UI researchers aid Philippines in service learning trip
There is strength in asking for help, and after regaining contact with an old friend, a Moscow resident learned help was needed across the Pacific Ocean.
Loreca Stauber and her friend, now the leader of the Socio-Economic and Gender Advocacy Association in the Philippines, said there are several challenges the Philippines faces, specifically with deforestation and water scarcity.
Dr. Michael Bengwayan | Courtesy
Indigenous groups in the Philippines clear forest cover to create space for monoculture crops, a practice the UI team will focus on during their service learning trip during spring break.
SEGAA, a group of indigenous Filipino women striving to make impacts on the region around them, not long ago began working on a project focused on some of these issues, however the group struggled with funding and reached out to the University of Idaho for help.
Stauber called Anthony Davis, director of UI’s Center for Forest Nursery and Seedling research, and presented some of the group’s efforts. Not long after the call, UI began the Agroforestry for Resilient Ecosystems Project in the Philippines.
Kent Apostol, a research scientist at UI, Kea Woodruff, a nursery production and logistics associate, and five UI students leave Thursday for a service-learning trip in the Philippines to focus on issues surrounding deforestation in the Cordillera Mountains region, Apostol said.
Rebecca Lieberg, one of the students on the trip and a first-semester UI graduate student studying natural resources, said ecosystem health is difficult to pay attention to because it isn’t a subject that grants instant gratification. However, she said her group’s work is attempting to make the Earth last longer.
The group will utilize agroforestry, which integrates crops and timber for productivity and profitability, and participants will teach local groups the techniques of maintaining a nursery and planting seedlings to implement long-term recovery from deforestation, Apostol said.
“There are other factors that actually drive success of reforestation, so you have to understand socio-economic factors, especially when you’re dealing with rural, developing countries,” Apostol said. “And the issue there is since they don’t have any source of livelihood, they cut down trees and they convert them to charcoal.”
Local groups convert forest land into unsustainable monoculture, or single species, vegetable farming with intensive pesticide application, Apostol said.
Lieberg said the health of Filipino land is a great thing to focus on, but when citizens are worried about where their next meal is coming from, food takes priority.
“We have to convince them that (agroforestry is) economically beneficial for them, because otherwise they’re going to be like, ‘Well, this is all great and everything, but I can’t feed my family or afford to live, so why would I plant all these new, different kinds of things?'” Lieberg said.
The total forest cover in the Philippines in 2010 was 6,839,718 hectares, with annual forest cover loss totaling 46,954 hectares, Apostol said. A hectare is 10,000 square meters.
He said deforestation also leads to water scarcity and erosion, which leads to nutrients in the soil being washed out.
The research group, specifically UI civil engineering student Nathan Suhr, will coordinate to find a water harvesting system by collecting rainwater during the wet season, Apostol said.
Stauber said the water issues in the Philippines are serious. Wells are running dry, dry seasons are longer and wet seasons are shorter, she said.
Without a forest with roots holding water in the ground, land is exposed and dry, Stauber said.
“It was not an overnight process,” Stauber said. “Over time again and again, people, I guess, misused the land and now they’re realizing they can’t go on.”
Apostol, who was born and raised in the Philippines, said this is the group’s first trip to the country, which means the group must conduct site assessment, data collection and build trust and connections with the Filipino people the group will work with throughout the project.
Apostol said the group from UI plans to work with SEGAA, citizens and local governments in Benguet, Santo Tomas and Tuding in the Philippines. SEGAA is an option for women in the Philippines to receive educational training and make an impact on the region around them, Stauber said.
Stauber said this grassroots project is a first chance for many women in the region to correct practices and procedures in the region.
Lieberg said UI’s group will also work with a local university, Benguet State.
He said building mutual communication and understanding the needs and challenges of these local groups is imperative because his group will return and provide techniques for the local people.
“Initially, we made a commitment for two years, so by then, maybe our partners can do everything there with minimal supervision or contact,” Apostol said.
Jake Smith can be reached at [email protected]