Puerto Princesa - Palawan NGO Network, Inc.

Lucia
31. März 2015
2 Min. Lesezeit

Puerto Princesa City is the capital of the island of Palawan. The Palawan NGO Network Inc. (PNNI) has its headquarters in Puerto Princesa City.

In 1991, the NGOs and people’s organization (POs) in Palawan formed the Palawan NGO Network, Inc. The motivation was to present a broader NGO consensus that would carry more weight in the policy making process in various local government units in the province.

Currently, PNNI is composed of 33 Palawan NGOs/POs. The General Assembly, its highest policy-making body, meets every year to map out the network's thrust for the year.

With its creation, NGOs hope to maximize the impact of their respective programs by being able to consult and coordinate with one another. PNNI believes that by uniting the NGOs and POs towards a common pursuit, it can strongly influence the direction of development for Palawan.

http://pnni.net/

Here I would like to present one of the NGOs:

NATRIPAL

NATRIPAL has been assisting Indigenous Peoples in their struggle for the recognition and delineation of their ancestral domains. Along with its partners, it works with local multi-sectorial groups to advance indigenous peoples interest and to defend the Indigenous Peoples of Palawan from threats to various forms of development aggression. NATRIPAL also networks nationally and globally in supporting Indigenous Peoples rights.

The forests and mountains in south Palawan are the home of three indigenous groups: the Tagbanua, Batak and Pala’wan. These three tribes depend on their customary land and its forest resources as the main source of subsistence and livelihood such as swidden farming, hunting and gathering of non-timber forest products such as rattan, honey and almaciga resin.

Embedded in the very life of these lands is the extension of their cultural identity and integrity which have been nurtured and enriched throughout generations. Moreover, most of these forest are ancestral domains within biodiversity hotspots of Palawan.

An increasing number of tribal groups in the Philippines have been displaced from their ancestral domains due mainly to intrusion of plantation expansion and extractive industries.

Plantation interests such as palm oil and sugarcane are vying for expansion in tribal areas, as that is where most of the remaining intact forests are located.

Due to the abundance of minerals under its soil, Palawan has become a mining hotspot. Those minerals are mostly found beneath forested tribal areas.

Collectively, around 651,533 hectares of forested area or nearly half of the entire island is under the imminent threat of being plundered by a total of 322 mining applications.

During the past few years, these threats to the forest-dependent communities have dramatically gained in strength.

The government is tolerating the destruction of these forest despite of the existence of Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) and the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development.

https://natripal.wordpress.com/

One of the projects of PNNI ist the "Environmental Enforcement Museum" that you will find on the spot. I'm going to present it here since environmental issues are closely related to the problems that many Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines are facing.