Our Eco-warriors

Sunflowers, Bees Collateral Victims in Effort for Clean Safe Food

Sunflowers, Bees Collateral Victims in Effort for Clean Safe Food

By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

Baguio City, Philippines---Fifty Christmas seasons ago, much of this city and the Cordillera provinces' woodlands, valleys, glens and landscapes were beautifully carpeted with golden wild sunflowers (Tithonia diversifolia) Wild bees abounded, pollinating wild and domesticated flowers, ensuring genetic evolution.

Today, the sunflowers are sparse, the fields ugly, pockmarked by human touch as thousands of the plants are cut and killed intentionally two months before every Christmas season. Considered by apiculturists as the best sources of nectar for wild and domesticated bees alike in this part of the country, the plants are being killed resulting to the loss of billions of bees, the world's best pollinators.

A quote often ascribed to Albert Einstein but without no known proof says, "If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live" highlighting how vital bees are to the survival of of plant and animal species on the planet, including humans.

Use of Sunflowers as Fertilizer, an Indigenous Know-how

The wild sunflowers, native to Mexico, are being cut in the Cordillera region to be used either as green manure or composting material for the production of organically-grown vegetables.

Unwittingly, farmers intending to satisfy consumers' growing demand for organically-grown safe and nutritious vegetables cut thousands of the plants from September to November and compost these as organic fertilizer. This allows them to make a killing in the market when they harvest their crops near Christmas and New Year, the seasons when vegetables are in their peak demand.

Locally called “marapait”, the wild sunflowers use as rich fertilizer can be traced to the indigenous knowledge of the natives of Mountain Province. For hundreds of years, they have used the plant as basal fertilizer, incorporating these in rice paddies together with pig manure and composted rice straw. Many farms in Mountain Province grow sunflower hedges as sole source of nitrogen fertilizer. Sunflower biomass decomposes rapidly after application to the soil.

The use is not without scientific basis. Then Philippine Department of Agriculture have found that sunflower leaves have high nitrogen content (2.9 percent oven dry weight) and that a ton of fresh sunflower can yield as much as 60 kg of nitrogen fertilizer. Nitrogen is the most basic fertilizer element needed by crops.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (UNFAO) and the International Center for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) say wild sunflower leaf biomass is high in nutrients, averaging about 3.5% nitrogen, 0.37% potassium and 4.1% phosphorus on a dry matter basis. This means the high nitrogen content is good for green plants.

Wild sunflower is a robust herbaceous and bushy perennial that grows up to 3 to 4 meters tall. Branches are stout, with hollow stems. The plant produces large flower heads with bright yellow to golden petals.

How Are Bees Affected Adversely?

The manner and process how honey is made is one of God's wonders science can't duplicate.

Worker bees, after hibernating on the rainy and stormy months of June to September, start foraging for nectar and pollen on October. It is also on these months that sunflowers bloom with overflowing nectar. Nectar is the sugary liquid found in flowers. Worker bees using their long, tube-shaped tongues sip the nectar from the flowers and store this in their crop. While sloshing inside the bees' crop, the nectar mixes with enzymes that transform its chemical composition making it more suitable for long-term storage.

Apiculturist Nelson Palispis who trains farmers in this province explained in one of his trainings, “When a workerbee returns to the hive, it passes the nectar to another bee by regurgitating the liquid into the other bee's mouth. This regurgitation process is repeated until the partially digested nectar is finally deposited into a honeycomb”.

It does not end there. “Once in the comb, the nectar, still a viscous liquid, is fanned by the bees using their wings to speed up the process of evaporating any water. When most of the water has evaporated from the honeycomb, the bees seal the comb with a secretion of liquid from their abdomen, which eventually hardens into beeswax. Away from air and water, the honey is stored indefinitely, providing bees with the perfect food source for cold and rainy months, “Nelson elaborated.

