Urban Ecology - Greenspaces in Manila

I have been meaning to post about this topic for a few months now. It is so interesting, but I have really struggled to find the words and the right context to write about it. I don't think I could ever find the right context about this issue, especially in Manila, but hopefully my perspective as an outsider is of some value. I really got interested in this issue when I visited the University of the Philippines - Diliman Campus Arboretum in Quezon City back in November. At that time, I was really struggling with adjusting to living in a big city and having seemingly no available respite in quiet, open spaces. I was really looking for places in Manila where I could enjoy nature and have time for thought and reflection.

I found out about the Arboretum by just looking at Google Earth and a map of Quezon City, trying to get a sense of where there were greenspaces and how much of the city was "set aside" for public greenspaces to offer people a place to relax and enjoy nature. Quezon City also has a website that describes some of the parks there. If you get the chance, pull up Manila on Google Earth and try to get a sense of how dense and urbanized the landscape is. As I mentioned in my last post on urban ecology, there is very little space for anything here, having one of the highest human population densities of anywhere in the world. I read the following on the website about the UP Arboretum:

"This is a man-made forest park found within the grounds of the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines. Established in 1948 by the Department of Agriculture, the 16-hectare arboretum is the only remaining rainforest within Metro Manila where exotic and endangered species of trees, along with diverse flora and fauna, can be found. The park has a man-made pond that hosts various aquatic and humid-loving plants, which also serves as a favorite picnic spot among visitors."

After reading this description on the website (I'm not sure when this description was written), I was thinking to myself that it sounded like a perfect place to visit on Sunday afternoon. I was expecting that the place would be great to learn about the local flora and fauna. I was expecting that it would be well preserved and cared for by the university that owned the land. I was even thinking of bringing picnic supplies. So, we set out one Sunday afternoon to find this place. We located the technology park that is adjacent to arboretum. We asked some of the security guards at the technology park where to find the entrance to the Arboretum. They all gave us looks like "why would you want to go there?" or "you shouldn't go there" or "I have no idea what you are talking about." Eventually we found a side road between the technology park and a gas station that had a sign next to it that said "UP Arboretum". So naturally we walked down the road. As we walked down this road, to our right was a high cinderblock wall with barbed wire on top separating the road from the technology park. On our left, was what could only be described as a slum. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw after we found the "entrance" to the arboretum.

This is an aerial view of the UP technology park and the arboretum behind it. The white dome on the right is the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute. The entrance road to the arboretum is on the left side of the technology park. You can also see the areas of informal settlements along the left side of the photograph and adjacent to the large forested area.

We entered the gate to the arboretum, and saw children playing basketball, laundry drying on lines strung between trees, garbage all over the forest floor, piles of plywood and corrugated metal sheets, and the smell of burning plastic. Wait a minute! People live here! As we walked further into the arboretum, we saw more of the same. There were motorcycles, bananas, tarpaulins, roosters tied to trees, people cooking and washing clothes, dogs barking, and small shops selling basic items. We found that the majority of the arboretum contained houses, and some of them were built with bricks or concrete, making them permanent. The man-made pond described on Quezon City's website was completely surrounded by settlements and garbage. It was not an ideal spot for a picnic. This experience blew my mind. I think the most surprising thing was that all of the trees were still there. It was like a slum in a jungle. I estimate that at least 500 people were living in the arboretum. The Arboretum is on public university land. People are not supposed to be living here, right? How did it get to be like this?

After seeing this, I had to do some investigation. I kept thinking that this situation would be the perfect topic for some sort of documentary. I was thinking, "how did UP Diliman let this happen?", and more importantly "why is there such a big gap between policy and reality?" This website posted by the university gives a brief history of the arboretum, but there is obviously a huge gap between the end of this "official" story of 2012 and the modern realities of 2013. Not the information I was looking for. Luckily, I found a short investigative documentary that I assume was done by a university student. I am personally so thankful for university students and the fact that they still have the time, energy, and motivation to do something like this. The rest of us are sadly usually too downtrodden by our own society to do anything like this. The interviews are in Tagalog, but as a non-Tagalog speaker, you can still get the gist of the story and the images of what these settlements look like.

