On the slopes of Mount Kalatungan, a protected area on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, rows of robusta coffee shrubs thr
Indigenous rainforestation
Indigenous communities in the Philippines’ Mt. Kalatungan protected area have since 2021 carried out a tree-planting campaign to restore native vegetation lost to decades of commercial logging and agriculture.
Known as rainforestation, it aims to rejuvenate vital ecosystem services like flood mitigation, which benefits urban areas downstream, while also providing incentives for the communities driving the restoration.
The rainforestation program is led by community groups, making use of their knowledge of native plants, and marks a shift from the government’s decades-long, centrally managed reforestation efforts that relied on planting nonnative species.
Communities are already benefiting from exports of the coffee that they grow in the shade of larger trees, but proponents of the scheme say there needs to be more interest and funding from outside to ensure long-term success.
