Urban Ecology - The human side

I've been meaning to write on Balicassiao about urban ecology. I have never seen a place where it is so appropriate to examine this topic than in Manila, a city built on a swamp. Manila proper is also the most densely populated city in the world with 111,000 people per square mile. Several cities in India as well as Dakha, Bangladesh, and Jakarta, Indonesia are now in similar situations. In these cities, it's nearly impossible to get an accurate measure of the population density. As an outsider, it is astonishing to me to think about how Manila came to be what it is today. Especially given the frequency of natural disasters in the Philippines.

I've posted this BBC video as an introduction to this topic. It's definitely taking a distinctly western approach to the slums in Manila, but it also interesting to see how differently outsiders view the situation from the people that have lived in slums for decades. To them, it's just the way they live, and it's better than being in a rural area with no access to daily income. Despite this, the Philippine government wants to clear the slums and force people to live in rural housing developments.

What has struck me most about the slums in Manila is that although they are widespread, they are so patchily distributed. Slums in Manila tend to exist along corridors, margins, thoroughfares, and dark, underswept corners of the city. They are not the expansive slums we think of in Mumbai or Nairobi. There is just no space in Manila for anything expansive. The city is surrounded on all sides by open water, permanent swamps, or mountains. The only way to build is up. Slum structures are often four or five stories tall and look like Tim Burton creations, haphazardly piled on top of one another and stained with the soot of decades of diesel emissions. They exist right next to fancy housing developments and condominiums. They exist in parks, along creeks and railroads, and propped up against skyscrapers.

I will be examining this topic more and more as I make more observations about urban ecology, including the other animals and plants that make Manila home. In Manila, I really see something every day that amazes me. It's a city of extremely sharp contrast. It's fascinating to see people embrace the ultimate sense of togetherness and community to be able to live literally on top of one another. It's something that is totally inconceivable in the Western mind. Privacy is only a state of mind in this situation.

I've been able to live in one of the least densely populated places in the world in Northwestern Zambia, and one of the most densely populated cities in the world in Manila, Philippines within the span of a year. I am really interested to focus on what effects the highly urbanized ecosystem has on its inhabitants.  How do they benefit from this situation and what are the negative effects? I also want to examine the few greenspaces in Metro Manila. What role do greenspaces serve in this city?

Protect your lungs!

There is one item that I've seen here in Manila that I think pretty much sums up life in modern Asian cities more than any other, the designer air-filtration mask. The masks are designed to protect against all airborne pollutants, including diseases.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2013/11/china-keeps-it-classy-designer-smog-filtration-masks/7673/

Winter is the worst season for smog in Asia for a number of reasons. First, the rainiest season is finished and there is much less turbulence in the atmosphere. Smog near the ground surface does not get dissipated up into the atmosphere as quickly as it does at times when the weather is more turbulent. Second, people are using more fossil fuels to heat their homes in the winter, causing higher emissions levels.

The Air Quality in China is making headlines this week. People have never seen air quality levels this bad in the cities. Shanghai recorded an Air Quality Index of 505 on Friday last week. The conditions are extremely hazardous. People have to plan their days around the air quality. There are those that have the luxury of being indoors, and there are those that are forced to be outdoors.

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/53767908#53767908



A few weeks ago I was on the LRT (Light Rail Transit) in Manila at around 7am. The LRT is elevated above the madness of the street, and you are able to see the skyline of Manila pretty well. I actually like riding on the LRT because I can get a good view of the city. Early in the morning, when the air is still and clear, the city is shrouded in a brown soup. The brown soup extends just above the skyscrapers of Makati City.

The Air Quality in Manila is pretty bad by the standards of most of the world, but it's really nowhere near as bad as in China. Manila usually sees air quality levels of moderate this time of year, with some areas locally with AQIs of 100-200. The Philippines is actually fortunate to be warm enough year-round that people are not required to heat their homes in the winter. There is not quite as high of a traffic volume in Manila as there is in larger cities like Beijing or New Delhi. The air pollution in Manila tends to be more localized than in most other cities. It is also caused by a larger proportion of old, highly pollutive vehicles. You find that the air quality along the major transportation corridors is much worse than in areas away from most of the traffic.