Apart from these resources, I have found it exceedingly difficult to find much information about informal settlements on the UP Diliman campus or anywhere else in Manila. I was able to find out that the Urban Poor Affairs Office did an assessment in 2006 and discovered that 25,000 informally settled families lived on 11-15% of the 493 hectare campus. Assuming that each family is four people, that is 100,000 people living illegally on a university campus. I'm guessing that eight years later, that the number has at least doubled. If we assume that 200,000 informal settlers live on 493 hectares, that is about 400 people per hectare if you spread the people over the entire campus! That is four times the population density of New York City! That isn't even taking into account the fact that there is also a functioning world-class university there with 22,000 students!

When you think about this for a while, and the multitude of issues at play here, a number of key things rise to the surface. First, UP Diliman is obviously in a state of denial about the situation. To the university, the situation is just another inconvenience, and it should be swept under the rug so to speak. They don't really see it as a problem as long as the informal settlers don't obstruct the functions of the university. If anything, the informal settlers are well integrated into the day-to-day function of the campus, many of them working there. Besides the problem is now out of hand, and dealing with it would be a big undertaking. If it's not a problem, then why can't the university change its policy to acknowledge the legality of the informal settlements? What cultural and political forces require the university have to keep pretending like they have a problem with it, yet they do nothing about it? These are questions that I can't even begin to have the answer to.

There is obviously a clash going on here between the western idealization of private property, entitlement, individuality, and open space with the eastern idealization of community, patience, hospitality, conformity, and generosity. The university was designed to mimic American universities with a large quad, open lawns, parks, common areas, and walkways. It is a complete anomaly to the way Filipinos conceptualize and design their cities. Within the Filipino culture itself, there is a constant pull between the forces of western and eastern influence, and the situation here is a perfect reflection of this. In this country, it is a basic tenet of life that everyone have a place to live, regardless of your level of contribution to society. There are other places in the city with the same issue, including Manila's North Cemetery.

There are also political forces at play here, but it is not my place to get into that. Nor do I have the desire to discuss the political situation at the university. If the informal settlers were going to be kicked out, where would they go? How would the university go about removing them? Buy them out? Remove them with the police by force? There is nowhere for them to go. They can't go back to the province because they cannot earn money there, and there is no land for them to farm even if they could farm. They can't go somewhere else in Manila because someone else already lives there. Many people are "professional squatters" and spent their whole lives bouncing around from settlement to settlement. Many of the people in power in Manila depend on the people living in informal settlements for everyday services. The reality is that these spaces that were initially designated as greenspaces, are being devalued as greenspaces, and are now providing the most basic human requirement, space for the human body to physically occupy. 

As the land value in Manila rises with the population increase (the country is roughly the size of the US state of Arizona and the population of the Philippines is expected to surpass 100 million in 2014), the land becomes allocated to the basic survival needs of people. Land is no longer used for purposes that could be defined as luxuries or for leisure. But at some point, some level of connection with a piece of land is essential for survival. There is no way to replace land for food to be grown on, although there are some really innovative things happening in Asia. Check out this vertical farm in Singapore. Although this is a great and innovative idea, it is nowhere near as sustainable as organic gardening and permaculture on the ground. The Philippines is a net importer of its food, and the country is going to really struggle with ways to raise its agricultural productivity and to feed all of its people in the future.

I haven't even gotten into the psychological and environmental health benefits of greenspaces and pervious surfaces in cities. These benefits have long been documented across the world. I have also discussed in past posts about the flooding problems that Manila has on an annual basis during the rainy and typhoon seasons, in large part due to the pervasiveness of impervious surface in the city.