Unfortunately, just as the bees time their nectar foraging from September to December, these are also the months when hundreds of farmers engaged in organic vegetable growing, cut thousands of sunflower plants to death, harvesting these be composted as fertilizer. As a consequence, the bees are deprived of plants rich in nectar. The bees are forced to forage on other plants mostly vegetables sprayed with deadly insecticides resulting to the death of millions of bees.

New Zealand-based apiculturist and former chief beekeeper of Saint Louis University's Beekeeping program here Jose Bandiwan lamented “Benguet is the country's worst user of dangerous pesticides, this uncontrolled chemical abuse is killing everything—bees, birds, beneficial insects, the soil, water—it is practically a biocide.”

“With the wild sunflowers, bees have a chance on foraging on non-poisoned sources of nectar, but when you kill the sunflowers the bees are forced to forage on vegetable flowers laced with chemicals, killing thousands of bees everyday,” he deplored.

Worldwide, the Malaysia-based Pesticide Action Network(PAN) says billions of bees are being wiped out due to pesticides yearly, and honey tests reveal worldwide contamination by bee-killing pesticides. It warns of ecological Armageddon if the dramatic fall of inset numbers don't abate.

Nelson is one of the fortunate beekeepers in the province, his bee colonies are situated in the village of Anchukey more than 1,500 masl opposite Mount Pulag, far from farms and surrounded by thousands of sunflower plants.

A Need for A Mutualistic Understanding

Jose believes it is senseless depriving bees of priceless sunflower nectar and people from appreciating the beauty of sunflowers. He likewise avers beekeepers and organic vegetable growers to benefit alike from sunflowers and bees. “Apiculturists and organic vegetable growers must agree on a timetable that allows bees to forage nectar before the sunflower plants are harvested to be composted, most likely the months of September and October. Organic vegetable growers can cut the sunflower plants after those months,” he proposed.

“Organic vegetable growers can also harvest plants that have finished blooming. On one hand, farmers and beekeepers must not merely depend on the resources without sweat, they must plant more sunflowers,” he added.

The idea led the government of New Zealand to support a Project Marapait in Benguet aimed at increasing bees for pollination at the same time intensifying planting of sunflowers. The project, implemented by the Cordillera Ecological Center has put a shot in the arm to beekeeping in the province.

Today, the sunflower plants may be less than before, the bees foraging may be fewer but Nelson says there is light ahead of the tunnel. “Nature has a way of healing we hardly understand if we don’t do our part. Planting those that give life is not nature’s sole responsibility, we must do our share, “he quipped.

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Treekeeper

WE MUST MAKE EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN ECOLOGICALLY-ORIENTED

WE MUST MAKE EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN ECOLOGICALLY-ORIENTED

Children (and adults, too) need to learn the principles of ecology (how life works in community), and they need to see the connections between human beings and the rest of Nature. The urgent timeframe of global climate change means that any learning that doesn't contribute to these understandings could be considered part of the problem. Indeed, the environmental crisis can be attributed in part to the inability of human beings to come up with sustainable ways of living together.
Here are some ways to "ecologicalize" teaching:

• Education programs sometimes include icebreakers, warm-up activities, initiative tasks, cooperative games, or physical adventure elements. Helping people work together better will always be a good thing, and creating a sense of community is essential for being eco-friendly. But how can we integrate environmental learning into these activities without drastically changing program elements and while still contributing to group dynamics and character building? It's not easy, but it's simple: We just need to stretch what we do to include mention of and learning about the rest of our natural "place" and community.
• Ecologicalizing education means looking for principles of ecology and connections with the rest of Nature in as many of our learning activities as possible.
• Follow up to any learning task that demands group work or cooperation can lead to discussion of the behaviour of fish in schools or birds in flocks. How did participants communicate to each other? Why? How do the strategies they came up with to meet their challenge compare with fish or birds dealing with a challenge such as a predator?
• A group activity that demands cooperation can lead to participants discussing the similarities between humans and other social animals. For example, you can help your students learn how wolf behaviour can act as a metaphor for effective group functioning, character development and leadership.
• That so many roles need filling to keep a classroom working well exemplifies the connectedness of the living web — what happens to the "web" within the physical and emotional space of the classroom if one participant falls down on the job? And how does this compare with losing one species or degrading one aspect of an ecosystem? Let's talk about these things with students.
• If your education programming already includes lots of hands-on Nature connecting, you can highlight and reinforce ecological understandings by pointing out or asking for evidence of Nature's gifts or ecosystem services in action. This could be an ambulatory activity (one you do while walking between classes or travelling to different venues), or an ongoing project throughout the year.
• Nature abides by rules. Games work well and reflect Nature if they combine rules with cooperation and some "friendly competition" (in the sense that every individual is doing his or her best). Beware of overstressing competition — the goal, it seems, of our culture. Ecology relies on mutualism (living things relying on each other), and life is all about synergistic symbiosis. In Nature, "the fittest" is the one who fits into its ecosystem best. This is a lesson our students desperately need to learn.
  

