Contributions of Pine Trees to the Philippine Environment

Contributions of Pine Trees to the Philippine Environment
By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan
Once again, as we face the coming of Christmas, the most memorable holiday in the Christian calendar, the image of pine trees comes vividly in our minds.

In the Philippines, the most notable is the Benguet pine tree (Pinus kesiya) often referred to as Cordillera pine because the tree grows not only in Benguet but also throughout the Cordillera range covering Mountain Province, Ifugao, Kalinga, Nueva Vizcaya, Abra, including Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur.

Pinus kesiya is endemic in the Cordillera region, a relative of the Khasya pines of the Khasya region in Burma. Pine trees in the Cordillera region are the standard-bearers of the Philippine mountain skyline.

The natural range of the pines is enormous. If anything, they favor rugged conditions, from the ecotome of Mount Pulag’s mossy montane forests, to the dipterocarp skyline of Balbalasang, the waterless and extremely exposed rocky crevices of Sagada, the clayey subsoils of Solsona, to the rocky domes high above where there seems to be no soil at all in Mount Santo Tomas.

If pine trees have a headquarters in our era, it is in Benguet and Mountain Province, whose tropical highlands they seem to relish. With their evolutionary tactics of self-pollination and interbreeding, they keep botanists, tree lovers and tree planters busier there than anywhere else in the region.
Pinus kesiya, ever proud and conquering, is symbol of the Cordillera peoples. Whether blanketed in lush cloaks of vibrant green or stripped naked with only their bare trunks remaining, they reveal their beauty throughout the warmest, wettest or rainiest seasons. Their knowledge of time, history and events is timeless and though science, technology and capitalism seem to have combined to end their reign, they continue to remain.

So What Do the Pine Trees Do?
On the surface, what most people see is the economic side of pine trees—lumber for housing, furniture and buildings. Very few are aware of the ecological, social, medical and cultural contributions of pine trees.

As food, pine trees seem unimportant to humans except for birds, insects and a few animals. While some pine tree species’ have seeds big enough to eat, Pinus kesiya’s seeds are, although edible, too small to really satisfy human hunger. Only the Lebanese pine, Korean and Pinon pine have seeds big enough to be harvested for food.

But the trees are more important for something else. There are four direct and uncontested facts that the pine trees do for the Philippine environment. First, the trees help directly contribute to oxygen supply to the environment for humans to breathe, directly affecting local and regional air quality by altering the urban atmospheric environment.

Humans breathe only oxygen which comprises 21 percent of our atmosphere. But oxygen in many parts of the world is being depleted due to pollution wherein dangerous methane, sulphur and nitrous oxides and CO2 and smog are increasing in the air. Trees supply about 70 percent of our oxygen supply.

Second, they provide water, absorbing as much as 150 liters per mature tree each year which they release slowly to recharge brooks, springs, rivers and ponds. Three of the nation’s biggest mega-dams, San Roque, Ambuklao and Binga generating a combined 1,200 megawatts of hydroelectric power—get their water from pine forests of Benguet and Mountain Province.

Third, the pine trees prevent soil erosion and landslides in the region, serving as the main soil cover thereby protecting soil loss. The Cordillera region losses some 100,000 tons of topsoil every year, without the pine trees soil loss would be worse affecting adversely agriculture, settlements, properties and lives.

Fourth, pine trees lower temperature. When Baguio had more pine trees, the city was cooler; it deserved to be called the “City of Pines”. Today, the city is not only warm, congested and dirty but also dubbed by World Bank as having one of the cities in the world with the “dirtiest air” as thousands of trees were allowed by the city government to be cut to give way to commercial and residential buildings, roads, tourism and hotels.

Oxygen Supply and CO2 Absorption
One mature pine tree, ten years and above, releases 45 lbs of oxygen a year. At least four trees can supply the oxygen requirement of one human each year.

As pine trees release oxygen, they absorb CO2, a dangerous greenhouse gas. Each mature pine tree absorbs 45 lbs of CO2, following physics’ Boyle’s law of “what element is lost is equally replaced by another element”.

The oxygen released by the millions of pine trees affect air by reducing temperature, remove smog and air pollutants, CO2, methane, sulphur and nitrous oxides thereby regulating microclimatic effects like cooling.

