Dear list, good news that our team was able to pass milestone 4 of 5 of our HERMOSA project last Thursday, January 28th. We are very happy and will now officially start the demonstration phase. This also meant that there was not much time left over to move ahead on the subject of this thread, i. e. saving the Sacred Forest of the Higa-onon tribe in the Philippines. So, milestone passed and now we can get going again on this other subject. In discussion with James Atkins and Datu (both on this list) we have decided to increase our visibility by writing a one-page document detailing the situation and then getting it professionally designed so that it gets easier to spread the word about the Sacred Forest and the need to collect money to save it. Attached is a draft of the document and the text is also written below. Thank you for helping to improve the text and getting the message across. Best regards, Hinrich +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Northern Mindanao, February 2021 Dear reader, my name is Datu Lanelio Sangcoan and I am the leader of the Higa-onon tribe in the Philippines. In our 4 tribal communities there are a total of 5,250 people and we have been living for centuries, if not longer, on about 30 km² of densely forested area in Northern Mindanao. The forest and the land on which it stands is important to us in numerous ways:     • The forest is our identity because this is where our ancestors lived and thrived     • The spirits we worship reside in this forest wherefore it is sacred to us and our culture     • The forest is the source of our livelihoods – food, building material, medicine, recreation, clean air and water and many more commodities are to be found here     • The forest is a hotspot of biodiversity which we want to preserve for our descendants Unfortunately, in our fast moving day and age, money and education are paramount to leading a self-determined life. Taking education and money as the reference points, 99.5% of our community are illiterate and live below the poverty line. This makes us very vulnerable to outsiders who have a better grasp of how the modern, globalized world works and who have so much more money than we do. We have already lost a lot of our land and are in the process of losing more of our forest to outsiders who are buying our land to start logging, mining as well as oil palm and coconut plantation operations. Once this happens the forest and land are destroyed forever. The world is heating up rapidly and the change of climate will affect us all but more so communities like mine who depend on nature. There is a huge global effort underway to restore ecosystems but somehow not many thoughts are spent on preserving already existing areas, their biodiversity and the people who live off this land. Preservation is much less costly than restoration it also comes with added social and natural benefits. Dear reader, in our plight we have started a crowd-funding campaign located at https://gogetfunding.com/have-mercy-on-us-save-mount-kalabasiyon-sacred-f... where we hope to raise enough money to buy our land and place it under protection for future generations. May I sincerely ask you to support our cause with any amount of money you can spare and share this document as widely as you can. My tribe and I as well as our and your descendants will be forever grateful for your generosity! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

List Readers: Sorry for the confusion! Hinrich was responding on 26 January to an email I had sent to him personally about the Sacred Forest of the Higa-onon tribe; it read: Thank you for bringing this particular story to our attention -- and I have shared it with others. One question that isn't addressed in your text (unless I have misunderstood), is who will hold title to the land afterwards? If the elders are tempted by the current price, but sell to Datu (with this funding), what ensures that the land continues to be protected when the next economic crisis hits the area? (My general comment is that it's important to understand whether the land is actually being "conserved" for a multi-generational period, or simply saved for a few years.) Best regards, Steve Francis Project Director Tech Matters steve(a)techmatters.org www.techmatters.org -----Original Message----- From: Hinrich Paulsen [mailto:paulsen@mundialis.de] Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2021 5:56 AM To: hermosa(a)list.mundialis.de Subject: [HERMOSA-list] Re: Saving not only the Sacred Forest of the Higa-onon tribe in the Philippines Hi Steve, thank you very much for this very important comment. Yes, it is a challenge to make sure that once the land is sold to Datu it does not get resold and destroyed. According to plans the sale will be duly notarized and beneficiary will be the community represented by (probably) the Tribes and Natures Defenders Inc., a Sustainable Business Enterprise which aims to preserve the land for future generations. Datu has agreed to share the legal document publicly and I have suggested to add a clause regarding the protection of the land safeguarding against future sales that would deviate from the conservation objective. Best regards, Hinrich _______________________________________________ HERMOSA mailing list -- hermosa(a)list.mundialis.de To unsubscribe send an email to hermosa-leave(a)list.mundialis.de