How We Stopped A Landslide from Further Destroying a Forest.

How We Stopped A Landslide from Further Destroying a Forest.

Soil erosion and landslide prevention is one of the things we do besides tree-planting. We're pretty good at it. Here, my team Cordillera Ecological Center and A Tree A Day (ATAD) worked hard at Longlong Forest to prevent a landslide from happening using bio-engIneering techniques..

https://web.facebook.com/ipsum.novus/media_set?set=a.716781085030749&type=3

Asian Indigenous Peoples' Intellectual Property Rights on Biodiversity Endangered By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan Eurasia Review

Asian Indigenous Peoples' Intellectual Property Rights on Biodiversity Endangered
By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan Eurasia Review December 11, 2018

London---Indigenous and tribal peoples of Asia, are facing complex threats to their survival as distinct peoples. Not only are they confronted with dispossession of their lands and resources, and physical persecution, but they are also faced with the appropriation of their collective knowledge on plants, trees, animals, insects and even land and waters, developed through the ages.

This is according to a book by this author titled 'The Intellectual and Cultural Property Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Asia' written for the Minority Rights Group International (MRG) based here in London, now available at Amazon.

Minority Rights Group International is an international human rights organisation founded with the objective of working to secure rights for ethnic, national, religious and linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples around the world with international headquarters in London.

The book says traditional knowledge on food, crops and medicinal plants is being taken by multinational companies, while traditional songs and designs are being commercialized for the tourism industry. The issue of indigenous cultural property rights is becoming more and more urgent for indigenous peoples.

Even with the United Nations' adoption of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, there is minimum standard for the protection of indigenous peoples rights, the book asserts. This is because unfortunate international instruments are adversely impacting on indigenous peoples cultural rights. For instance, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement (TRIPS), put both indigenous peoples and developing nations at a disadvantage by imposing an intellectual property rights regime that does not take into account the diversity of cultures.

Also, Article 8j of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), gives minimal recognition of indigenous peoples rights. It does not protect indigenous peoples from the drive by multinational companies to patent plant and animal materials — resources that are generally found in the biodiverse territories of indigenous peoples — for their potential medicinal and agricultural value, without the knowledge or consent of the peoples who have protected and nurtured such resources, the book covering 22 Asian countries said.

Salak Dima Personifies Asian IPs' Suffering
“When the trees are gone, the deer forever lost and the forests are just memories, we will weep. Not for the land that is bare and dead. But for us, our children and their children. When there are no more tears to fall, we will weep with our own blood.”

This is what Agta IP leader Salak Dima said to the author deep in the Palanan Wilderness Area of Sierra Madre, the biggest tropical rainforest of the Philippines at 200,000n hectares in personifying what wordsmiths call “the last forest guardians.

The Agtas are one of Asia's indigenous peoples marginalized by incoming settlers. Indigenous and tribal peoples see themselves as distinct from the mainstream. They speak their own languages, are largely self-sufficient, and their economies are tightly bound to their intimate relationship with their land. Their culture is different from that of the mainstream, inherited from their forebears and adapted to their current situation.

