Palawan Forest Loss Attributed to Kaingin; Environmental Group Disputes Simple Framing

Southern Palawan lost 57,715 hectares of forest from 2001 to 2023, with kaingin, or slash-and-burn agriculture, accounting for most of the loss, the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) said, even as an environmental group cautioned against treating the practice as a catch-all explanation for deforestation. Citing a study conducted by the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development Staff, Holy Trinity University and Western Philippines University, PCSD said kaingin accounted for 44,698 hectares, or 77.4 percent, of the forest loss recorded within the Environmentally Critical Areas Network (ECAN) core and buffer zones. But the Save Palawan Movement (SPM) said recent public communications and studies, including those released by PCSDS, risk oversimplifying a complex ecological and governance issue by framing kaingin as the principal driver of forest loss. SPM said such interpretations, while grounded in data, could lead to misleading conclusions if not properly contextualized. PCSD identified other drivers of forest loss, including perennial crops, which accounted for 4,652 hectares, or 8.1 percent; mining areas covered by mineral production sharing agreements, 1,388 hectares, or 2.4 percent; annual crops, 1,121 hectares, or 1.9 percent; inland water, 738 hectares, or 1.3 percent; bare land, 583 hectares, or 1 percent; built-up areas, 446 hectares, or 0.8 percent; and other causes, 4,089 hectares, or 7.1 percent. “These figures are more than just numbers on a map,” PCSD said in a statement. “They represent a complex shift in our land-use patterns. As agricultural practices intensify and the needs of our communities evolve, we are seeing a direct impact on our natural landscapes.” PCSD, the government body tasked with promoting sustainable development and environmental protection in Palawan, said the problem could not be solved by “pointing fingers,” but by addressing its root causes. It cited the need to create sustainable livelihood alternatives, support communities in shifting to resilient farming methods, and build inclusive land-use policies that work with people rather than against them. The council said the findings were validated using the 2001-2023 Global Forest Change data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery program, in partnership with NASA and Google; Mineral Production Sharing Agreement data from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Mines and Geosciences Bureau; the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority’s 2020 Land Cover Map; and the PCSDS 2024 Kaingin Extent Map. SPM said it recognizes that forest loss is a critical and urgent concern and that unsustainable land-clearing practices, regardless of form, must be addressed. However, the group said attributing most forest loss primarily to kaingin, without distinguishing among land-use types and the actors involved, risks obscuring broader structural drivers and weakening accountability. According to SPM, kaingin, as traditionally practiced by Indigenous Peoples, is a form of swidden agriculture governed by customary law and ecological knowledge systems. The group cited Republic Act No. 8371, or the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act, saying Section 3(b) recognizes swidden farms as part of ancestral lands, while Sections 7(b) and 51 affirm the rights of Indigenous communities to manage and use their lands according to traditional practices. These provisions establish that kaingin, within its proper cultural and ecological context, is a legally protected and historically rooted land-use system and is not inherently destructive, SPM said. The group said it is critical to distinguish between rotational swidden agriculture and other forms of forest clearing that are often broadly labeled as kaingin. Traditional swidden agriculture is typically small-scale and cyclical, allowing natural regeneration and the formation of landscape mosaics that include cultivated fields and regenerating forests, SPM said. Other forms of forest clearing, it added, may involve permanent land conversion, commercial expansion, speculative occupation or externally driven extraction. “Conflating these fundamentally different practices under a single category risks misrepresenting the data and unfairly shifting responsibility onto Indigenous Cultural Communities and upland communities,” the group said. SPM also cited a 2016 review led by Wolfram Dressler, a University of Melbourne associate professor who studies Indigenous livelihoods, environmental policy and swidden agriculture in the Philippines. The review, which covered 93 studies across Southeast Asia, found that long-fallow swidden systems can sustain both livelihoods and ecosystem functions, and that policies forcing transitions away from swidden have often been misguided. The same body of research identified land-use policies, market forces and population dynamics as major drivers of landscape change, showing that forest loss cannot be explained by a single factor, SPM said. Given this, SPM said the classification of 77.4 percent of forest loss as kaingin warrants closer examination. “Without transparency on how land-clearing activities are defined, detected and attributed, there is a risk that diverse and structurally different drivers are being aggregated under a single label.” “A science-based approach requires not only data, but also clarity in interpretation,” it added. SPM said the issue has become more urgent following public concern over mining-linked tree cutting that initially involved more than 218,000 trees and has since reportedly exceeded 300,000. If forest loss is occurring at such scales, the group said, a comprehensive and disaggregated accounting of all drivers is necessary to ensure informed public discourse and institutional accountability. Protecting Palawan’s forests requires a balanced approach that includes rigorous science, respect for Indigenous knowledge systems, secure land tenure and accountability across all sectors, SPM said. “The protection of Palawan’s forests demands not only enforcement, but fairness, historical understanding, and a commitment to sustainable practices that benefit both people and the environment.”