On January 20, 2015, our final day in Davao, our group made a presentation to our host organization, Catholic Relief Services (CRS). After fifteen days in the field, visiting and talking with CRS partners and allies, we were excited to share our findings. It was a somewhat nerve wracking experience – we were not presenting anything new – however this final presentation would offer an analysis on key events and challenges to peacebuilding through our own perspective.
My individual research is focused on the land aspect of the conflict. Repeatedly we heard that the land is the most important root cause of the conflict. The land of Mindanao has an incredible wealth of biodiversity and natural resources, yet presents extreme paradoxes. The land yields incredible bounty, yet inequality, poverty and hunger persists. Throughout our fieldwork it became apparent that the richness of the land is one of the things that makes Mindanao so poor.
From my presentation:
In the past few weeks in the field, there was a striking difference between Central and Northern Mindanao, in the way of talking about causes of the conflict. In Central Mindanao, identity conflict took greater importance over the environment and planning for the future of precious resources. Land was named as the source of the conflict but the specifics of land use, entitlements, and tax structures were never mentioned in the peace process, only land ownership and ancestral domain were discussed.
It is clear that industrialized agriculture and intensive resource extraction is putting extreme pressure on local community livelihoods and food security. This presents unique and complex challenges, though without redress from local Development Plans. One story we heard about a community in the North, where landless farmers are producing high-value organic produce while still going hungry. The irony is that they had sold their land to outsiders and were now working as laborers on what used to be their own property.
Farmers rake out rice to dry
Young men take a break from harvesting sugar cane (Photo by Lauren Turich)
Politically, it seemed that mining was of minimal concern behind land and property conflict. Mining companies are clearly exploiting the chaos of the land conflict, and there are very few avenues for communities to engage with companies about impacts to livelihood and environmental protection. There is very little research being done to calculate the true environmental and social impacts of mining. In the process of conflict transformation, communities must go beyond settling neighborly or clan land disputes, but strategically combat encroachment of intensive extractive industries that seriously threaten their livelihoods.
My final questions from the Jan 20 presentation still linger.
So, if the challenges to the environmental, land and food security are truly going to be addressed in the peace process, we must ask ourselves:
- How can local communities collectively make their own decisions about land use and resource management?
- And how can these decisions be respected and protected within political structures, like the Bangsamoro?