They take only from the Earth what they need, nurturing and caring for resources as a way of life. They have often lived on their lands for thousands of years.

It is difficult to generalize about Asia's indigenous and tribal peoples. They encompass a huge variety of peoples, living very different ways of life in a great variety of environments. One thing that they do have in common is the oppression and marginalization they experience. Often they suffer direct
violence, for example in Papua New Guinea, in Burma/Myanmar and in the Chittagong Hills of Bangladesh. They also suffer from development efforts by their own governments and by multinationals, through the takeover of their lands and resources.

In most parts of Asia where indigenous peoples land rights are recognized, the government retains the power to overrule these rights in the economic interest of the state. The intellectual and cultural property rights (ICPR) of indigenous peoples are under threat. These include their beliefs, knowledge (agricultural, technical, medicinal, ecological movable and immovable cultural properties), the book reveals.

Asian Indigenous Peoples’ Struggle To Protect ICPR of Biodiversity
The struggle of Asian indigenous peoples to protect intellectual and cultural rights ranges in form from resisting subjugation, territorial takeover, resources exploitation, the destruction of traditions, and infringement on customs and lifestyles, to fighting inhumane treatment, abuse and deprivation of human rights.

In South East Asia much of the struggle is over land and resources, as mining, timber and oil and agricultural corporations encroach upon indigenous peoples lands in search for profit.
Indigenous peoples are becoming victims of forced resettlement, pollution, diseases, militarization, starvation, social and cultural destruction, and the ruin of traditional ways of life.

Asian indigenous peoples close connection to the land makes them particularly vulnerable to ecological damage. Extractive activities threaten patterns of subsistence, living conditions and cultural practices.

In some cases governments deny indigenous peoples civil and political rights in order to prevent them from resisting the incursions. Some states face challenges in reconciling international human rights commitments to indigenous peoples with the requirements of foreign direct investment.

Against the odds, indigenous peoples have had some successes. Divide and rule tactics intended to break down their opposition have failed. Often, there are clear connections between resource extraction, human rights abuses and militarization. In some countries, governments have attempted to stifle the growing resistance of their indigenous populations.

From the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia to Papua New Guinea, there is a burgeoning indigenous movement against both governments and resource-depleting companies. This movement has brought together concerns about human rights and the environment. It is rural-based, grassroots-initiated and multiracial.

The indigenous opposition remains vibrant and effective. In Bangladesh, the struggle of the Jummas, the original inhabitants of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) is primarily to do with rights to land and resources. Many Jummas are losing their lands; they have been forcibly evicted by government military forces. The Jummas are also being displaced because of the discovery and development of a gasfield.

The gas reserve development has affected traditional food sources like homegardens and age-old community forests, threatening the extinction of many traditional food crops.

In Nepal, the indigenous people of Nepal are campaigning against the widespread plunder of germplasm (i.e. plant cells) and indigenous knowledge. Already, many plant resources have been lost, without recognition or recompense.

In Sri Lanka the Wanniyala-Aetto (forest beings), the Sri Lankan indigenous people, are being uprooted from their forest dwellings, shot at, detained, placed in reservations and sold as slaves or prostitutes. Their trees are being cut, logged and traditional foodlots being razed. The Wanniyala-Aetto women, in particular, bear the brunt of this inhuman treatment.

In the Philippines, many NGOs are working for indigenous peoples intellectual and cultural property rights in the Philippines and, seemingly, their efforts have paid off, with the passing of Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) in 1997. But the body set up to implement IPRA, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), cannot stop creeping mining, logging and commercial agriculture destroying wide tracts of forests.

In Indonesia,the most significant result of indigenous peoples struggle for recognition of their rights is the government's granting of decentralized power. It gave adat-based (traditional-based) villages powers beyond the standard notions of indigenous rights in international legal discourse. This allows the natives to take care of their forests and homegardens.

But millions of hectares of indigenous peoples lands are be destroyed and planted with oil palm destroying thousands of plant and animal species.

