2024 APSIPA Winner Billie Dumaliang On Sustainable Geotourism Protecting Threatened Natural Ecosystems

With the gradual increase of global risks, how can we develop innovative practices to ensure a future where sustainability will become mainstream? The Asia Pacific Social Innovation Partnership Award is established to explore dynamic social innovation models in the Asia Pacific and to motivate more change-makers to contribute to social innovation, discovering and celebrating social innovation partnerships that connect diverse stakeholders and make significant social impacts. Partnership cases are required to set the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) as their core value.

The award sets motivating social innovation partnerships as its purpose, integrating 17 SDGs sorted into three categories, Biosphere Sustainability, Inclusive Business and Social Prosperity. Three winners were chosen from each category and there was one Special Jury Prize chosen by the judging panel.

The purpose of the Biosphere Sustainability Award is to encourage cases of social innovation partnerships devoted to environmental protection and sustainability, acknowledging that a favorable natural environment is fundamental to all human activities. The highly related corresponding SDGs are SDG6: Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG13: Climate Action, SDG14: Life below Water, and SDG15: Life on Land.

Billie discusses creating ecotourism business models which prioritise biosphere sustainability and advocate for change in partnership with impact conscious communities.

Highlights from the episode

(listen to the podcast for full details)

[Indio Myles] - To start off, Billie, could you just share a bit about your background and what led to your passion for social innovation and environmental conservation?

[Billie Dumaliang] - Ever since I was young, I grew up in a family which appreciates nature. We'd always go to parks and rural areas on the weekends instead of going to malls or concerts; that was the type of childhood I had. My dad had a project in the Masungi area in the 1990s, and that's how I started learning, experiencing, and growing up with the place, together with my older sister. In college I was quite active in social entrepreneurship, I was a business management major. My thesis and final projects were focused on how we can use business models to pursue sustainable development? Afterwards I went into brand management, and now I'm using what I learned to pursue the goals of the Masungi Georeserve, to protect it against many threats across different generations.

As the Director of Advocacy for the Masungi Georeserve Foundation, can you share more about how this Foundation is creating a positive environmental impact through its innovative activities?

The Masungi Georeserve is dedicated to the protection of prehistoric limestone formations and all the endemic and unique flora and fauna within it. A karst ecosystem is an ecosystem composed of caves, limestones, sinkholes, and the forest around it, so it's a very sensitive haven for biodiversity. That's why it's so important for us to be able to protect this national treasure so close to Metro Manila.

The Foundation provides on the ground protection, we have over one hundred rangers and other partners who help us protect and physically mitigate threats to the landscape. We fund all our conservation activities through geo tourism, visitors come to the georeserve in a well-managed and controlled way, they have unique encounters with nature that beyond financing and funding leave them with a memory of this area.

What we hope is that each visitor becomes part of our community, the people who will stand up for Masungi’s preservation in the long run. Masungi has been involved in a lot of different types of work towards this mission, and while in the beginning we just wanted to nurture the trees and grow the forest, this takes a lot of storytelling.

That work takes a lot of influencing decision makers, and so right now as Director of Advocacy, that's what I'm leading. I'm leading campaigns, media engagements and storytelling to increase our reach and grow a bigger and stronger community who will protect the Masungi Georeserve.

How are you furthering the organisation's impact through other activities such as environmental education or consultation with Indigenous communities?

Education is an important pillar of our work; we've innovated a lot towards this. Firstly, we do this through our trail experiences. All our rangers tell stories and educate our guests, far beyond just giving them a great experience on the trail. It's about teaching them a new way of life, how to give back to the nature that protects all of us.

In terms of special projects and education during the pandemic, it was hard for young Filipinos to go outside and experience our environment. We created an online virtual field trip platform, to take these students on 360-degree virtual experiences of Masungi's trails. This platform won the Sustainability Education Award in 2021, and we do a lot of educational interventions. We even created a localised watershed education plan to fit the K-12 curriculum and partnered with the Department of Education to train over 100 teachers in the surrounding cities and towns to integrate knowledge of the watershed into their teaching.

We're dealing with a lot of areas because this problem is not one sided. It takes a holistic approach to tackle it on so many different levels. Secondly, we found that Indigenous communities are some of our strongest allies against destructive activities in the watershed. Because we operate within a watershed so close to Metro Manila, it has been threatened, abused, or even neglected for the past several decades.