I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles. In the 1990s, the valleys to the east of Los Angeles had the worst air quality of anywhere in the US. The mountains to the east of Los Angeles tend to trap smog from escaping with the wind to the east. I remember not being allowed to play during recess when I was in elementary school because of hazardous air quality. The air quality in Los Angeles is now so much better than it used to be. California has enacted higher air quality standards, enforced smog-checks, and has required that auto manufacturers make cleaner burning vehicles. Industry standards have also changed. Just like Manila, Los Angeles's bad quality was caused mostly by vehicular emissions. A significant proportion of the emissions come from older vehicles. I see so many similarities to how Los Angeles was in the early 1990s to how Manila is 20 years later.

I really hope that Manila can follow the example that Los Angeles has shown to improve its air quality and not go down the disastrous path that Beijing and Shanghai have taken. I really hope that Filipinos feel compelled to act to improve air quality standards and not just feel like they are powerless to do anything. People should feel like the changes they make in their own lives have an impact. There is a living example of what's possible if you take a collective responsibility to stand up for environmental issues that relate directly to public health. For Manila, it's really not too late to build a model for the future that sees air-quality improve in the next few decades. With so many people forced to live or work outdoors in Manila, hazardous air quality levels in this city would really be a public health crisis for the Philippines.

I decided to write about air quality because it is something that is so visible to so many people. It is one of the most obvious environmental health problems, and one we can easily fix if we enforce regulation on emissions and emission standards. It's so important, especially with so many people flocking from rural to urban areas across the world. Too many places in the world operate on the outdated equation of CH=$. We are smarter than to trap ourselves into a fossil fuel dependent situation. I've developed a burning hack this week from spending so much time in rush hour traffic. I'm going to try to spend the day indoors today. I guess I need to ask Santa Claus for a designer air-filtration mask. Unfortunately, I haven't been very good this year. I can't even imagine what people in China are going through right now.

Tayabasan Sub-watershed, a look at a not so simple life

On the surface, and after being in Manila, a visit to Tayabasan makes life seem simple there. Most of the livelihoods of the people there come from subsistence rice farming. We were there to investigate some of the livelihood activities in the context of an effort to reforest the heavily deforested watershed.  Estimates in the past have found that 2,500 hectares of forest remains in the 7,000 hectare watershed. As I said in my previous post, the quality and quantity of forest cover in the upper watershed is directly connected to the incidence of catastrophic flooding downstream in Metro Manila. Every person in Manila has a vested interest in the reforestation of the Marikina watershed. The livelihood activities of the local people have shifted in recent years away from a dependence on local forest products.  There is less and less from the forest that a person can use to survive with every year. People have had to learn other skills such as farming in order to have enough to survive there.

A look at the lower sections of the Tayabasan River basin. Seen here are heavily deforested slopes that are prone to landslides.

One of the deforested areas in the upper watershed that is now occupied by grassland. This area was replanted with native trees in summer of 2012.

It soon became clear that the interactions between the people there, the land there, and the people in the lowlands are in actuality incredibly complex. There is undoubtedly a yawning chasm lying between the daily life of someone living in the Tayabasan headwaters, and someone living in Manila. Most Filipinos who have left a subsistence lifestyle in the outer provinces to come to Manila for a better life will tell you that in-fact their lives are easier and better in or near the city. There is certainly more opportunity to make money in urban areas.

We walked about 2 hours on a steep and muddy trail to reach the settlement. We also had to cross 3 rivers that had no bridges, and are most likely impassable during floods. We had to use 2 guides/porters for our goods, which included a guitar and 3 days worth of food. They were wearing flip-flops of course.

When I asked people about the recent history of the Dumagat community there, they said that the number of families living in the community has decreased by about half in the last 20 years. The current population seems to be somewhere between 30 and 50 families, but because people are spread out and not always at their homes, it is really difficult to get an accurate measurement of the population there. We also asked about how many of the people speak the Dumagat language. Only a few of the older men raised their hands. I wasn't able to ask any of the older women about this. I asked them to tell me a few words in the language. I don't remember what they were, but the phrases sounded nothing like Tagalog. I'm not exactly sure, but I think Tagalog originates from the Malay family of languages, while Dumagat comes more from Austronesian. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I've seen estimates that there are only a few thousand people that can speak Dumagat, most of them in the Sierra Madre of Luzon. None of the younger people see much value in learning to speak Dumagat, and everyone speaks Tagalog in the community. Most of their ancestry is now mixed through marriages to other Filipinos with mixed Asian and European ancestry.