In Malaysia, encroachment into ancestral lands and intimidation are two of the many problems facing Malaysian indigenous peoples. There is no pause in the exploitation of their resources and appropriation of indigenous territories.

In Thailand, the Chao-Chaos, a mixed grouping of indigenous tribes in northern Thailand numbering almost a million, were granted a peoples Constitution which allowed them to participate in the democratic process in the country. They are led by the Assembly of Indigenous and Tribal peoples of Thailand (AITT). Together with the Northern Farmers Network, AITT is pressing for the adoption of a community Forest Bill, which will give indigenous peoples recognition of their right to their traditional resources and management practices.

In Cambodia, positive developments with regard to indigenous peoples struggle for land rights and the protection of their forests and natural resources is happening. Local activists and NGOs headed the campaign for a new law that gave provision for land tenure for indigenous people. Those who now have ownership and control of their lands are enjoying their rights to their resources, such as in the tapping of resin and development of inland fisheries.

But in Vietnam. the government is oppressive towards its indigenous population and does not allow advocacy activities. The government's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Department for Sedentary Farming announced a campaign to wipe out traditional nomadic life and swidden farming of its indigenous population.

The government is attempting to eradicate traditional shifting agriculture, which is the lifeline of most highland indigenous peoples including the Banar, Ehde, Jarai, Koho and Mnong tribes, thousands of whom were imprisoned after calling for independence in February 2001.
This is causing genetic erosion of hunreds of traditional food crops including upland rice, rootcrops, legumes, tubers and leafy crops.

Laos has a similar policy as that of Vietnam, which aims to eradicate all traditional forms of agriculture by its indigenous peoples. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Hmong are being removed from their ancestral lands and relocated to areas which are not suitable for their lifestyle an cultural practices.

It is perhaps only in Burma/Myanmar, out of all the states in Asia, that the indigenous peoples form a majority. But under its military rule, politIcal detentions, harassment, militarization, military offensives, forced labour in labour camps and an educational crisis are widespread. Women face rape, marriage to military men and are trafficked by the military as slaves, labourers and prostitutes.

International Efforts to Fight Threat on IPs' ICPR
Indigenous people view the world they live in as an integrated whole. Their beliefs, knowledge, arts and other forms of cultural expression have been handed down through the generations. Their many stories, songs, dances, paintings and other forms of expression are therefore important aspects of indigenous cultural knowledge, power and identity form their heritage.

Heritage includes all expressions of the relationship between the people, their land and the other living beings and spirits which share the land, and is the basis for maintaining social, economic and diplomatic relationships — through sharing — with other peoples.

All of the aspects of heritage are interrelated and cannot be separated from the traditional Territory of the people concerned. What tangible and intangible items constitute the heritage of a particular indigenous people must be decided by the people themselves.

The guardians of an indigenous peoples cultural and intellectual property are determined by the customs, laws and practices of the community, and can be individuals, a clan or the people as a whole

Due to the active lobbying by indigenous peoples representatives in various international meetings, there is a growing appreciation by international agencies of the complexity of indigenous peoples discourse.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has begun discussions on the issue of indigenous peoples intellectual and cultural property rights, although many indigenous peoples are not entirely happy with the process. The UN has also undertaken a study on the heritage of indigenous peoples and put forward several recommendations but these remain recommendations only.

Most of the discussions at the international level on the issue remain elitist — only a very few indigenous individuals are able to participate and information regarding the discussions or outcomes is not extensively disseminated. There is a gap between the international debate and the local realities
Most indigenous communities are faced with life-threatening issues that keep them from actively engaging in international policy advocacy work, and yet many of the issues that indigenous peoples face on the ground are brought about by the implementation of policies crafted at the international level.

Asian indigenous peoples are now often able to wage their local struggles on a global front by working closely with international allies. A transnational movement of environmentalists, human rights workers, lawyers and indigenous organizations is emerging to defend indigenous rights.

