Quick background: "PECP will focus on conservation, education and eco-tourism development in the Irawan and Simpocan Barangays of Puerto Princesa City. It will be implemented by the Palawan Conservation Corps and guided by a Steering Committee comprised of representatives from community leaders, indigenous peoples, government organizations and funders. The project will focus on aspects such as erosion mitigation, public awareness and understanding as well as the development of an eco-tourist hiking trail as the final product. The trail will start in the Puerto Princesa City Watershed in Barangay Irawan and will end on the west coast of Palawan in Barangay Simpocan. The operation and proceeds from the eco-tourist trail will support local jobs and will fund continued conservation and education programs."
The first steps that we took was hiking the Irawan and Simpokan trail and, by using GPS units, produce a accurate, detailed topographical map to show to interested parties. There are some slight revisions needed for a final map, for example, the black trail line going slight north was a possible trail that was explored and later decided against due to the significant amount of work needed to make it a usable trail. The main trail is the one most often used by IPs and as a result is much more established. Below is the map:
There are several waterfalls to see, viewpoints, old mining camps and old growth forest culminating with the Mother Tree. I believe I have another post when we hiked the trail with pictures but I will put some here.
.jpg)
After working and developing partnerships with Indigenous Peoples (IPs) Barangay Captains, funding sources such as Delta P. and other government agencies and community members we were able to organize a Steering Committee and move forward with a business and development plan. We broke the trail down into 12 segments, gave then local names mainly based on Tagbanua deities and presented the overall plan at the soft opening to the Vice Mayor, ABS-CBN, local schools and universities, Boy/Girl Scouts of the Philippines and many other groups and individuals who would be interested in helping or using the trail.
Each of the segments was presented with picture highlights with expected labor and material costs. If companies, groups or individuals would like to donate to any segment they are welcome to and in return they would get a signed certificate of appreciation and a framed token depicting the trail as a whole, project summary and details about the particular segment that received funding as well as our eternal gratitude! Below are the segments:
I was the emcee at the soft launching and really put my tagalog skills to the test! Overall it went very well even though it was raining cats and dogs out. We received back several commitments of supports and desire to learn more about the business and development plan for future partnerships.
No comments:
Post a Comment