Pine Trees Lower Temperature
Clumps of pine trees and all trees for that matter reduce mid-day temperature from a minimum of 0.2 degrees C to 1.3 degrees C some 1.5 meters to 2.4 meters above ground.

Below individual and small fragments of pine trees over grass, mid-day air temperatures can be reduced to as low as 0.7C to 1.3C degrees cooler than in any open area.

When pine trees respire, they emit oxygen which do not only reduce air temperature, but also absorb radiation and store heat. They also reduce relative humidity, turbulence, and surface albedo of concrete. These changes in local meteorology alter pollution concentrations in urban areas.

Removal of Air Pollutants
Even though pine trees leaves are needle-type, they function as normally as a broadleaf. The needles through their stomata, remove deadly gaseous air pollution primarily by uptake.

Once inside the leaf, gases diffuse into intercellular spaces and may be absorbed by water films to form acids or react with inner-leaf surfaces. The trees also remove pollution by intercepting airborne particles. Most particles like CO2 are absorbed into the tree, and eventually stored in the soil by the roots.

Some particles that are intercepted are retained on the plant surface. These are resuspended to the atmosphere, washed off by rain, or dropped to the ground with leaf and twig falls. Consequently, vegetation is only a temporary retention site for many atmospheric particles.

Reducing Urban Island Phenomenon and Temperature on Buildings
Urban Island phenomenon is the heat transferred from cities via highway and roads to outlying communities. Pine tree reduce this, as well as lessen building energy use by lowering temperatures and shading buildings during the summer, and blocking winds during rainy season. When building energy use is lowered, pollutant emissions from power plants are also lowered.

The cumulative and interactive effects of trees on meteorology, pollution removal, and power plant emissions determine the overall impact of trees on air pollution.

Energy and Medical Relevance
Pine trees are the most popular among all conifers in the world, the most widespread, most varied and most valuable trees of their order. The biggest family of conifers goes by their name, the Pinaceae.
Pine trees are called pine trees basically because it contains the rare and highly expensive Alpha e-pinene chemical content that the tree treasures. E-pinene  contains an important hydro-carbon alkane, the chemical used for lighting and cooking in high altitudes and also ingredient for pharmaceuticals and chemical necessities.

The chemical is contained in the resin of the pine tree which explains why pine wood is highly flammable. The indigenous Cordillera tribes make use of resin-rich pine wood as flint or for starting fires called locally “saleng”.

Pine Trees and the Joy of Christmas
There was a time when pine trees were favorite trees cut for Christmas trees. Today, cutting a pine tree is a crime. But pine trees still exude mixed joy on Christmas especially to children. Thousands travel every Christmas to Baguio City and other places in the Cordillera region just to see pine trees.
To any young child who sees a small young pine tree, if anything, he/she is fascinated with joy to reach out and touch the vigorous plant-- fantastically rich in its detail, with its thick and sappy shoots bristling, bright new needles, embossed with male and female parts of splendidly original and suggestive design-- inviting kids to dapple them.

The trees’ genus Pinus is the pine proper, limited to 100 or so species all over the world, with certain clear and obvious characteristics, of which the easiest to see and remember is the relatively long evergreen needles.

The pine needles and cones are the ones that easily lure people on Christmas time. Pinus kesiya has three needles for each fascicle. The yearly growth of each shoot of a pine needle takes the form of a ‘candle’, which is a defiance of gravity.

The needles are boiled as tea and drank to cure upper respiratory tract ailments. Medical experts recommend to asthma victims to walk under pine trees in the morning because the trees release terpenes which help cleanse the lungs.

Thanking the Pine Trees
To give thanks to the pine trees for their ecological, social, cultural, economic and aesthetic benefits, the environmental group Cordillera Ecological Center conducts yearly the Pine Tree Festival. Already on its fourth year, educational, cultural, music and arts activities by representatives from Baguio city, Benguet, Mountain Province, Abra, Kalinga and Apayao. It attracts thousands of tourists.

Most importantly, it advocates and leads numerous tree planting activities.
Next time you find yourself walking underneath pine stands, woods or forests, look up. Not many people embrace this view high above our limited ground floor. An awakening and soul-changing world is gifted by a simple tilt of the head as you see the sky through a beautifully complicated and tangled web of pine trees.

That gives life.