Sunflowers, Bees Collateral Victims in Effort for Clean Safe Food By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

Sunflowers, Bees Collateral Victims in Effort for Clean Safe Food
By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

Baguio City, Philippines---Fifty Christmas seasons ago, much of this city and the Cordillera provinces' woodlands, valleys, glens and landscapes were beautifully carpeted with golden wild sunflowers (Tithonia diversifolia) Wild bees abounded, pollinating wild and domesticated flowers, ensuring genetic evolution.

Today, the sunflowers are sparse, the fields ugly, pockmarked by human touch as thousands of the plants are cut and killed intentionally two months before every Christmas season. Considered by apiculturists as the best sources of nectar for wild and domesticated bees alike in this part of the country, the plants are being killed resulting to the loss of billions of bees, the world's best pollinators.

A quote often ascribed to Albert Einstein but without no known proof says, "If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live" highlighting how vital bees are to the survival of of plant and animal species on the planet, including humans.

Use of Sunflowers as Fertilizer, an Indigenous Know-how
The wild sunflowers, native to Mexico, are being cut in the Cordillera region to be used either as green manure or composting material for the production of organically-grown vegetables.
Unwittingly, farmers intending to satisfy consumers' growing demand for organically-grown safe and nutritious vegetables cut thousands of the plants from September to November and compost these as organic fertilizer. This allows them to make a killing in the market when they harvest their crops near Christmas and New Year, the seasons when vegetables are in their peak demand.

Locally called “marapait”, the wild sunflowers use as rich fertilizer can be traced to the indigenous knowledge of the natives of Mountain Province. For hundreds of years, they have used the plant as basal fertilizer, incorporating these in rice paddies together with pig manure and composted rice straw. Many farms in Mountain Province grow sunflower hedges as sole source of nitrogen fertilizer. Sunflower biomass decomposes rapidly after application to the soil.

The use is not without scientific basis. Then Philippine Department of Agriculture have found that sunflower leaves have high nitrogen content (2.9 percent oven dry weight) and that a ton of fresh sunflower can yield as much as 60 kg of nitrogen fertilizer. Nitrogen is the most basic fertilizer element needed by crops.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (UNFAO) and the International Center for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) say wild sunflower leaf biomass is high in nutrients, averaging about 3.5% nitrogen, 0.37% potassium and 4.1% phosphorus on a dry matter basis. This means the high nitrogen content is good for green plants.

Wild sunflower is a robust herbaceous and bushy perennial that grows up to 3 to 4 meters tall. Branches are stout, with hollow stems. The plant produces large flower heads with bright yellow to golden petals.

How Are Bees Affected Adversely?
The manner and process how honey is made is one of God's wonders science can't duplicate. Worker bees, after hibernating on the rainy and stormy months of June to September, start foraging for nectar and pollen on October. It is also on these months that sunflowers bloom with overflowing nectar. Nectar is the sugary liquid found in flowers. Worker bees using their long, tube-shaped tongues sip the nectar from the flowers and store this in their crop. While sloshing inside the bees' crop, the nectar mixes with enzymes that transform its chemical composition making it more suitable for long-term storage.

Apiculturist Nelson Palispis who trains farmers in this province explained in one of his trainings, “When a workerbee returns to the hive, it passes the nectar to another bee by regurgitating the liquid into the other bee's mouth. This regurgitation process is repeated until the partially digested nectar is finally deposited into a honeycomb”.

It does not end there. “Once in the comb, the nectar, still a viscous liquid, is fanned by the bees using their wings to speed up the process of evaporating any water. When most of the water has evaporated from the honeycomb, the bees seal the comb with a secretion of liquid from their abdomen, which eventually hardens into beeswax. Away from air and water, the honey is stored indefinitely, providing bees with the perfect food source for cold and rainy months, “Nelson elaborated.

Unfortunately, just as the bees time their nectar foraging from September to December, these are also the months when hundreds of farmers engaged in organic vegetable growing, cut thousands of sunflower plants to death, harvesting these be composted as fertilizer. As a consequence, the bees are deprived of plants rich in nectar. The bees are forced to forage on other plants mostly vegetables sprayed with deadly insecticides resulting to the death of millions of bees.

