The region-wide environmental campaign dubbed as Valuing Ecosystem Services Together (VEST) of Xavier University highlights people’s participation toward a paradigm shift to the “new normal,” preventing another catastrophe from inflicting Northern Mindanao. VEST is an offshoot campaign grounded upon the principles of Payment for Ecological Services (PES) where communities and different sectors are encouraged to participate in a “rewarding mechanism” for the rehabilitation and preservation of Mt Kalatungan. VEST targets five sectors to take part in this ecological undertaking, namely, the corporations, cooperatives, the academe, religious groups and the households.

PES acts as a “rewarding cycle” designed to protect our forest in the highlands of Mindanao so that when it rains, the water will not be devastating by the time it reaches urbanized areas such as Cagayan de Oro City. The project is piloted within the ancestral domain of the Miarayon-Lapok-Lirongan-Tinaytayan Tribal Association (MILALITTRA), one of the 12 lumad communities in the protected area of Talakag, Bukidnon where Mt Kalatungan stands. This rehabilitation effort ensures the provision of the ecological services of preventing further flooding in the region and adequate water supply, while economic incentives will be rewarded to the indigenous people community for being the forest managers.

Supported by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), this project is frontlined by XU Research and Social Outreach, McKeough Marine Center and Xavier Science Foundation (XSF), together with other public and private institutions across Region 10.