What am I doing here ?

Well here it is – my first attempt at writing a 'web log' or 'blog'.  I hope you like it and find it a useful way of keeping up with what I am doing here during my two years as a volunteer Watershed Managment Adviser based on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.I arrived in the Philippines in October 2005 to work for the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office as a Watershed Managment Adviser.  The post was arranged by Voluntary Service Overseas, which means I don't get paid much (just a local salary of P14,000 a month, which is roughly equivalent to £150 UK pounds) but I also get the use of a motorbike and a mobile phone and get my rent paid for me, so all in all its not too difficult to live on what I get.  Food is very cheap, and you can easily dine out and have a beer, all  for just P70.  There are not too many luxuries available here to spend money on, so it is possible to live quite cheaply – or do I mean there is nothing much to buy !

 My main task here is to survey and define the charachteristics of the water catchment of a particular river here – the Andanan River – so that we can develop plans to conserve and protect the area for the future.  Part of the area is a Protected Forest Watershed, although many of the trees originally in the area have been cut by illegal loggers, so there is little or no old growth forest left. The cutting of forests and the use of 'slash and burn' farming techniques (called 'kaingin') have also been contributing to serious problems of soil erosion and sediment in the rivers.  As a result the irrigation dam which the river supplies can only irrigate 2,500 hectares of rice fields, not the 5,000 hectares it is intended to supply.

The area is very important, not only as the source of water for the irrigation dam, but also as the source of  drinking water to the population of a big town, Bayugan, with a population of around 100,000 and also in providing all the daily needs of the people living in the mountains.  The area also has a lot of important habitats and species present in it, including the Philippine Eagle, Philippine Tarsier, various species of parrots, and much more.   

There are about 12,000 people living in the mountain areas of the watershed, including a large number of the indigenous people  of the area, who belong to the Manobo Tribe.