What is in store for the future? The campus officials at UP Diliman maintain that the informal settlements will be removed, but there has been no official press release on their intentions. Am I wrong in assuming that there is even a problem here? Is there a line that needs to be crossed before there is any change? Do people really think that the current situation is sustainable? What is it going to take in order for people to be mobilized into action? The thought of going to the UP Arboretum for a "picnic" or to find "diverse flora and fauna" is laughable. I think Quezon City should change its website.

Ecological Parallels in the Montane Forests of Northern Luzon

Imagine walking up a steep gravel/dirt road and there is extreme coolness, dampness, and greyness, and greenery all around you. You are gradually absorbing something between mist and rain into your clothes. You are not sure if all this moisture in your clothes is from rain, dew from the leaves, or from sweat. You are noticing the plants around you. Many ferns, alders, oaks, pines, and large-leaved annuals crowd the disturbed spaces along the roadsides. The smell is damp, fresh, and of rich soil. The sounds you hear are the white noise of a small creek tumbling somewhere below you, a few distant chainsaws, and the occasional twitter of a small flock of songbirds. If you've spent any time in the coast ranges of the Northwestern North America, you know that I am pretty much describing the experience of walking through the forest in spring almost exactly. The crazy thing is, that I'm thinking about my experience walking through the montane forests of the Cordilleras of Northern Luzon in the Philippines at 1200 meters elevation and 17 degrees north latitude in December.

I was amazed at the ecological parallels I experienced in walking in these forest ecosystems in the Philippines half a world away from coastal Northern California and Oregon where I have spent a significant portion of the last 10 years. I wanted to write about the two distinct forest types that I encountered on my travels to Northern Luzon and share some of my thoughts about the ecological parallels between these ecosystems and some of the other places I have visited.

Mossy Forest:

This is a great photo showing the micro-ecological competition present on every available surface in the mossy forests. This photo looks exactly like some of the vine maple thickets I have hacked my way through in Western Oregon!

This is a typical montane mossy forest scene in the mountains of Northern Luzon above 1500 meters. There is a dazzling display of epiphytes in this forest. It is constantly moist and a substantial proportion of the precipitation that reaches the forest floor originates as fog.

I experienced many parallels between this forest and the mossy temperate rain forests in coastal Northwestern North America, especially in the structure of metamorphic geology, the structure of the plants in the forest, the sounds and smells there, and the feeling of being literally soaked by life. Mossy forests are on the high mountains, the windward slopes, and are directly exposed to whatever the Pacific Ocean to the east has to offer it. To me, the relationships between these two forests on two different continents were unquestionably related and parallel, rather than convergent in origin in the way scientists refer to Darwinian evolution. It felt connected to many of the indicators in the environment that felt familiar to me as what I can only describe as "Pacific." It could also be described stereotypically as "Jurassic" if you are the sort of person that grew up on classic dinosaur books. I was taken by being here, and regretted that I decided that I wouldn't pay the time and level of attention as a scientist and an animal that the place really demanded for me to have a relationship with it that was sufficiently useful to it.

There's no doubt that the mossy forests of the Philippines are in big trouble. Peril is really not a strong enough word to describe the likely fate of these forests in the not too distant future. I'm basing this assumption on three simple things...the value of the wood, the pervasiveness of the chainsaw, and the enthusiasm with which roads are being built. Indigenous leaders that have spoken out against loggers in the Philippines have been known to be killed or just disappear in the past. The Philippines has taken the stance of putting a complete logging ban on many of these forests, in essence taking a stance of complete denial that a problem exists and that people rely on the forest for survival. It's analogous to taking the stance of abstinence to prevent the spread of HIV. It is insanely ignorant and out of touch with cultural reality. The prices of logs have risen steadily as a result of the illegality of the logging and the scarceness of these rare and treasured hardwoods. The wood is beautiful and the markets are hungry for it. Chainsaws are already found in almost every village. They have become an everyday sound in the mossy forests. Evidence of their use is along every trail. This observation alone was extremely disturbing. The chainsaw is a deadly instrument in the hands tied to the wrong mind. The road situation is also grim. Not only have I seen rivers filled with sediment and massive landslides along every road, but these roads are constantly being extended into these forests. Bulldozers and excavators seemed to be parked on every road, constantly clearing landslides and pushing new road into impossibly steep slopes. In some ways, it was selfish of me to want to go there to see the virgin mossy forest growing on some of the more inaccessible mountains, but on even the most remote and steep slopes that I was able to visit, there were trails leading off to stumps. I think it's worth going there if I am able to tell other people about my primary experience. I don't know how it's not going to get worse.