Stillness of Time

Stillness of Time
....michael a. bengwayan

The walk to the mountain was worth it. I am on the zenith overlooking La Trinidad and part of Baguio City. Yonder, the coast of La Union seemed nearer than real. Soaked in sweat, breathing hard, I count my heavy pants. My legs yearned to be stretched. Age is fast catching up. Everything is still in front of me, except for a lonely cricket chirping, a step away, visible under the grass blades bending to adore earth. The empty expanse of space in front of me is inhabited by a lone, sun gliding swallow, wishing for the last rain, that may never come. Even the hopper doesn’t move. Far in the distance, the fading blue of the sea reflects to the sky, misleading, deceiving. The sky is a colorless space. The air molecules, yes oxygen, shine, sun lit to iridescent powder blue, taking form like a large fat fan covering space.

On the horizon, smaller hills proud of their skyline fill the lower fringes, royals, ceruleans, hints of purples and grays. Only the wind moves slightly, giving the colors more definition. I can see a ship or what appears to be a ship, on the point of empty hibernation. The shoreline is white, an artist's wavy stroke. It just lies there, waiting to melt, and then reformed by onrushing waves

Around me, just blades of grass and yes, the pine. They will be there forever. They may look lonely and unattached; each one motionless and green, They calm the spirit.,

Stillness is all I see as I view this sunset in one of its bests.. Stillness is all I feel. It is a different kind of calm for me – more pronounced than when I take quiet moments in my world of motion. This is quiet that permeates from the outside in; born from the stillness of the scene. Nothing moves except that pine needles in the distance and the solitary swallow who takes flight every now and then. My insides feel the change. They have been tranquilized naturally, just by being present here. I too have been slowed, by age, much to my great surprise. Not fond of warm weather, I usually contract and withdraw from the elements. I realize that in doing so, I’ve missed opportunities to be quieted by the cold landscape, from the outside in. But now I know.

Indigenous Women Save World’s Biodiversity in the Midst of Climate Change

Indigenous Women Save World’s Biodiversity in the Midst of Climate Change

By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

Rose Cunningham Kain, of the Miskita and Tuapi tribe of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, personifies what wordsmiths call “forest dweller”.

She depends on the forest for food, water, medicine, clothing, dwelling materials, tools and implements. The forest is her teacher and book. Her deities are in the forest. She takes care of the forest as it takes care of her. 

For centuries, the balance between her people, culture and forest worked harmoniously. Today, however, the forests are dying and vanishing. And forest dwellers are finding it difficult to save these.

“If the forests die, so will we”, Kain said. She with 25 other indigenous women from Indonesia, Nepal, Kenya, Peru, Cameroon, Vietnam and the Philippines, are representing their nations to the “Global Conference on Indigenous Women, Climate Change and REDD Plus”  here in Baguio City, Philippines convened by the United Nations (UN)-affiliated Tebtebba Foundation.

Climate Change Adaptation

The conference presented researches baring impacts of climate change on biodiversity, on indigenous women and on the role of women in biodiversity, traditional forest ecosystem and resource management.

Kain, representing the Center for Indigenous Peoples Autonomy and Development of Nicaragua said the Miskita and Tuapi women are “living encyclopedia” in describing and interpreting the effects of climate change on forests and biodiversity ecosystems. Their understanding deal with their belief systems and enable them to practice coping mechanisms like establishing buffer zones that will not be touched by anyone in  the forest .

Indigenous knowledge has been helpful as the spirituality of the people manifested itself in conceptions, relations and conservation of trees  and plants as well as in practices employed in observing social festivities such as tree planting for every birth of a new-born child, Kain described.

These reflect the indigenous Nicaraguan women’s rich knowledge and deep relationship with land and nature as they observe the climate changes through the years.

Erosion of Values Result to Forest Destruction

Indigenous Nicaraguan women are rooted in the notion of Yamni Iwanka, belief that the erosion of values and responsibility over nature and over-ambition to extract from nature have resulted to climate change.

The change in the values towards nature arises from the increasing monetization of the local economy, the Nicaraguan women believe, adding that traditional knowledge, values and practices should be restored and further built upon to restore communities’ resilience against unpredictable climate change impacts for present and future generation.

Such worldview  is shared by spiritual believers in the universe who consider ecology and spirituality (in God) as overlapping, and that there is a need to treat all creation as sacred because the living human spirit is interconnected to all creation as stewards, not destroyers.

