Illustrative Case Study of the possible conflict between the IPRA and the NIPAS:1

One particular case study that is particularly illustrative of the positive way in which the IPRA can be used,
but also of the possible conflict between the NIPAS Act and the IPRA Act is that of Coron Island,
Calamianes Islands, North Palawan.

The Tagbanwa indigenous people of Coron Island have been living on a stunningly beautiful limestone
island surrounded by water once rich in marine resources, their main source of livelihood. By the mid-
1980s, not having secure legal tenure over these environments, the increasing encroachment by migrant
fishers, tourism entrepreneurs, politicians seeking land deals, and government agencies interested in
controlling various resources of the island, meant that they were fast losing control over their terrestrial and
marine resources to the point that they were facing food shortages.

They reacted by setting up the Tagbanwa Foundation of Coron Island in 1985 and applying for a
Community Forest Stewardship Agreement (CFSA). They were awarded a CFSA covering the whole island
and neighbouring, small, Delian Island, (for a total of 7748 hectares) in 1990.

Soon after, however, they realised that their main source of livelihood, the marine waters surrounding the
island, were being degraded at an alarming rate by dynamite, cyanide and other illegal and destructive
fishing. Through the use of DENR’s DAO2 and the help of a national NGO, the Philippine Association For
Inter-cultural Development (PAFID), in 1998 they managed to obtain the first CADC in the country that
included both land and marine waters, for a total of 22,284 hectares. They produced high quality mapping
of their territories, an Ancestral Domain Sustainable Management Plan, and followed up the development
of the IPRA law successfully, using it to obtain a CADT in early 2001. However, given that all CADT were
put under review with the restructuring of the NCIP in mid-2001, this title is also under review.

The CADC and CADT were put to prompt use when Coron Island was selected as one of the 8 sites under
the National Integrated Protected Areas Programme (NIPAP). The ultimate intention of the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources was (and still is) to gazette the whole island as a Protected Area, but
this has so far not materialised because the Tagbanwa fear that they would once more lose control over the
island. Having gained a CADT over the island they prefer to stick to their right-based approach to resource
management rather than accepting an uncertain participatory approach through the Protected Area
Management Board. One of the main reasons mentioned by the Tagbanwa for their refusal of the NIPAP
project was the fact that Coron Island was selected as one of the 8 sites for the project without any
consultation with them and without seeking their free and prior informed consent. Several other indigenous
communities in other parts of the country are looking at CADT over land and water as a tool to secure their
rights to land and marine resources.

This case aptly illustrates the potential conflicts between the NIPAS and the IPRA. The Coron Island case
could actually also be seen as the use by an indigenous community of a rights-based law (IPRA) to support
a community-conserved area (CCA) versus the use by the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources of a participatory protected areas law (NIPAS) to push for a state-declared Protected Area. This
brings to the fore important questions in conservation policy: how can the conservation efforts of local
communities (such as CCAs) be recognised and protected? Do they need legal recognition? How can they
complement, or in certain cases be preferred, to the more conventional state-declared Protected Areas?

The case of the Tagbanwa of Coron Island illustrates that when an indigenous community is strongly
determined to protect its natural resources and rights, given the right support (such as available laws and

1
Excerpt from The Philippines: Indigenous Peoples’s Rights-based Approach to Conservation by
Maurizio Farhan Ferrari, Forest Peoples Progamme, and Dave de Vera, PAFID, Aug. 19, 2003.
supporting NGOs), it can effectively take action to obtain recognition of its rights and to protect the
ecosystems on which it depends. It also shows that for indigenous peoples it is worth investing time in using
a rights-based approach to biodiversity management to obtain a private community title through IPRA,
rather than accepting a participatory approach as offered by NIPAS, as this is still beset by problems related
to the issue of who really holds power within a participatory arrangement. This case also illustrates the
dichotomy between official (state-declared) protected areas versus community-conserved areas.

The Tagbanwa used an innovative law that recognises indigenous peoples’ property rights and customary
law (despite its limitations) in an initiative that could be broadly defined as a community-conserved area
(CCA) and rejected a government plan to gazette the island as a Protected Area (PA). It is actually a case
of conflict between CCA and PA, which could be avoided or settled if governments started to recognise
and accept the value of CCAs and see them as a valid complementary approach to conventional PAs.