Pine Forest:

The pine forests of Northern Luzon are equally special, but they have to be described in a completely different way. The pine in Luzon is referred to as Benguet Pine, (Pinus insularis) or (Pinus kesiya insularis) depending on who you ask. The forest that support Benguet Pine as it primary species are on the drier, leeward mountain slopes, usually between 1000 - 2200 meters. Being from California, it is hard for me describe a monoculture pine forest with as much novelty and reverence as I can describe a virgin tropical hardwood forest. How many species of pines are found in California? It's at least 15. In fact, some of the landscapes I found there, I would have guessed would be in Northern California had I been drugged and left there only to wake up and try to figure out where I was and what year it was.

The view to the east from Kiltepan Mountain. Is this in Mountain Province, Philippines or perhaps eastern Mendocino County, California? They are so similar.

Benguet Pine - Pinus insularis

The pine forest in the Philippines seems to have entered into a relationship with human beings for the same reasons pine forests in other places have. Why? You guessed it...grazing, logging, and fire. These things are very much integrated into the forest ecology. The forest ecology is struggling to transform at the speed with which cultural transformation of the humans that live there is occurring.  In the Philippines, fire is being suppressed and grazing is dying out as the industrial ethos begins to work its way into more remote areas. It seems as though logging of the pine forests is common and its rate increasing just as is apparent in the mossy forests. People are beginning to face some of the same problems in managing pine forests that we are experiencing in the Western US. Namely, an excess of fuel in the understory due to fire suppression.

The town of Sagada is intricately woven into the pine forests

Being a birder, I can't write about the ecology of montane forests of Luzon without mentioning the birds there and the parallels between them and the birds found in a typical coniferous forest in Northwestern California. The similarities are uncanny. First off, there is one species found in the pine forests that is the same as one found in pine forests in California and across the world. It is a bird that is arguably more symbiotic with pines than any other, the Red Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra). I can't overemphasize how amazing Red Crossbills are and how they have evolved into many different types that eat many different species of conifer seeds. Their specialization lies mostly in the varied shapes of their bilaterally asymmetrical bills. Loxia is one of only two bird genera in the world that display external bilateral asymmetry. I have met many people who have studied Red Crossbills, but I especially think of Ken Irwin, an ornithologist and amazing birder in Humboldt County, California who has dedicated a large portion of his career to this species. Check out this video to see how Red Crossbills extract seeds from cones using their asymmetrical bill:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inzxNQSudqk

I was birding in Northern Luzon in December, so all of the songbirds were not breeding, but instead were in mixed multi-species flocks. Songbirds in North America exhibit the same behavior when they are not breeding in autumn and winter, then establish breeding territories and mostly ignore other species of birds in spring and summer. So, in birding, I focused on finding these big, noisy flocks of songbirds, then trying to find out what species were there. I found many species, and I decided I might put each montane Philippine bird side-by-side with its "theoretical ecological counterpart" from a northern California douglas-fir forest in early fall:

The core species:

Elegant Tit - Periparus elegans

Chestnut-backed Chickadee - Poecile rufescens

Mountain White-eye - Zosterops monatus

Golden-crowned Kinglet - Regulus satrapa

Just along for the ride:

