Forest and water guardians: Young Pulangiyēn dedicated to land rights and education

Manuela Balett, Managing Director at Stiftung Jesuiten weltweit Schweiz

In Bendum, a small village in the highlands of Mindanao in southern Philippines, a young generation of leaders of the indigenous Pulangiyēn community is taking responsibility for protecting the forest, caring for water sources, and living together in the village.

For nearly 10 years, the Swiss Jesuit foundation, Stiftung Jesuiten weltweit Schweiz, has supported the schools and courses of the Apu Palamguwan Cultural Education Center (APC), the organization that is assisting the Pulangiyēn community in Bendum. This support to APC continues to strengthen these young people and their community in managing their habitat and expanding APC’s educational work.

I was fortunate to visit Bendum twice for several weeks – first in 2018 and a second time in the winter of 2023, accompanied by my husband, my elder son, and Fr. Toni Kurmann SJ, former Mission Procurator of Jesuitenmission Schweiz.

A day in Bendum begins at 4:00 AM and It is cool. “The daily preparation of families for a workday in the field is part of the Pulangiyēn culture. We don’t live indigenous folklore here, but hard work,” Pedro Walpole SJ explains during one of the first days of my stay.

Pedro is Irish-born but belongs to the Philippine Province of the Jesuits. He has lived and worked in Bendum for 34 years and is APC’s Executive Director. He lives in a hut on the edge of the village, surrounded by trees, a vegetable garden, and grazing water buffaloes.

Together with a group of youth trained in construction and woodworking, he built a guesthouse nearby. In 2018, it was named Balay Laudato Si’ (House of Laudato Si’). Here, visitors are received individually or in groups. Some come for retreats, others for volunteer placements, and still others to further their education on reforestation.

Laudato Si’, the well-known encyclical of Pope Francis, is a core program in Bendum. The cry of the poor and the environment is almost audible. It is easy to see why the encyclical notes that indigenous wisdom plays a key role in protecting the environment.

The dream of a school

In the village center, about a kilometer away from Balay Laudato Si’, the APC school stands right next to the house of the datu (tribal leader). As I write this article, the long-standing village elder and spiritual leader of the Pulangiyēn, Datu Nestor, passed away in January 2026.

In the 1980s, amid exploitation by logging companies, Datu Nestor dreamed of a school for his community. He, who attended school only up to third grade, became an influential, spiritually recognized, and peace-making datu in the region. His dream was for all children to learn to read and write so they could become the voice of the community and its deep ancestral knowledge. Datu Nestor also paved the way for educational work when Pedro arrived in Bendum in the early 1990s as an assistant to the parish priest.

Today, over three decades later, nearly 400 children attend the primary and secondary school in Bendum annually. Many come from surrounding villages and live together in a dalēpaan (a house far from home). The school offers much more: from vocational training to higher education and adult literacy courses. There is even a mother-child daycare center in the village, which I helped set up in 2023 as one of its first participants alongside my then one-and-a-half-year-old son.

Livelihoods threatening to dry up

By 1992, all logging companies had left the village, leaving behind a vast, bare landscape. “There was no life here, only dry, depleted soil,” recalls Pedro. Many indigenous families had lost their ancestral land or sold it to migrant workers, pushing them out of the village. Some settler families settled in Bendum.

When the forests disappeared, the water disappeared too, threatening people’s livelihoods. Thus, in 1994, the Pulangiyēn decided to reclaim their land and reforest the area. Through the Tribal Council, they raised funds and bought back 1,600 hectares of their ancestral territory from settlers. Since 1998, they have held the land title for their gaup (demarcated ancestral territory).

Regeneration of forest, water, and youth leadership in Bendum

Some of today’s leaders were among the first primary school students in Bendum. Shaped by the spirit of regeneration, they now guide children and youth to carefully tend to their habitat. The school is managed by a group of women from the community who develop the curriculum in their mother tongue, a Philippine national language, and English, offering a unique multilingual education in the country.

Challenges are not lacking. In many parts of the Philippines, thousands of hectares of forest disappear every year and 80 percent of the island nation’s original forest cover has been cleared.

“We care for the saplings until they are strong enough to grow on their own,” says Jeno Almahan, a young Pulangiyēn and member of the forest management team. For him, there is nothing better than taking care of tree maintenance and the forest. He is usually found with a machete either in the nursery or on patrol in the forest.

In over three decades, the community planted more than 15,000 trees. Despite difficult conditions, around 70 percent of the saplings survived. Today, forests are growing in Bendum again – a visible sign that patience, knowledge, and community action can heal nature.

With the forest, water returned. Springs that dried up started flowing again.

For Jason Menaling, son of the late datu Nestor and his recently elected successor, this is an invaluable success: “The forest protects the springs, stores water, and ensures future generations have access to this vital resource. It is our responsibility as a young leadership generation and young parents to pass this awareness on to our children and youth.”

This article originally appeared in the Easter 2026 issue of Jesuiten weltweit magazine. This magazine is in German language and can be accessed here as a PDF file.

For nearly 10 years, Jesuiten weltweit has supported the APC and from 2025 to 2027, assistance focuses on land rights and youth education support through the project NABANTAW. With the Tribal Council and the Pulangiyēn community in Bendum, APC is implementing the project’s main activities:

• Strengthening Nabantaw,the governing body of the Tribal Council for the 1,600-hectare ancestral domain, that now consists mostly of young community leaders who take responsibility for their habitat and report to local government on land development and resource protection
• Sustaining forest, agriculture, and water resource management through the forestry youth teams that aim to raise and plant 6,000 tree saplings while earning an income
• Empowering women through provision of training in business management and organic farming as they are organized in cooperatives and cultivate vegetables and produce lemongrass oil to gain independent income.
• Supporting comprehensive education in the community as APC ensures ongoing educational programs from early childhood care, K-12 basic education, and online education opportunities with university certification through Jesuit Worldwide Learning (JWL).