The Environment Report

MANILA, Philippines—With the international focus today on an impending worldwide water crisis, a private tropical jungle and wildlife refuge in central Negros offers valuable insights into the overarching role of trees in maintaining the forest ecosystem vital to securing water resources.

The Tabucol Sanctuary in the foothills of Mt. Kanlaon is possibly the last lowland forest area on Negros island hosting a large variety of plant and wildlife. Pristine streams wind throughout its 140 hectares of towering narra, balete, gmelina and mahogany trees.

The land was not always so luxuriantly green or as thickly canopied with trees as it is now. Decades of illegal logging and slash-and-burn methods had left it barren.

Reinhard and Corazon Sagemuller began reforesting the property when they acquired it in the 1960s, turning it into a zone of biodiversity and providing free water to dozens of communities in the area and irrigation to 80 ha of rice fields.

Unfit for agriculture

“My mother inherited the land but it was unfit for agriculture. The soil was dry and infertile because all the trees had been chopped down,” explains Josef, the youngest of the Sagemuller brood as he pointed out the Tabucol Sanctuary, a thick green patch on a distant hill that contrasted dramatically with the baldness of the surrounding land.

“Instead of abandoning the land, my parents painstakingly reforested every hectare to rehabilitate the area and provide a refuge for the province’s endemic bird and animal species,” said Josef.

Because of the thick foliage, the temperature in the sanctuary is much lower than any other area on the island and there is water everywhere. The hush of the jungle is broken by the sounds of Negros owls, Visayan taritic hornbills and Philippine Leopard cats which are all temporarily cared for in cages.

The wildlife are the products of a conservation breeding program run by the Negros Forests and Ecological Foundation (NFEFI) in Bacolod.

“We’re preparing to release them into the jungle but I’m afraid they won’t be joining too many of their kind. They’re on the verge of extinction. Perhaps they’re the last of the Mohicans since the wildlife here have been for years innocent victims of forest destruction and poachers,” said Josef.

Regenerating the forest

After successfully regenerating the forest, the Sagemullers had to protect it from illegal loggers and poachers heedlessly destroying the valuable biodiversity there. The Tabucol Sanctuary is private property but it still encounters problems keeping out encroachers and keeping the birds safe from hunters.

It has been very frustrating, said Josef. Once in the 1980s, in a period of less than a week, encroachers slashed and burned 20,000 10-year-old narra trees. And because of the insurgency problem in Negros at the time, there was nothing the family could do.

Starting in 1997, the family found itself having to hire armed guards to secure the property. They have caught illegal loggers, hunters and poachers which they reported to the police and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, but no action was ever taken.

Recently a 100 foot-high bita tree, a species endemic to the Philippines, was scorched by honey collectors who dipped a palm frond in kerosene and lit it to smoke out the bees. They ended up burning half of the tree and all the epiphytes growing on it.

Swinging monkeys

There also used to be a colony of macaques swinging among the trees but hunters made a quick meal of them as well.

Despite the horror stories, the Tabukol Sanctuary has managed to become home to a wealth of plant and animal life. To date there are over 80 different bird species confirmed sighted, quite a feat for a place that was a bald hill almost 40 years ago.

The seasons are represented by the colors of the leaves that carpet its untrodden trails. Their calming presence not only puts one in tune with the spirit of this private oasis but also reminds visitors that there would be no water without them.

The United Nations and other international organizations have pointed to an impending water crisis owing to the scarcity of usable water. There is increasing awareness that freshwater resources are limited and need to be protected both in terms of quantity and quality.

Water cycle

Ecosystems like forests have strong water-retention capacities. Water penetrates into these ecosystems, is stored, then restored.

“The water cycle starts with the availability of water supply, and trees play a vital role in this natural process. Nature cannot produce enough water if there are no trees to retain water in the ground,” said Josef.

He laments that reforestation projects mistakenly prioritize the planting of exotic tree species instead of indigenous species like tanguile, apitong, lauan and yakal because they take 10 to 15 years longer to harvest.

“Many are not aware that exotic trees drink up massive amounts of water needed for their fast growth. I can speak from experience because we planted a lot of Mahogany trees but because of allelopathy [the baneful influence of one living plant on another due to secretion of toxic substances], all the other varieties were killed off,” he said.

Josef said people who are interested in reforesting their properties should refrain from or at least minimize the planting nonnative species.

Native trees

“We have enough native trees that are truly beneficial and will help restore the ecological functions like maintaining the water supply in a natural forest,” he said.

He would wish that people who plant trees would start thinking along these lines instead of the trees’ commercial value.

“The Philippines has only 800,000 ha of old growth forest left and with a water crisis staring at us in the face, it’s time to protect the sources of water supply and arrest deforestation,” said Josef.

“My parents recognized the root cause of water depletion and it’s not difficult to understand that with no natural forests, the water will disappear,” he said.