Mt. Kanlaon, Its Myths and Wildlife, Painting by Masaste

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

(Note: This Management Plan was approved prior to the passage of RA 9154, declaring Mt. Kanlaon a Natural Park and authorizing PNOC-EDC to enter into 169 hectares of a so called "buffer zone" for the purpose for geothermal exploration and development. In this 2001 Management Plan, there is no room for PNOC-EDC's geothermal development. The plan is included in full in this website because it is closer to an ideal of how the plan should be. )

Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park

Management Plan: June 2001(Con't)

3.5    Social, Economic and Cultural Profile

1.         Population demographics and migration patterns

There are now 15 barangays that have territorial jurisdictions over the park with four having permanent barangay centers within the area while the rest are within one kilometer or less from the boundary. Negros Island in 1855 attracted migrants from other Visayan Islands of Iloilo, Capiz, Antique and Cebu who were mostly land less poor seeking jobs in the provinces’ haciendas. These migrants started clearing the forest to acquire land in the island. The additional settlers that occupied the park were sometime in the early 1920s near what is now Canlaon City. Since then, the number of migrants gradually increased through the years with the biggest influx coming during the period between 1980-1990.

Population in the PA is presently estimated at about 3,068 households. Out of these, the PA occupants who may qualify as tenured migrants reached some 2,939 households or about 14,928 individuals (table 7). The households within the MKNP are generally nuclear in character with average household size of 5 members per family. The park has a very young population where the average age of the residents is 23.55 years.    

There are more males than females in the population of the park as seen in the table 7. Male population stands at 7,541 while those of females is at 7,387. Male population among the households in the various barangays within the park tends to be higher than the females except in Brgys. Malaiba and Lumapao of Canla-on City where the female population is higher than those of the male.

2.          Indigenous People and  Cultural Profile

MKNP is host to 2 groups of indigenous people whose population is slightly over 200 households. They are the Atis or Negritos and the Bukidnons. The Negritos are black skinned with kinky hair and flat noses to whom the name Negros comes from. The Atis, are highly nomadic in character and don’t have permanent settlements in the PA.

An ethnographic study in Codcod, San Cárlos City claimed that the Bukidnon is a separate and distinct ethnic group whose resistance to the inroads of colonization and Christianization alienated them from the majority of the local population. The OSCC organized two tribal councils at Barangay Codcod. These are the Cabagtasan Tribal Council and Iliran Tribal Council. However, memberships are mixed with both claiming almost the same members from the IPs community. The Bukidnons’ population is estimated at about 93 households with some 489 individual members. The group in 1997 made up an approximate 5.2% of the population of Brgy. Codcod in San Cárlos City.

The IPs are mostly engaged in agriculture using slash and burn and into production of rice, corn and vegetables. Other sources of income are fishing, hunting and private employment.

Table 7.  Population and sex distribution of tenured migrants by barangay in MKN

3.         Land Use Ownership and Tenure

The presence of settlements inside the MKNP has significantly altered the land use and classification of the parkland. While 55.24% or 11,537.48 hectares still have primary and secondary forest cover, some 29.10% or 7,148.05 hectares are already cultivated with some  291.10 hectares already titled. Tenured migrants in the PA include the IPs and settlers who occupy some 6,680 hectares of parkland covering home and farm lots which amount to 115.89 hectares and 6,564.4 hectares, respectively as indicated in Table 8.

The average land holding owned by an occupant within the MKNP is 2.14 hectares. Biggest average land holding is in the municipality of Murcia at 3.79 hectares while the smallest average land holdings is in Canla-on City at 1.29 hectares. The socio economic survey showed that 48.72% of the park residents own less than 1 hectare of land while 24.79% own between 1 and 2 hectares. In addition, 6.48% have holdings over 5 hectares while 11.72% own land between 2-3 hectares.

4.         Resource Use Practices

The main activity of the MKNP communities is “panguma” (farming), which accounts for 95% of the households while the rest are engaged in other types of income generating activities such as seasonal workers for sugar cane plantations and game fowl breeding farms, extractive activities for minor forest products, charcoal making and micro-entrepreneurial activities like ambulant vending or peddling. The high concentration of households engaged in farming is largely due to the low social and technical skills of the occupants to secure employment or work other than farming or land based income source.

Corn is the number one agricultural product from the park as reported by 67.40% of the respondents. This is followed by bananas as reported by 32.3% of those surveyed while rice ranked third at 22.19%. Other popular products are various types of root crops used for food and sold for cash income.

5.         Poverty Level

The poverty incidence of communities inside the MKNP based on their monthly income is relatively high. Compared to the present provincial poverty threshold of P8,000 per month, some 94% or about 2,762 households fall under the poverty group.

The monthly income capacity of the residents of MKNP as shown in Table 9 vary widely from one another with the average set at P3,447 per month. It ranges from a claimed P100 and less by some 5 percent to a high P25,000 by less than 1% of the population. Meanwhile, 40% of the households have monthly income range between P1,000 to P5,000. Roughly 37% of the MKNP based households have members engaged in secondary economic activities. Greater cases of these secondary income activities are micro-enterprise (19.3%), farming (17.5%) and “pamugon” or farm work (16%). Over all income level from secondary sources has a median of P1,000 per month.

6.         Social Indicators

There are government agencies in the different communities in MKNP providing social services. However, some residents reported that some are less responsive than others. About 29.47% of those interviewed shared that no DA representative has visited their community while about 17.3% noted the DA’s visit as infrequent.  Meanwhile, 43.89% of the respondents said that representatives from the DOH visit their community once a year. However, some 16.3% say that they have not seen their DOH representative. The same is true with the Municipal Veterinarian. But despite the infrequent visit of DOH personnel to their community, 73.3% had their babies vaccinated for various diseases.

The average highest educational attainment in the MKNP is Grade 4. La Carlota City records the highest attainment at 2nd year high school. There is also a high incidence of out-of-school among the children. The number one reason for their inability to send their children to school is poverty as reported by 41.46%. Moreover, 19.69% reported lack of interest among their children as primary reason while another group of 12.44% cited the age of their children as a key factor. Some 16.59% noted that work prevents their children from going to school.

Power is generally not available to the residents of the MKNP with 91.28% reporting the use of kerosene lamp or “kingki” or “mitsa” as standard lighting facilities. Electricity is used only by about 10% of the respondents shown in Table 10. For water, residents of the MKNP are heavily dependent on springs as reported by 71.86%. Open dug well serve the needs of some 20.49% while about 17.49% use piped in water from spring development projects.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20