Community Based Sustainable Tourism in Puerto Princesa City. Ugong Rock Adventures Case History 2014

Table of Contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

List of Annexes

Acronyms and Abbreviations

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2. METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Organizational Context
3.1.1 Physical and Social Settings
3.1.2 Timeline
3.2 Strategies Described
3.2.1 Approaches T aken
3.2.1.1 1998-1999: Top - Down Approach
3.2.1.2 2000-2003: The Community Based Sustainable Tourism Approach
3.2.1.3 2004-2007: Period of Decline and Inactivity
3.2.1.4 2008-2011: Period of Renewal and Redirection
3.2.1.5 2009-2010: Bottom-up and Autonomy
3.2.1.6 2011-2012: Maturity and Full-autonomy
3.2.1.7 2013-Present: Going Cooperative and Becoming Mainstream
3.2.2 Actors Involved
3.2.3 Institutional Support
3.3 Challenges
3.4 Outcomes
3.4.1 Accomplishments
3.4.2 Perceived Socioeconomic and Environmental Impacts of Ugong Rock CBST
3.4.3 Lessons Learned and Best Practices
3.4.4 Perceived advantages of TCTA/TURSCO over other CBST projects in Puerto Princesa
City
3.4.5 Other practices that made the Ugong Rock CBST Project the most successful CBST
project in Puerto Princesa City so far based on members’ perception:
3.4.6 Offshoot Projects from Ugong Rock Cave and Zipline Adventures
3.5 SOCIAL DYNAMICS BETWEEN UGONG ROCK CBST/TURSCO AND EXTERNAL ACTORS
3.5.1 Dynamics between the Community and the Barangay
3.5.2 Dynamics between the Community and its Members
3.5.3 Dynamics between the Community and Institutional Partners
3.5.4 Legal, organizational, management and technical arrangements of various parties

References

List of Tables

Table 1. Timeline matrix showing the history of Ugong Rock Cave and Zipline Adventures (Source: TURSCO)

Table 2. Community Perception of Changes in Ugong Rock (Before and After the Project)

Table 3. Lessons learned

List of Figures

Figure 1. ECAN map of Ugong Rock in Barangay Tagabinet

Figure 2. The Ugong Rock karst formation in Barangay Tagabinet

Acronyms and Abbreviations

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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Bunglon Cave is a jagged karst limestone tower standing out of the flatlands of alluvium and soil in the vicinity of Barangay Tagabinet. According to anecdotes from senior residents of the area, the name Bunglon is a Tagbanua term for wild dogs that used to roam the cave. The Cave is geographically situated at North 11°54’71” and East 70°31’73”. From the 1970s until the 1990s, the hill was trekked by young people for its scenic and natural beauty and became a popular hangout for the locals. Aside from its recreational service, Bunglon’s forest provided an important livelihood for the Tagabinet community whose occupations were mainly farming and fishing. During that period, slash and burn or kaingin farming was prevalent as well as the conversion of mangrove forests to fish pens. The highly extractive and destructive nature of these two practices took its toll on the natural environment of Bunglon which in turn seriously affected the livelihood of the community. In 1999, Mr. Kenneth Kennedy, and some member of the University of the Philippines Mountaineers (UPM) discovered one particular stalactite inside the cave which produced a haunting humming sound when knocked. He named it “Ugong Rock” from the Tagalog word “ugong” for the humming sound it made. Since then, Bunglon Cave became more popular among the community members and visitors as Ugong Rock.

In the year 2000, the Environmental Legal Assistance Center (ELAC), an environmental nongovernment organization based in Puerto Princesa City visited Ugong Rock to study the unabated environmental degradation happening in the area as part of their project proposal on community-based ecotourism in the Ulugan Bay area. ELAC provided technical and legal assistance to discourage people from their environmentally destructive practices and to stop illegal activities conducted by some individuals who acted purely on self-interest and disregarded the negative impacts of their activities to the environment. As part of ELAC’s activities on environmental awareness in the Ulugan Bay area, they organized the Tagabinet Community Tourism Association (TCTA) whose members were Barangay Tagabinet residents who decided to join the proposed community-based tourism project of ELAC.