As such, the Nicaraguan women rely on Pana-pana Bahaknu, a traditional system of mutual help in carrying out protection and conservation activities of their forests and biodiversity like tree-planting, putting-out forest fires, firewood gathering and collection of non-wood forest products like honey, rattan and wild foods.

Western Form of Conservation Threatening Forests

Conference participant Lele Wal from Cameroon lamented the fact that industrial indiscriminate logging and exclusive conservation projects in her country have destroyed traditional way of life, particularly those of the Bhaka pygmies’ sustainable hunting and gathering practices.

She claims these have exacerbated the impacts of climate change, explaining Pygmies have been displaced from their forests by government and conservation authorities who look at biodiversity conservation without the Pygmies.

From a hunting-gathering culture, the Pygmies are pushed to live by the roadside to a semi-sedentary lifestyle.  They have to learn to do crop domestication in order to survive as they are curtailed from doing their traditional hunting and gathering practices in the Congo forest, their traditional home territory.

What is disgusting is while the Pygmies were pushed out; the Congo forest was opened to loggers who cut anything they put a price on, ignorant that some plants and small creatures are dependent on these trees.

It is resulting to species loss, aggravated by climate change impact like less rains and increasing warm temperature for longer lengths and long dry seasons.

 As a consequence of logging the Congo forest,, Wal said  water supply to rivers, streams and ponds of the forest have gone down, making extinct the most common edible fish, called Nbwakkah, last seen in 1997. The fish is also used in Pygmy women’s rite of passage to womanhood.

While when the hunter-gathering Pygmies were present in the forest, the ecological balance in the Congo was sustained, Lele Wal added. 

The Pygmies believe that the disappearance of the trees and fish is a sign of wrath of Komba (God) against the government and loggers and they believe Komba is telling them to plant trees and Raffia palm trees, which they have started doing.

Putting Forests in the Hands of the People

In Nepal, Nepali conference attendees bared success stories when forests were placed in the hands of the people. And that women are not only helpless victims of climate change but rather powerful agents of change.

 Tsering Sherpa, representing the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities bared Gurung and Bhujet indigenous women and their families are benefitting greatly from the Kassur and Kalleri forests because women are fighting for their rights and privileges.

The two forests, created under the Community Forest Act of Nepal, placed most forests under the management of communities. Thus, the forests became centers of spirituality and respected. Groves of trees were considered sacred and protected. 

Women plant trees, spices, berries, nuts alongside and beneath the trees. They do bush clearing collect dirt while men are in charge of cutting branches and selective tree felling.

Women have positions in the tree committees and can influence decision-making on critical issues about the forest because they asserted their rights.

Tsering disclosed however, that despite the collective efforts of the women to preserve their forests, climate change impact has lessened food production in the region because of erratic rainfall and the disappearance of snowcap in their mountains that feed rivers of the forests.

This led the community people to plant crops that require less water, especially native seed varieties, collected and stored by women, that have long adapted to the region.

Return to Traditional Ways

Senjuti Kisa of the Women’ Resource Network of Bangladesh disclosed that in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), climate change is impacting adversely on their jum rice cultivation.  Farmers are getting less rice yield. The forests have less tree species; there is dwindling water supply, longer dry spells, less time for farm work and rapid biodiversity loss.

This has prompted CHT women to revert to common sense and traditional ways. For instance, they avoid harvesting all potato tubers during harvest so as to leave in the ground a tuber for a 2^nd or 3^rd cropping. 

They plant only native banana varieties to avoid diseases, they do not harvest multi river denizens, harvesting only crabs or shrimps or fish or shells one at a time and never altogether. They  strongly suggest to men not cut trees less than 50 years old.

What are common among these experiences are the depletion, erosion and extinction of not only genetic material, and biodiversity but also knowledge, values and norms that govern natural resources management in the face of worsening climate change impacts.

It is aggravated bymultiple interacting factors like state laws, profit-oriented economic development, exclusive forest conservation schemes and creeping globalization.

Some 1.6 billion people worldwide depend on varying degree on forests for livelihood, around 7 billion people, the world’s population, rely on biodiversity for existence but only several thousand indigenous women are really on the ground protecting and conserving these. 

These women need help but may have to contend on the problem alone for the moment. Most of the world’s humans are busy destroying what is left of biodiversity. 

Help may never come.