

Culture, Nature, and Community in the Indigenous Populations of the Philippines: Neo-colonialism and Conservation
Written by Dr. Georgia Holly, Post Doctoral Researcher at the University of Edinburgh, and Edinburgh Marine Archaeology Natural Heritage Specialist
Although making up 20% of the population, the indigenous people of the Philippines are at war with the world. These groups face some of the most significant challenges in society: representing the frontline of the climate crisis, and the vulnerable centre of geopolitical instability in the Philippines. The history of such groups is scarred by years of colonial legislation aimed at displacing indigenous people and their heritage from their ancestral lands. Through a series of in-accessible procedures which demanded documentation to prove ownership of land, the ancestral boundaries of indigenous communities were segregated, and land was sold to industry and development companies, and ‘landgrabbers’ – mainland or foreign people who claimed indigenous land before ancestral domain rights were recognised. Today, communities have to go through a lengthy application process for an ancestral domain certificate, primarily to stop the threat of industry and development from buying up ancestral land and waters without community consent.
When official ancestral domain status is awarded, the challenges become more insidious. Neo-Landgrabbers, now referred to as ‘professional squatters’ , poach land through loopholes in the law, and industry and development companies conduct ‘capacity building’ exercises to convince indigenous communities to sell their land for cash. As a result, community land boundaries are constantly shifting, and geopolitics overwhelm the needs and livelihoods of this portion of society. As a result, the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the indigenous populations is rapidly disappearing. Traditional ecological and heritage knowledge is being lost as cultural landscapes are reshaped, resulting in community instability, conflict, and poverty. As land is repossessed, built heritage is often destroyed, and sacred places are repurposed.
Nowhere is this more relevant than in the marine zone, where the traditional heritage practices of fishing communities are being threatened by oil and gas, the development of superports and bridges, commercial fishing, coastal erosion, and sea-level rise. NGOs with differing intentions are implementing interventions to overcome these issues, but in doing so, have overwhelmed communities with contradictory processes, ethics, protocols, and data collection methods. Local councils have reported that over-stimulation from stakeholders paired with under-delivery from well-meaning NGOs and advocates have become a burden, resulting in a decrease in community stability, morale, and self-sufficiency. Coastal indigenous communities selling land and waters to foreign investors is increasing, and whole communities are displaced on inland roadsides, waiting to be evicted from their ancestral land.
Edinburgh Marine Archaeology (EMA) has been spending time with the longest standing NGO in Busuanga, and the only NGO who is integrating culture, nature, and community livelihoods for the future stability of the indigenous Tagbanua groups in the South-West Philippines. C3 (Community Centred Conservation) Philippines is made up of a team of national, local, and indigenous conservationists who advocate for decolonialising modern, one size fits all approaches to the management of marine protected areas. Funded by the Darwin Initiative, C3 Philippines has collaborated with EMA at the University of Edinburgh, on exploring indigenous management of marine resources in Palawan. EMA will provide training in cultural and biocultural heritage approaches to marine protected areas, and will aid in project implementation and evaluation, with the aim of increasing the resilience of the Tagbanuas and their biocultural heritage to the pressures of climate change and industry, and development.


‘Because of a sustained relationship between the Tagbanuas and their ancestral land (tanek and surublien) and ancestral waters (teeb surublien), they have derived a sense of uniqueness and identity as a people, an identity inseparable from their ancestral domain. Hence, their ancestral domain is not merely the territory per se, but also the intangible aspects of the community such as its history, social relations, system of resource use and cultural identity. All these are direct expressions of the Tagbanua’s relationship with their traditional territory.’ Maya-Anda et al., 2006
So far, the team has conducted introductory visits to local and indigenous councils, and begun training in cultural and biocultural heritage research methods. Later in the week, the team will begin collecting data in target communities throughout the Busuangan coastline. Coming blogs will provide updates on the day-to-day activities of the C3 and EMA team in the field.
Ref: Mayo-Anda, G., Cagatulla, L.L. and La Viňa, A.G., 2006, June. Is the Concept of “Free and Prior Informed Consent” Effective as a Legal and Governance Tool to Ensure Equity among Indigenous Peoples?(A Case Study on the Experience of the Tagbanua on Free Prior Informed Consent, Coron Island, Palawan, Philippines). In Survival of the commons: mounting challenges and new realities, the 11th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property, Bali (pp. 19-23).
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