We were there to focus on what people were doing for livelihood. It is really the key to see how we can best ensure the long-term reforestation of the area. We wanted to see if the people were invested in forest products for their livelihoods. Here's some of the anecdotal data from our investigation:

Primary livelihoods included:
Rice farming
Gold mining
Growing other fruits and vegetables: Bananas, sweet potatoes, cassava
Growing bamboo for housing materials

Small-scale hydraulic gold mining is fairly common in the upper Tayabasan basin. The gold mining contributes very significantly to bank erosion and increased turbidity in the river. The men we talked to said they found 2mg of gold that day, between the 3 of them. Some days they find more, sometimes they find nothing. They get a price of 1,350 pesos per gram, which is equivalent to about $30. Do the math.

These are some of the terraced rice paddies in Tayabasan. The steep slopes in the mountains require this terracing, which the Philippines is actually very famous for.

A carabao, the local beast of burden, wallowing after a long day working in rice paddies. These guys are seldom used for carrying people, goods, or for pulling carts. Most of their work is done plowing or preparing rice paddies. They are well adapted to the climate in the Philippines.

There is plenty of disturbed secondary forest in Tayabasan, great habitat for this amazing little flycatcher. I got to see a pair of these Black-naped Monarchs (Hypothymis azurea).

Secondary livelihood activities:
Gathering wild honey
Gathering wild fruits
Making brooms using tiger grass (Thrysoleana maxima)
Raising animals (chickens and cattle)

The local people make hives for some of the native stingless bees. These small black bees produce a bitter honey which is used medicinally. There are also two species of honeybees that produce different types of honey that is commonly sold to other communities.

This man makes brooms for selling at local markets. He was kind enough to give us a demonstration of how he makes the brooms even though he doesn't make them at this time of the year (November). The tiger grass (Thrysoleana maxima) spikelets are harvested around March are used to make the head of the broom. Other local and non-local materials are used to complete the product. He said he makes several hundred per year depending on the tiger grass harvest. He sells them each at 100-120 pesos (about $3).

A tree planted in 2012 as part of the initial reforestation effort. Coming from Africa, naturally I had to ask if they will be burning in the dry season. They responded "no", but I'll wait and see for myself.

It was a pleasure to meet these people. We didn't eat the dog. We ate a chicken once we caught it (read more below).

One of challenges of living in this place that an outsider would likely overlook is the steep terrain. Coming from flat land, there were things that I just never would have considered to be difficult until I got to the mountains. Of course, after you walk around, you get tired because you are walking up a hill, but I think the best example was when we wanted to catch a chicken to eat.  I've caught free running chickens before on flat terrain just by running after them. Eventually they get tired and you can catch them, especially if you have a dog to help you. Here, it is pretty much impossible because you can't run around on a 40% slope for very long. A chicken, though, has no problem. Southeast Asia is after all, the natural range of the Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus), the wild bird species from which the chicken was domesticated. Chickens can fly away very easily, especially if there are trees around. We had to devise a way to catch it. We were going to use a pellet gun, but someone else was out hunting with it that day. So we tried to make a slipknot loop and lay it on the ground. We tied it to a stick and kept throwing rice into the center of the loop. The idea was to pull on the string when the chicken unwittingly stepped in the center of the loop, closing the loop around it. So we kept throwing rice, and the chickens kept pecking and pecking, but the one we wanted to catch never stepped into the loop. Eventually we gave up because we were wasting so much rice. The chickens had won. Their crops were full. A few hours later, some guys brought the chicken up the hill. I never found out how they caught it.

This is the Marikina River below Wawa gorge. Metro Manila is just downstream from Wawa gorge. This place is filled with middlemen, as it is a natural constriction in the traffic of goods moving up and down the river. Upon observation, fruit moves downriver, while money moves back up. It is a stunningly beautiful place.

As much as I loved going to this settlement in Tayabasan for a few days, I really struggle with whether I can be of real benefit to them by being there. I struggle whether it is right for me to be there at all. They accepted me as a foreigner of northern European ancestry. I am American, and I'm not sure if they can understand my identity as an American rather than a European. I don't know how to speak their language, and I need an interpreter. I don't live with them, I didn't come to give them money, and I'm not really required to invest in them in any way by going there. The reality is that most people that look like me that people like them have encountered in the past have harmed them directly or indirectly. That is the legacy of colonialism. I don't know if I am harming them when I go there. Even though they accept me and I am there to try to help them, it doesn't mean that I'm not hurting them. The reality is that most foreigners that might go there in the future are likely to harm them directly or indirectly, not help them, as good as their intentions might be. That is why their lives are much more complex than we might see at first glance.