- At 288,000 hectares (712,000 acres), Liguasan Marsh in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao is the country’s largest and most intact wetland, a haven for birds and a source of livelihood for the 100,000 families who live there.
- The marsh was a hotspot during the decades of conflict between the Philippine government and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF); it also has known oil and gas reserves.
- With a peace deal forged and the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in 2019, the new regional government is seeking investors to develop the marsh’s oil and gas reserves.
- Some fear this extractive activity will damage the marsh’s ecosystem and exacerbate land conflict in an area where land tenure is already complex and contested.
Pineda is a member of Birders without Borders, and was part of a team of bird experts invited by the Philippine military to join a 2019 tour of the marsh. The team maneuvered their way deep into the marsh on motorboats, closely guarded by some 100 soldiers in full battle gear. At other points along the periphery of the wetland, the security presence was even more pronounced, with police officers deployed to form another layer of security against possible attacks from shooters.
“We were nervous even with the heavy security detail from the military,” Pineda said.
The 288,000-hectare (712,000-acre) Liguasan Marsh has been a hotspot in a deadly, decades-long conflict between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a 40,000-strong armed group fighting for the right of self-determination in the southern Philippines.
It remains the country’s largest intact wetland, relatively undisturbed largely due to the war waged by the MILF since the late 1970s, and is home to diverse fauna and flora as well as thousands of ethnic Moro, or Bangsamoro, families whose livelihoods depend largely on fishing and farming in the marsh.
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