Lawin Patrollers in the Philippines serve in more functions than just forest patrols. They documents violations, prepare reports, participate in apprehensions, and help educate communities where illegal forest activities are rampant. USAID and the Philippines' Department of Environment and Natural Resources have developed an innovative system to aid the forest patrollers in doing their job. Lawin Patrollers are determined to fulfill their duties in order to contribute to forest protection.
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William Sanico resides in a barangay (village) in Bago City, Negros Occidental, that is located within the buffer zone of Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park. He is a special kind of farmer. He farms green charcoal for a living.
In the province of Negros Occidental, the popular local grilled chicken dish called “inasal” drives the demand for charcoal and fuelwood. Because of this, locals would cut trees inside and around the park to produce and sell charcoal as their means of livelihood..
USAID B+WISER helped the city expand and realign this initiative to also mitigate deforestation due to charcoal making and timber poaching, and increase awareness on forest conservation. The program also helped Bago City develop a payment for ecosystem services mechanism to generate funds to support this program and other forest and watershed conservation activities.
Today, William is among over 100 farmers supported by this USAID B+WISER Project-enhanced project, benefitting from environmentally sustainable livelihood and improved income, while also helping alleviate deforestation and advocating forest protection and conservation.
Participating in this agroforestry program, William is happy. Not only is he able to provide for his family, he is also helping save the remaining forest of Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park.
Samuel is an ex-combatant who was part of a communist rebel group in the Philippines. To him, the days of intense fighting between the rebels and the military are a grim reminder of the senselessness of war.
He is among the forest guards that the DENR, through the USAID B+WISER program, trained on forest protection using the Lawin system. With the mobilization of Samuel and his fellow forest guards as Lawin patrollers, the DENR was able to strengthen forest protection in the region and expand patrol coverage to other identified hotspot areas in the Cordilleras. Samuel says that as forest guards, he and his team patrol the forest very strategically. “We have lived in the mountains for the longest time. We know where the illegal activities are happening and the possible areas where they can also happen,” he said confidently.
Bae Inatlawan, also called Adelina, devoted herself to leading her people in protecting the sacred mountain. “I teach the younger generation about our culture and how important it is to protect the forest,” she said. She believes that for her community to thrive in a modern world, culture and development must go hand in hand. With Bae at the helm, the tribe partnered with the Philippine government, NGOs, the development sector, and other Mt. Kitanglad tribes to protect the forests in their ancestral domain and advance the educational enlightenment of Kitanglad’s indigenous youth.
When he was still young, Emiliano used to trek through the forests of Mt. Kitanglad with his father. In one of their excursions, they spotted an eagle. Emiliano told his father that they should shoot it, but the latter vehemently refused and warned him that if they killed the eagle, they would anger the spirits. The Talaandig tribe, to which Emiliano’s family belongs, believe that bad luck would befall a family if any member killed anything that lives in the forest. Since then, Emiliano vowed to protect the eagles for the rest of his life, and part of this mission is protecting the forests where the eagles live.
His dedication to protecting eagles, and the fact that he had seen all six living Philippine eagles in the mountain, earned him the title “Eagle Master” among his peers. In one of his forest patrols in early 2018, Emiliano discovered his seventh eagle, then estimated to be about three months old. He named the young raptor “Pamarahig”, a local word which means “plea”, to resound his earnest request: “I am reaching out to the world that we should protect forests and wildlife.” For Emiliano, Pamarahig symbolizes this very important message.
Waste is an overlooked and significant contributor to the climate crisis. Product manufacturing, distribution, as well as managing the resulting waste after its use, all result in GHG emissions and contribute to global climate change. USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean (CCBO) program – the agency’s flagship program for combating global ocean plastic pollution – works to empower women in the solid waste management sector, who have a sizable impact on reducing global ocean plastic pollution and lessening waste’s impact on climate change as they work around the world to capture and prevent waste from leaking into the environment and put plastics back into the circular economy.
CCBO program grantee, Project Zacchaeus, works to empower women and youth as ocean plastic pollution and climate leaders in their communities. Taken in the Spring of 2021 in Puerto Princesa City, Philippines, a waste collector and grant participant, or "Eco-Warrior," poses with aggregated waste from her community.
USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean program works to combat ocean plastics pollution and reduce waste-linked climate impacts by improving local waste management systems and recycling. In the Philippines, USAID is working to build supportive and sustainable enabling environments for circular economies that can mitigate climate change and adapt systems in response to actual and expected climate effects. Through its grantee, Project Zacchaeus (PZC), USAID is empowering informal waste collectors, known as “Eco-Warriors,” to build skills, foster leadership, and increase safety protections and livelihood opportunities while improving community waste services that reduce plastic pollution and reduce waste-linked greenhouse gas emissions. One of the Eco-Warriors, pictured here, is dressed in personal protective equipment provided by PZC's grant under CCBO during the Spring of 2021.
USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean (CCBO) program – the agency’s flagship program for combating global ocean plastic pollution – is providing economic recycling incentives and reducing emissions from transporting to distant recycling markets. The program grantee, the Plastics Credit Exchange (PCX), is implementing the Aling Tindera Network, a local waste to cash system to enable community members to sell plastics to local, women-owned businesses in exchange for cash. Recyclables are then routed directly to local, responsible recycling facilities. Supporting the creation of a market for ubiquitous community plastic waste also reduces the environmental impacts of plastics, helps to clean up communities, and puts cash back in the pockets of community members. In just two weeks, one USAID-supported Aling Tindera partner, Aling Janine (pictured here), not only diverted over 800 kilograms of plastic waste away from the streets of Barangay 161, but has also helped her neighborhood find ways to make extra income while cleaning up.
USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean (CCBO) program – the agency’s flagship program for combating global ocean plastic pollution – eliminates plastic pollution directly at its source, working at the local level to fix land-based waste management systems and institute more sustainable, resilient practices. Current systems not only perpetuate environmental plastic leakage—amounting to an estimated 8 million tons of plastic flowing into the ocean each year—but fuel other real and serious impacts, including growing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change. The Philippines-based non-profit and CCBO grantee, Communities Organized for Resource Allocation (CORA), helps to transform single-use plastics and other waste gathered at coastal clean-ups (pictured here) into new and recycled products to reduce plastics pollution and waste-linked emissions in the Philippines and increase awareness in local communities.