After the completion of the Permaculture Design Course and a soft inception on site last November, a real kick off took place earlier this month at Mts Iglit-Baco Natural Park. DAF permaculture team was lucky to meet on site one of the @DENR Tamaraw Conservation Program rangers team on duty at that time who gave a great helping hand, while three @DENR MIBNP PAMO rangers already trained in permaculture, were precious auxiliaries during the four days hard work. Vic from @Hiraya Farms and Resort joined forces to coach the team and video document the journey.
The overall design encompasses two main components: production of food at the station 2 area composed of the kitchen/bunkhouse, community center and ecolodge. Then habitat restoration at the landing area, a 5ha flattened grassland dominated plateau that Kurionoff used as airport runway during the cattle ranching period in Mindoro, decades ago.
Both components of the system were tackled with inception of various design and technics elaborated during the permaculture design course, to set base for the team to continue: establishment of a garden bed piled with decaying logs as source of carbon, freshly cut grasses as source of nitrogen; creation of a natural water filtering system in the sink of the kitchen using peebles and stones and the construction of the canal to divert the water towards the vegetable gardens; construction of a vegetable seedling nursery, started the creation of pathways using stones; started the construction of a chicken coop; collected and potted wildlings mostly of pioneer trees; planting of bananas and other vegetables to form banana circles were cut weeds and grasses are piled; the setting up of compost bins, and the construction of a waste segregation system.
In the “Landing” area, two forest island patches have been established piled with logs, branches, cut grass and soil, and a ditch dug around the mound. We also demonstrated an assisted natural regeneration technique on one of the pioneer trees. A 100-meter firebreak is emerging on the boundary with the tall grass being cut low on the entire width of the plateau. A 10 m x 5 m ditch has been dug and the soil and cut grasses were piled into a mound on one edge of the fireline. Two rows of bananas have been planted behind the mound were the ditch has been dug. We plan to complete the fireline by February before the start of the dry season when the area becomes prone to fires.
The enthusiasm of all the participants is rewarding while it is a tangible enhancement of the station 2 that the rangers shall be proud of.
This activity is supported by Re:wild and the Darwin Initiative – UK Aid.
