Few cities in the Philippines are severely threatened with
watershed loss as Cebu. No one suffers more from that situation
than the residents of the city’s 18,000 upland hectares,
for whom the loss of soil and drying up of springs is a
threat to their very livelihood. After consultation with
the people, the city government set up the Cebu City Hillyland
Resource Management and Development Commission. The Commission’s
goals are to alleviate poverty, restore the productive capacity
of the hillyland ecosystem, and strengthen the human and
physical resources in selected upland barangays.
The Commission’s integrated strategy has four
components: First, it invests heavily in human resource
development. This is through the holding of training sessions
on cooperative formation and technology use. Second, it
helps upland cooperative members to market their produce
and cut flowers directly to markets in Cebu. This results
to bypassing middlemen and giving more to income to the
growers. Third, the Commission has set up nurseries and
model farms to promote the adoption of Sloping Agricultural
Land Technology (SALT). Fourth, it has built reservoirs
and water catchments structures to prevent floods and provide
safe drinking water and irrigation.
The components of the strategy are implemented by
a partnership between the LGU, NGO’s and PO’s.
As a result of cooperation, the people in many of Cebu’s
upland barangays have been able to stabilize their land
and increase their incomes.
