Earth pulses with life. It teems with vitality, nurturing and sustaining other life forms that are intrinsically interconnected with each other. Such is the recurring theme that binds the belief systems upheld by many of the indigenous peoples (IP) in the Philippines. From the Bungkalot to the Ifugao, their profound affinity to the land serves as the crucial foundation for their relationship with the environment founded on the principle of regeneration.
Contrary to this worldview of stewardship that respects the right of nature to undergo its renewal and restorative process, the domination of market forces driving over-extraction did not only cause ecological breakdowns, but also subsumed rehabilitative approaches to the clutches of profitability. The market’s influence pervades the theme for this year’s Earth Day, espousing “Invest In Our Planet” to urge enterprises to “drive value for their institutions and society through green innovation and practices.”
Genuinely committing to ecological recovery means divorcing from the dogma of unlimited extraction premised on the profit motive. As long as responses to the crisis continue to be confined to efforts centered around maintaining the pursuit of instant return in the present, no amount of investment can remedy the disastrous future that awaits the coming generations.
As demonstrated by the experience of IPs deceived by extractive investments, reliance on the dictum of capital expansion is futile at best and fatal at worst. Comprising only 10 to 15 percent of the national population, IPs are at the forefront of environmental defense as their ancestral lands cover about 85 percent of the country’s key biodiversity areas. Because of corporations desecrating their mineral-rich lands through aggressive extractivism, IPs suffer from displacement, dispossession, repression, and widespread environmental destruction that disrupt their way of living.
For one, the Bungkalot, Tuwali, and Ifugao of Nueva Vizcaya have been subjected to the devastating operations of open-pit mines of the Australian-Canadian company Oceanagold Corporation since 1994. This intrusion caused extreme water contamination, death of native trees, harm to biodiversity, and violent repression of residents. Despite all of these, Rodrigo Duterte’s administration in 2021 approved the renewal of the corporation’s permit effective for another 25 years.
The large-scale operations that utilize open-pit mining have long inflicted detriment on communities. Despite passing laws that supposedly regulate this industry, the country continues to be beholden to foreign mining companies. The Mining Act of 1995 has been criticized for the disproportionate benefits that Filipinos derive from it due to its emphasis on exportation, its prioritization of extraction over sustainability, and its weak accountability measures.
In an attempt to mitigate the adverse repercussions of their actions, mining companies such as Oceanagold tout the banners of social investments and “responsible mining.” They forward their corporate social responsibility efforts to engage the communities by promoting organic farming, reducing their emissions by cutting down on fossil fuels, and committing to eco-friendly ways such as reforestation and sustainable infrastructure.
But not only are these lip service, these approaches aim to sanitize their image and detract people from the gravity of their actions through faulty palliatives. Residents are still deprived of their resource management systems that govern their mutual relationship with the environment. Due to this, as with the case in Nueva Vizcaya, people are more vulnerable to disasters, native hardwoods are cut down in exchange for plantation species that are already dying, and agricultural activity is stunted by 30 percent.
This conformity to market fundamentalism runs counter to the IP’s core principles of communal ownership and stewardship of the environment rooted in an important tenet of their belief: that the ultimate return of taking care of the environment is its conservation for many others in the future to inherit. Endless extraction will always be the imperative of a system that treats monetary gain as the prime objective. To borrow the words of the activist and poet Audre Lorde, the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. These communities’ ecological destruction will never be resolved by the same approach that caused them.
Green growth is legitimized by proposing that governments must only incentivize efficient technologies and means that will save us from environmental ruin. However, the principal problem is that we are extracting beyond the amount that the Earth can regenerate. If anything, a more efficient method of extraction only hastens our collective downfall. Studies show that even when countries adopt the best practices of efficient resource use, we will still expend them excessively, which is why green growth cannot be reconciled with any earnest rehabilitative measure.
Drawing from the lessons of the international divestment campaign, disempowering these corporations and taking away their social license must be advanced by undercutting institutional and governmental support for them. This entails adherence to mining bans, soliciting monetary reparations from companies liable for environmental harm toward their victims, and ensuring the democratic participation of communities in key decisions on the use of their resources. With a recognition of the role that international corporations such as Oceanagold play, reparations must also be demanded from foreign entities that will then be directed towards those vulnerable to climate impacts as seen in the loss and damage fund discussed at the last Conference of Parties 27.
What is needed is a shift from the highly privatized regime toward the rule of the commons where people extensively participate in and benefit from resource allocation. This is where funds from the government and those recouped from corporations must be funneled into: rehabilitating communities, repairing their ecosystems, addressing environmental vulnerabilities, and providing them with economic security so they would no longer have to rely on the employment of extractive industries.
Like the Bungkalot, Tuwali, and Ifugao at the Didipio mine, renewal is at the core of the indigenous peoples’ relationship with nature. Resisting systemic forces that fundamentally alter this relationship is integral to our struggle for environmental justice. For in our recognition that the land is an entity with its own right to regenerate and be preserved, another generation will be assured to revel in a life of abundance and security. ●
