“The forest is life,” Datu Lanelio T. Sangcoan told me over and over throughout our conversation. Datu represents the Higa-onon people, an Indigenous people in the Philippines whose sacred forest is among the threatened habitats you can protect in TiME’s 2025 campaign. When I tried asking him why is the forest life, he seemed to be at loss for better words: the forest is life, and if I require further explanation, the problem is perhaps in my own thinking. It is an axiom, an atomic expression that resists any further breaking down. How can you explain why the forest is life; how can you explain the color blue or the beauty of the jungle?
The World Bank describes Indigenous people as “distinct social and cultural groups” and explains that “the land and natural resources on which they depend are inextricably linked to their identities, cultures, livelihoods, as well as their physical and spiritual well-being.” In the case of the Higa-onon, this dependency on the land seems to be beyond the explanatory power of English.
“These [the forest] were left to us by our ancestors,” a member of the Higa-onon told researchers. “Now, to repay them, we also need to take care and maintain it.” The commitment to the ancestors, the culture and the forest are therefore one and the same; and if the forest is all of these things, how can it be anything but life itself?
Monkey wisdom
Datu taught himself English. The Higa-onon people speak their own Higa-onon language as well as Tagalog, a language spoken more commonly in the Philippines, but Datu wanted more. “Where there is communication, there is love,” he tells me when I ask what drove him to pursue a third language. He managed to master English during high school, when he had to walk two hours from home to school and back. Then he became one of the few Higa-onon university graduates. Life at Mindanao State University was not easy: some classmates called him “monkey,” but he was determined to take it as a compliment. “I knew I had a goal, and monkeys have a lot of wisdom!”
Difficulties were not limited to university life itself. As often happens when a culture is surrounded by the temptations of another, society is torn. Many young people today are immersed in social media and lose interest in the teachings of their ancestors, while elders are apprehensive about opening up to outside influences, fearing that external knowledge will supplant their own wisdom. Datu wants to find another way: having majored in education, he founded a tribal school for the youth of the tribe aged 6 to25, encouraged more young tribe members to attend university, and helped elders with bureaucracy. He represented the Philippines in a global tribal gathering in Australia, and established an organization to represent his people as they navigate relationships with foreigners.
For Datu, collaboration and openness to the outside world is not a risk to the Higa-onon. It is a necessity driven by love, a desire for knowledge, and survival. The current collaboration with TiME may prove to be just that: By creating ties and connections with like-minded individuals across countries and cultures, the species in the forest and the culture of the Higa-onon can all survive the threats looming over this crucial biodiversity hotspot.
The forest is life
The name “Higa-onon” translates as “people of the living mountain,” but they are also known as the “weavers of peace” to honor their system of conflict resolution, partially based on their skill of hinabol weaving. The fabric is crafted from hemp, and sacred patterns can be used as a peace offering to the gods and other clans. Like their weaving of peace and hinabol, the Higa-onon also interwove their ancestral faith with Christianity after it was introduced during the colonization of the Philippines.
The skill of bringing ideas and people together is gravely needed in this world. As nature lovers, we are often faced with what appears like choosing between science and progress, on the one hand, and conservation, on the other. Understanding the dangers that industrialization brings to the pristine forest, I can relate to the point of view of the Higa-onon elders and fear modern economic forces as an invasive, evil force.
It is technology, after all, that drove the endemic Philippine Eagle to become Critically Endangered: deforestation, climate change, farming and the wildlife trade drove its world population to approximately 750 individuals. It is the largest and rarest eagle on Earth: its wingspan reaching 2 meters (6.5 feet), its talons the size of a Grizzly Bear’s, and its head adorned with crown-like plumage. It used to be called “monkey-eating eagle,” but Datu referred to it as “president of the eagles.” When a Higa-onon tribe member sees one, they blow a horn: upon hearing it, others know that there are still eagles in the sky and the forest is alive.
The Mount Sagyaan rainforest, awaiting your vote to protect it, is located on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, not far from Iligan City. In addition to the Philippine Eagle, it is home to other almost-mythical species. One of them is the endemic Endangered Giant Golden-crowned Flying Fox, a red-furred paradox: an enormous bat with an average wingspan the size of… well, me, at 1.5 meters (5 feet)! Ecologically, flying foxes are crucial seed dispersers, found to be the sole effective disperser of the majority of plants on some Philippine islands. This means that, even though they are not extinct in the wild, the significant decrease in their number (10–15 percent per generation) has far-reaching implications for the survival of flora and fauna in the Philippines.
Megabats suffer not only from habitat loss and poaching, but also violent attacks following the rumor that bats are responsible for COVID-19. In fact, it is deforestation that poses a risk for disease transmission and pandemic outbreaks, as limited foraging opportunities foster closer contact between different species and humans and thus increase the risk of disease.
Mount Sagyaan faces many dangers: mining, poaching and deforestation. Monoculture plantation, the practice of cultivating a single type of tree, threatens native forests and plants. The oil palm industry is especially prevalent in the Philippines, with more and more land being used for oil palm plantations. As nonnative palms replace native flora, local biodiversity suffers, prime and pristine forests shrink, and wildlife is forced into tighter, more crowded places. In 2013, the ALDAW (Ancestral Land/Domain Watch ) Indigenous network in the Philippines issued the Palawan Oil Palm Geotagged Report, detailing the dire situation of oil palm plantations and the marginalization of indigenous communities.
For the Higa-onon, the sacred forest is life itself. Still, to survive, they might be forced to sell it to mining companies that have eyes on the copper deposits right under the habitat of the Philippine Eagle, the Flying Fox and other fantastical creatures, like the Near Threatened Flying Dragon, a colorful lizard that does not in fact fly, but elegantly glides distances of up to 33 feet between trees with cape-like flaps of skin. “If this land will not be acquired [by TiME], then it will be the end of the history of the Indigenous people here,” Datu says.
Sustainability is balance
Speaking with Datu, I can see why the Higa-onon are called weavers of peace. Weaving together old and new is his mission: by bringing education and financial stability to the tribe, he hopes not to compromise but to strengthen their cultural identity, their connection to their ancestors, and their living ties to the forest: in ceremonies, in gathering healing herbs, and in the relfection of their culture through the leaves. Talking to him, I am reminded that sustainability can never be about shunning one side of existence, be it economic forces or nature conservation. It is about balance.
The tribe intends to plant native plants and to cultivate coffee, aiming for financial and ecological sustainability. They want to move away from dependency on mining, poaching and monoculture plantations as sources of income, and instead establish themselves as independent guardians of the forest, of their tradition and history, and of the knowledge of weaving together peace: between different peoples, between humanity and the natural world, between tradition and modern life.
It is well-established that lands are best conserved when owned and protected by the Indigenous people who are deeply connected to them. If TiME purchases this land, the pristine forest and the species in it will be safe forever; moreover, the determination, hope and conflict-resolution knowledge of the Higa-onon, so direly needed in this world, will prevail.
We thank Datu Lanelio T. Sangcoan for his help in preparing this article.
Author: Noga Syon
Editor: Liat Radcliffe Ross
References
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