the natural resources for
money without thinking of any of the negative results or outcomes of
their operations.
“We also believe that our people living in this kind of area are somehow
responsible for protecting Mother Nature from greedy loggers who are
into monetary profit and not thinking about the outcome of their
operations. It is therefore our job in the CENRO to educate these
natives about the different programs of the government to help preserve
our forests from destruction”, Cabrera explained.
Another purpose of the visit was the organization of the indigenous
people in the said place to make them stewards or guardians and
protectors of their forests and also make them (IPs) managers of their
own lands.
Timuay Fernando Mudai, one of the respected elders or leaders of the
community of IPs in the said place, showed his utmost support to the
program of the government and pledged to guard their lands and forest
trees with their lives and prevent anybody who intends to destroy their
natural resources.
However, Timuay Mudai also revealed to the CENRO personnel that one of
their major problems is illegal logging which somehow became rampant in
the past years which resulted to the destruction of some forest areas in
their place.
Mudai also said that the IP in Sitio Tiling will need all the help that
they can get from the different government agencies to safeguard Mother
Nature and to do that is through proper linkaging and coordination.
“We will protect these forests but we also need the help of our partners
like the government and other non-government agencies (NGOs). Logging
has been our problem here and the result was not good and if things will
continue like this we will end up the losers”, Mudai pointed out.
The idea was positively responded by the personnel from CENRO.
Other government agency who came along with CENRO was the National
Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) to also update the natives on the
status of their application for their certificate of Ancestral Domain
Claim for the 25,000 hectares ancestral land.
It was discovered that the natives still haven’t complied with all the
requirements and the NCIP personnel urged the leaders as well as members
of the community of IPs to secure all the necessary requirements to fast
track the approval of their application.
During that day two agencies got connected with the natives. One with
the purpose of promoting environmental protection and preservation while
the other on advocating the preservation of cultural heritage. |
