ABOUT A DECADE AGO, IT WAS AN endangered mountain with a receding water source. Now Mount Magdiwata has a regenerated forest cover and supplies more than enough water to thousands of residents in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur.
Efforts to restore Magdiwata, which was declared a permanent watershed forest reserve by Presidential Proclamation No. 282, began in 1997 when the San Francisco Water District (SFWD) initiated a program to rehabilitate 928 hectares of denuded and open grasslands out of the mountain’s 1,623 ha. So far, 683 ha of land have been reforested.
Elmer Luzon, SFWD general manager, said the program had brought more than just a sufficient water supply for its 4,200 household-consumers. “In one source alone, we can already tap at least 17 liters per second, a significant increase from five liters per second in 2004,” he said.
An increase of only 12 liters per second is enough to supply the daily needs of 500 households.
The project was not an easy feat, Luzon said, citing difficult challenges, especially from farmers engaged in slash-and-burn farming, rampant timber poaching, unregulated sand and gravel quarrying at the foot of the mountain, and small-scale gold mining.
When the SFWD asked for the delineation of watershed boundaries, it had to deal with Picop (Paper Industries Corp. of the Philippines) Resources Inc. (PRI), which obtained a logging concession area in the lower portions of the mountain during the Marcos regime.
Luzon said the water district persevered and forged a co-management agreement with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the municipal government. The SFWD was to spearhead the implementation of the sustainable rehabilitation program for Magdiwata.
The agency has already invested P10 million, mostly for reforestation activities and payment to land claimants and residents within the 200-meter buffer zone at the foot of the mountain. “As of December last year, there were 88 former occupants who had waived their rights to lands covering 443 ha as the SFWD had already paid them a total of P3 million,” Luzon said.
To prevent former occupants from continuing their destructive ways, Luzon said the SFWD had offered them jobs as caretakers of high-value fruit trees planted in the area. They will get a 10-percent share of the fruits, he said.
Moreover, they were allowed to plant vegetables organically within the buffer zone.
“The sustainable livelihood program has already [attracted] … at least 10 families. They are now gainfully enjoying the harvests of their vegetable gardens and the copra harvest from the coconut trees in their areas,” Luzon said.
Now, the SFWD calls the beneficiaries “social fence” because they have agreed to also serve as forest guards of Magdiwata, he said.
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