ENVIRONMENT WATCH

Robert L. Domoguen
Watershed care in the Cordillera

BONTOC, Mountain Province---In the bid to gain full community support to watershed care and protection, development agencies might as well consider prioritizing development assistance in areas where watersheds are valued, protected and cared for by the local residents.

The proposition comes from engineer Delfin Aglit, officer-in-charge of the National Irrigation Administration provincial office here. He said that given the opportunity, his office will prioritize development assistance to those communities that promote or have established measures on reforestation and protection of the watersheds over those that have yet to demonstrate their care for this most precious natural resource which is emerging today as a major component of any viable irrigation system.

Aglit, said the development of productive agricultural lands and the sustainability of old and newly established irrigation systems largely depends on the year-round availability of water. This is also true to all other livelihoods and industries that depend on this precious resource for their viability and sustainability.

In Mountain Province, people know the critical role of watersheds in making water available for domestic and other uses, Aglit said. Such awareness was seen in the people’s readiness to volunteer their time, effort and resources in support to the implementation of the province-wide planting of 1 million forest and fruit trees in less than two-years initiated by the provincial local government.

This initiative mobilized support from a multi-sectoral group to include religious and civic groups, national government agencies and non-government organizations and employees of the provincial and municipal local government units for its successful implementation.

However, there is a need today for all communities in the province to sustain the effort and consistently match their awareness of the importance of trees and watersheds to quality survival in the area with greater commitment through participatory planning, monitoring and reforestation, and enforcement measures, Aglit said.

He added without the communities’ full support to environmental conservation, protection and rehabilitation, the long term benefits and impact of investments to agricultural and rural development, to include rural infrastructures, irrigation and domestic water supply, among others, will not be maximized and enjoyed by the people themselves over the long term.

Mountain Province has a total of 10,288.19 hectares of farmlands considered developed or fully irrigated, as of December 31, 2007. Of this total, 8,845.69 hectares is devoted to rice production. The remaining 1,442.50 hectares is utilized for vegetable production. With a potential irrigable area in the province of 30,060 hectares, around 19,771.81 remain to be developed or fully irrigated.

In the face of increasing demand for food, the challenge according to Engineer Aglit, is to increase production in irrigated farm lands. The easiest way to do this is to increase the frequency of planting in irrigated lands but this will necessarily require a year-round availability of sufficient irrigation water.

Meeting the increasing demand for food also requires the rehabilitation of old systems and opening up of new ones. Rehabilitation of irrigation system is viable only if sufficient water is available and sustained during the targeted production season in the irrigation systems of NIA and others that were constructed by other government institutions and private individuals. Unless a good source of irrigation water is identified that is close to production areas, its development would be hampered by cost and other considerations involving design, maintenance, availability of materials, among others.

As in all provinces of the Cordillera, the NIA provincial office of Mountain Province has been promoting watershed rehabilitation, protection and care among the local residents.

Aside from tree planting, engineer Abraham Akilit, NIA regional director said before projects implemented through the NIA are fully paid, the final payment called “retention money” is withheld and released to beneficiaries only upon compliance to the planting of an agreed number of forest trees in the watersheds or fruit trees in the community.

NIA has been highlighting the same message in its participation in the extension of technical and mobilization assistance for the promotion and development of the province’ heirloom rice as an export crop.

In pursuit of this development endeavor, the agency is currently pushing for the approval of an inter-agency Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), encouraging participating development agencies to prioritize and extend development assistance to the rice farming communities who have set-up participatory protection, rehabilitation and enforcement measures for the care of their watersheds.