Once the illegal activities were halted, a new problem emerged for the Tagabinet community - the problem of alternative livelihood. Since most of them do not wish to continue with slash and burn farming and cutting down the mangroves, they had to find an alternative livelihood which they can rely on for a long time. Finding employment in the city was a difficult choice given the low level of educational attainment of many of the community members. Fortunately, ELAC’s project proposal which was submitted to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) was approved and a UNDP Grant of about PhP150,000.00 was given to TCTA to put up an Information Center which served as a receiving and orientation area for visitors. Because of Ugong Rock’s accessibility to Sabang and the Puerto Princesa Underground River (PPUR), local and foreign tourists soon discovered the beauty of the place. Travel and tour agencies recognized the potential of Ugong Rock as a complementary tourist attraction to the PPUR. From its initial form as the Tagabinet Community Tourism Association (TCTA) in 1999 to its current structure as the Tagabinet Ugong Rock Tourism Service Cooperative (TURSCO), the ABS-CBN Foundation Incorporated (AFI) in cooperation with the Puerto Princesa City Tourism Office played central roles in what can be called as the first real successful community-based sustainable tourism (CBST) project in Palawan. As a gauge of its success, visitors (local and foreign tourists) steadily increased from only 109 in 2008 to 31,056 visitors in 2011 translating to a dramatic increase in income from PhP 7,150.00 to PhP 7,549,495.35. For 2012, records from TURSCO showed a total of 47,183 visitors translating to an annual income of PhP 13,843,146. Latest data for 2013 showed visitor arrivals reaching a record high of 50,385.

Because of the lack of a process documentation research (PDR) or an organizational case history for the TCTA/TURSCO Ugong Rock CBST, the dynamic processes, social relationships, challenges, conflicts and best practices that happened as part of the Ugong Rock Adventures (URA) success story could end up as footnotes in its still unfolding story. For this reason, this organizational case history is written in the hope that it could serve as a useful template for funding agencies and local communities in the Philippines or elsewhere with ecotourism potentials that aspire to duplicate the TCTA/TURSCO success story. This organizational case history is one of the two studies conducted by the Palawan State University (PSU) for the URA CBST Project. The other study focused on the assessment of socioeconomic and environmental impacts of URA to Barangay Tagabinet.

CHAPTER 2. METHODOLOGY

The method used for this study is the review and analysis of organization documents from TCTA/TURSCO. Other available secondary data were also gathered and examined. Data were validated through a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with selected members and officers of TURSCO and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) with AFI coordinators for the URA CBST. Additional informations were obtained from Household Interviews (HHIs) conducted as part of the socioeconomic impact assessment of the URA CBST by the Palawan State University. In terms of the analysis and interpretation of data, this study focused on four subject areas: 1) Organizational Context: history, physical and social settings; 2) Strategies Described: approaches taken, actors involved, and institutional support; 3) Challenges: concerns and problems that emerged and various perspectives; and 4) Outcomes: accomplishments, changes, lessons learned and best practices.

CHAPTER 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Organizational Context

3.1.1 Physical and Social Settings

Ugong Rock is located within Barangay Tagabinet which is found in the northeastern flank of Ulugan Bay, along the northern section of the road from Puerto Princesa City to Sabang. It includes a short stretch of the Ulugan Bay coastline featuring mangrove, sea grass and coral ecosystems. The main settlement area however is situated in the Tagnipa Inlet (Socrates 2003).

The Ugong Rock karst formation is both an ecotourism site and community within Barangay Tagabinet, Puerto Princesa City (Figures 1 and 2). URA is ideally placed at the gateway to the PPUR and serves as a model exposure of the St. Paul Limestone Formation for demonstrating the features, not only of the karst but also of the unique geology of Palawan, to recreational and educational tourists. The Ugong Rock Cave and Zipline Adventures is the CBST project owned and operated by TURSCO with technical and management support from AFI.

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Figure 1. ECAN map of Ugong Rock in Barangay Tagabinet

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Figure 2. The Ugong Rock karst formation in Barangay Tagabinet

3.1.2 Timeline

Timelines are graphical representations of history drawn by members of an organization or community based on their personal recollections of events starting from the time they considered as the “starting point” to recent events prior to the making of the timeline. Based on the FGD conducted on 20 January 2014 at the TURSCO office, members and officers narrated the organization’s history and drew a timeline of the URA CBST project (Table 1). The timeline matrix produced covered the period from 1992 to 2014.

Table 1. Timeline matrix showing the history of Ugong Rock Cave and Zipline Adventures (Source: TURSCO)

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¹ Initial Environmental Examination, City Government of Puerto Princesa