Sustainable Solutions for the Cordillera Mountains

Cordillera Conservation Trust

Tignayan para iti Konserbasyon ti Kordilyera

Ambulalakaw Lake, Ballay, Kabayan, Benguet

Conservation and Sustainable Development

The Cordillera trails project envisions using the already existing trails in the Cordillera region as venues for sustainable development and environmental conservation. The Cordillera region of the Philippines is replete with natural and cultural wonders and is already a destination for many foreign and local tourists, but this tourist activity is mostly located in the already heavily populated urban areas such as Banaue, Sagada, Bontoc, etc… the interior mountains where most of the remaining trails still exist and rural poverty is most felt shows the greatest promise for this type of development.

 

The prevalence of the trails in the region and the fact that they are located in the interior mountain areas where the environment is mostly pristine means that there is a potential for these trails to be used to conserve these resources and develop the mountain environment in a way that is in line with its natural character. This development will also enable interior mountain villages who are often short of cash funds obtain added income through revenue from trekkers who will be using the trail. The fact that they already exist, means that there is little or almost no cost for establishment in fact most of the costs entailed would have to do with maintenance, management, and policy and trekking infrastructure development rather than the cost of trail blazing through dense undergrowth.

 

The focus of resource development within the areas covered by the trail is to apply a new innovative ecological and cultural area based approach to management that will enhance the community stability, encourage economic diversification, and increase local economic development while still taking into consideration the ecological place-based values and meanings of landscapes translating and amplifying community based knowledge so that they become visible to other scales and processes in resource management on a scale larger than the single community.

 

The development of the existing trails into a sustainable trekking enterprise will not only support local livelihoods but will also serve as form of development that is in tune with the needs of the mountain ecosystem and its peoples.

 

The improved natural environment and sustainable utilization of the local resources will also ensure that the primary source of local capital, the environment, is kept in a form that will continuously provide its services for the local communities reducing the incidence of rural poverty, environmental conflicts, and health hazards arising from degraded environmental conditions.

 

Developing the trails of the cordillera do not only give us a novel way of creating a new source of revenue for local communities, it offers us the possibility of creating a form of development that is socially equitable, culturally rooted, and environmentally sustainable.

· Cultural and Ecological Management

· Sustainable livelihood development

· Ecological conservation

· Improved natural resource capital

· Local management and skills development

Mt. Pulag, Benguet Province

E-mail: Cordillera.conservation.trust@gmail.com

To contact us:

Eco-Cultural Trail