To save 1,300 hectares of the watershed from quarrying and irreversible damage, we built an alliance with the Indigenous people. It's very important for us to be able to find common ground in terms of preserving both ancestral domains and protected areas while empowering them legally.

We also support and enhance their understanding of their rights and the enforcement of their rights, especially when it comes to protected areas and ancestral domains. It's been a very organic partnership, although there are some instances when of course there are vested third party interests which attempt to divide rather than support our work. It's always been important to establish principles for protecting these areas, whether it's for cultural or environmental purposes.

Winning the APSIPA Award for Biosphere Sustainability highlights your dedication and hard work as an organisation to innovate and create a social impact. What have you observed is occurring in the social innovation movement in your country, and where do you see key opportunities arising?

I'm very passionate about social innovation in the Philippines. As I mentioned, even during college I was very active in the social enterprise space, and I do see a lot of opportunity in the creative sector. Filipinos are very creative, artistic people, and I see a boom in products and businesses that have been able to combine a social problem with a business model, such as fashion, skincare, bags, and other products I’ve seen online. The creative sector is one area, but the second sector I'm excited to see develop is of course the conservation and tourism sector.

Tourism has the power as we've seen across the globe to become a vehicle for conservation. We've seen the model replicated in many different areas globally, and we hope to show in The Philippines that there is a way to do sustainable tourism which contributes to the long-term preservation of ecosystems.

Some people think it's already ecotourism if you have a waterfall, river, and a mountain. For us, that's not enough, it's not just the presence of a natural attraction that makes it sustainable ecotourism, it's the operations, management, and visitor protocols. It's the education that comes with it that makes it a geotourism initiative.

I'd advise people to investigate what geotourism is, its principles, and how deliberate it is when it comes to tourism planning. I'm also excited for the sector and how it will contribute to social innovation in the conservation and climate action space.

What is required from key stakeholders such as the government, NGOs, and individuals to protect natural ecosystems?

As with all problems, first we must acknowledge the problem and ask the right questions. It is a complex problem, and the tendency for a lot of people is to shy away from these problems.

If all of us shy away from the complex problems, then no one is leading the way for others or testing different solutions. What is needed is an openness to innovation, we must be willing to try new models and invest in the ones that work, even if they're not business as usual approaches.

We must be able to support the early pioneers of this work, whether it's with funding, political support or just giving them breathing room to do what they can without too much interference. It's important for the government most especially to support innovative models like Masungi, we have experienced a lot of political challenges because we speak truth to power and do something quite new.

My call is for our leaders to be able to dialogue, listen and cooperate with people who are willing to take a bet on these complex challenges, because very few people are willing to do this work. We must be supported, empowered, and incentivised so more people will take the leap and tackle these huge challenges. Openness, innovation, collaboration, cooperation, and partnerships are important to foster these innovations across all fields, across all the problems and pressing challenges we face.

What advice would you give to social entrepreneurs and innovators who are focusing on regenerating ecosystems, environments, and creating biosphere sustainability?

One is that there is a lot of opportunity to do it right now. I've seen that globally there is momentum towards ecosystem regeneration, and as with all problems, the issue of how to scale it is how do you make it sustainable in the long term? There is a model behind this, so I think that's now an important question for all social innovators. I would also investigate the emerging markets right now, and look at what markets are sure to grow in the future? There's plant-based food, water, and other services that are ripe for disruption because of the upcoming climate crisis, so I think for entrepreneurs it's important to spot these opportunities.

Start with the problem you want to solve and find out what is the sustainable way to solve that problem. Then, look at growing markets to see if there's a way to hitch on to a trend and solve complex problems.

To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend to our listeners?

I always recommend watching the Wild Life, which is a documentary about land preservation in South America. It’s about entrepreneurs (the founders of Patagonia, The North Face and Esprit) who have put in all their resources into creating national parks and acquiring land for conservation in Chile and Argentina. That's a huge model people can be inspired by in terms of social innovation.

Also look on social media, where thankfully Instagram and podcasts have exposed all these examples.I follow Earthrise and Atmos on Instagram, and they keep me updated on all the different issues as well as opportunities happening across the globe. I'm very much an information gatherer, so I recommend you find the right channels to log into so that you can have a steady flow of information to keep you up to date for your own purposes.