Arctic Warbler - Phylloscopus borealis

Yellow-rumped Warbler - Setophaga coronata

Mountain Leaf-warbler - Phylloscopus trivigatus

Townsend's Warbler - Setophaga townsendi

Sulphur-billed Nuthatch - Sitta oeonochlamys

Red-breasted Nuthatch - Sitta canadensis

Philippine Pygmy Woodpecker - Dendrocopos macularis

Downy Woodpecker - Picoides pubescens

Citrine Canary-flycatcher - Culicicapa helianthea

Pacific-slope Flycatcher - Empidonax dificilis

Green-backed Whistler - Pachycephala albiventris

Western Tanager - Piranga ludoviciana

              Mountain Tailorbird - Phyllergates cuculatus

Wilson's Warbler - Wilsonia pusilla

The analogy was more striking than I ever would have expected, not just in form but in behavior. Of course, there were exceptions. I'm not saying that all of these birds exhibit the exact same behaviors. Also, there are many other species that could be conceivably present in either place, and would have no "counterpart" that would be quite the right fit in the other place. It's fun to draw these comparisons and think about ecology on a global scale. All in all, I enjoyed thinking about connectedness on so many levels during my visit to Northern Luzon. The scale of how all of these organisms and all of this biomass is connected is staggering. Just think about how much biomass Arctic and Yellow-rumped Warblers collectively transport between the boreal, temperate, and tropical forests of the world every year as they migrate back and forth!

Most Memorable Wildlife Experiences

I have been reflecting a lot recently about my most memorable experiences with wildlife. I decided to take an hour to write down all of the experiences that I really remember. I have personally spent an unreasonable amount of my free time observing wildlife. Only one of these experiences that I have listed occurred in the Philippines, but I think this topic is still worth posting on this blog. As expected, the majority of these experiences occurred in Africa. In Africa, wildlife is just everywhere, and you can't avoid it if you tried. I'd really enjoy hearing responses to this with some other memorable experiences others have had with wildlife. These are in no particular order. Undoubtedly, I've left some good ones out because they just haven't popped into my head in the hour I've spent thinking about this.