New Zealand-based apiculturist and former chief beekeeper of Saint Louis University's Beekeeping program here Jose Bandiwan lamented “Benguet is the country's worst user of dangerous pesticides, this uncontrolled chemical abuse is killing everything—bees, birds, beneficial insects, the soil, water—it is practically a biocide.”

“With the wild sunflowers, bees have a chance on foraging on non-poisoned sources of nectar, but when you kill the sunflowers the bees are forced to forage on vegetable flowers laced with chemicals, killing thousands of bees everyday,” he deplored.

Worldwide, the Malaysia-based Pesticide Action Network(PAN) says billions of bees are being wiped out due to pesticides yearly, and honey tests reveal worldwide contamination by bee-killing pesticides. It warns of ecological Armageddon if the dramatic fall of inset numbers don't abate.
Nelson is one of the fortunate beekeepers in the province, his bee colonies are situated in the village of Anchukey more than 1,500 masl opposite Mount Pulag, far from farms and surrounded by thousands of sunflower plants.

A Need for A Mutualistic Understanding
Jose believes it is senseless depriving bees of priceless sunflower nectar and people from appreciating the beauty of sunflowers. He likewise avers beekeepers and organic vegetable growers to benefit alike from sunflowers and bees. “Apiculturists and organic vegetable growers must agree on a timetable that allows bees to forage nectar before the sunflower plants are harvested to be composted, most likely the months of September and October. Organic vegetable growers can cut the sunflower plants after those months,” he proposed.

“Organic vegetable growers can also harvest plants that have finished blooming. On one hand, farmers and beekeepers must not merely depend on the resources without sweat, they must plant more sunflowers,” he added.

The idea led the government of New Zealand to support a Project Marapait in Benguet aimed at increasing bees for pollination at the same time intensifying planting of sunflowers. The project, implemented by the Cordillera Ecological Center has put a shot in the arm to beekeeping in the province.

Today, the sunflower plants may be less than before, the bees foraging may be fewer but Nelson says there is light ahead of the tunnel. “Nature has a way of healing we hardly understand if we don’t do our part. Planting those that give life is not nature’s sole responsibility, we must do our share, “he quipped

Living Eco-Spiritually with Earth By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

Living Eco-Spiritually with Earth
By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

There is an area where Christian spirituality and contemporary ecology can overlap to give assurance that we sustain planet Earth. This is the area of eco-spirituality.

This seeks and finds God not only in loving service of the neighbor but also in creation by reverencing life in all its diversity and all non-living things in all their nobility as humans' reflections to an all wise and loving Creator.

We do this through prayers, sacred scriptures and sacraments and by being responsible trustees and caretakers of Earth. We do this as believing Christians leading spiritual lives to reach union with God by being concerned with all his creation.

In my 30 years of experience of earth-caring, a good ecologist is only worth his salt by believing the material cosmos, the world where humanity dwells together with all plants and animals, is a reality. The living human spirit is always enfleshed in a material body, always a being in the world with other beings, all interacting, all interdependent. No one escapes the fact of being situated in this world physically and spiritually.

People living spiritually breathe the same air, drink the same water and walk on the same earth as those who practice ecology. Beyond the shared obvious commonality, they share many values such as reverence for the living and non-living and appreciation for beauty.

I approach eco-spirituality in the context and from the side of traditional Christian values expanding self-awareness reaching out to expressions by actions that reflect spiritual validation—planting and caring for trees and plants, preventing destruction of landscapes, forests, soil, air, waters, pollinators, and; fighting for these by writing, talking in fora and by organizing street protests to educate.

As Christians, we expect a “new heaven and earth” (Rev 21:1), we believe in the value of the Creator's creation, we also believe in an eco-spiritual syle of living that collaborates in the divine plan to bring about the new creation for the praise of God's glory.