Bringing Culture Back In: Nurturing The Forests Of Asia-pacific For The Present And Future Generations

摘要

As a development worker in an NGO, and lately in the government, I find myself barraged with questions regarding my activities and projects. A village elder in a far-flung barangay (village) would, at my attempts of ferreting out facts regarding indigenous organic farming methods, ask why I'm interested in such "mundane matters." Why, he asks, am I interested in learning about the old ways which "do not command a price?" In an elementary school, I have been quizzed by starry-eyed kids about my interest in dragonflies which, in my early childhood in the late 1980s, flew about in our village of Maggok, Ifugao (northern Philippines), like miniature planes circling the world's busiest airports.