• My first leopard in Kasane, Botswana. I lost it and yelled leopard after spotting it at the watering hole when we were eating dinner at Elephant Valley Lodge. I guess I'm not familiar with safari etiquette. Nobody else seemed too excited about the leopard. Neither did the elephants. Are you kidding me!? 
• Morning with Sitatunga in November at Kasanka National Park, Zambia. Sitting under huge Mululu trees, listening to Baboons, Lesser Swamp-warblers, White-browed Robin-Chats, Dark-backed Weavers, and Square-tailed Drongos and them really showing me the language of nature. One of those special days in Africa, if you take the time to listen, it makes you think of the age and wisdom in the land beyond what you ever thought possible. 
• Going birding with Frank Willems in Kasanka National Park, Zambia. He is unbelievable.
• Straw-coloured Fruit Bat migration in November at Kasanka National Park, Zambia. One of the great spectacles of the natural world. Ten million bats with 80 centimeter wingspans. Enough said.
• My first Ethiopian Wolf in Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia. The world's rarest canid.
• Seeing a Serval in the wild in Dinsho, Ethiopia.
• Black-and-White Colubus Monkeys in the giant fig trees and one of the best days of birding of my entire life at Lake Langano, Ethiopia, December 26, 2012. 45 life birds in a morning. The sort of day that is so renewing, it makes you wonder why it is so unique. 
• Finding a 4th-cycle Slaty-backed Gull in McKinleyville, CA meanwhile getting a phone call from Rob Fowler that he had found a 3rd-cycle Slaty-backed Gull in Fernbridge, CA the same morning. So weird! The topper is that we ran into each other at the grocery store the day before (just another grey Humboldt winter day) and were talking about gulls.
• First day in the Chobe River Valley, Botswana. There is no other place in the world with so many African Elephants. I just had no idea what an incredible display the elephants would give us on this day. I estimate we saw at least 200 individual elephants at once. So epic.
• Sunset in Awash National Park, Ethiopia. Standing out on a parched grassland, looking for bustards as it quickly got dark on Christmas Eve. Lifer Hartlaub's Bustard was just a neck in the dry grass.
• Watching a rainbow skink steal a paralyzed cricket from a parasitic wasp in Lundazi, Zambia.
• Watching the lake flies on Lake Malawi.
• My first Grey-winged Robin-Chat in Kelondu, Zambia. I was taking a bath at the stream near my garden, when I heard one of the most ridiculous bird songs imaginable. I went a grabbed my I-pod and speaker and played a Grey-winged Robin-chat song. Sure enough, it popped out of the forest and started singing. I think I heard it perfectly mimic at least 10 species, including European Bee-eater, Klaas's Cuckoo, and African Yellow Warbler. I later discovered a second bird, suggesting the birds were breeding there.
• Just watching ants and termites in Africa in general.
• My first Blue Duiker, world's smallest antelope, at Zambezi Source National Heritage Site, Zambia. 99 out of 100 people would have never known it was there.
• My encounter with a herd of Impala on a solo bush-walk (stupid thing to do in a place with lions) at sunset in Kafue National Park. The moment I really learned how to walk and observe nature. I was thankful to be in Zambia, the home of the walking safari.
• Birding in the San Pedro River Valley in Sierra Vista, AZ in winter. I love sparrows. I don't know if there is a better place in the US to observe them in winter.
• Drifting the Kafue River. The most serene place in the world. My first Rock Pratincole. Way too close for comfort hippo encounters. An experience that can only be fully enjoyed with an ice-cold Castle.
• My first Moray Eel encounter in Maui, Hawaii.
• A memorable encounter with a black bear in Redwood National Park, CA when doing my master's field work. I was alone, on foot, and this bear was just way too curious about me and my equipment. Doing that project, I got some insight into the incredible psychology of the American Black Bear in my encounters with dozens of them. Surely one of the most misunderstood animals in the world.
• Watching a Black Heron forage using its "umbrella" technique for the first time at Lake Awasa, Ethiopia. If you haven't seen this, watch a Black Heron on Youtube or better yet, go to a wetland in Africa and see it for yourself.
• Watching "flocks" of hundreds of Common Nighthawks over Lower Klamath Lake National Wildlife Refuge at dusk.
• Watching a female long-tailed Weasel with a small rodent in her mouth near Klamath, CA cross a log over a creek. She spotted me and immediately dropped the rodent, which was still alive, onto the log, and she ran into the brush. The rodent sat there on the log, and about 5 seconds later, she came out on the log snagged the rodent, and ran back into the bushes, fast as lightning.
• Another long-tailed Weasel story in Humboldt County…a female chasing a small rodent across the road in front of my advancing truck, then the same thing, three seconds later, back across the road in the opposite direction. If I were a mouse, a long-tailed weasel would be my worst nightmare.
• Watching a Brown Shrike kill and eat a snake in Quezon City, Philippines.
• Watching a Western Scrub-jay kill and eat a mouse in Battle Ground, Washington.
• Having a 20 minute staring contest with a curious Northern Spotted Owl along the Elk River in Humboldt County, CA. It was only about 20 feet from my head. The owl crushed my soul with its alien wisdom.
• A Northern Saw-whet Owl landing on my tent in Redwood National Park. It was a full moon, an amazingly clear night, it was 3 am, and I had to pee. I looked up and saw a weird shadow on the top of my tent. Then it moved. I uttered various expletives to myself.  When I unzipped the door., it silently flew over to my camp chair about 15 feet away. Then it just sat there in the moonlight and stared at me while I got out of my tent and took a piss. Crazy! I swear that happened, and I was completely sober.
• Just watching American Dippers, period. Everything they do is amazing.
• The feeling when you finally, finally, finally find a bird you have spent an extremely unreasonable amount of time looking for. American Three-toed Woodpecker. Grimwood's Longclaw. many others