Coal mines threaten to eclipse indigenous solar villages in South Cotabato

(Manila) As world leaders gather in the UN General Assembly in New York to drive urgent climate action for renewable energy, a 17,000-hectare coal mine corridor in the province of South Cotabato in Southern Philippines threatens indigenous communities that have been establishing micro-grid solar villages.

“The Philippines undermines its pursuit of a renewable energy transition if it allows coal mining to continue to expand and operate. In South Cotabato, coal mining operations linked to San Miguel Corporation have already excavated roughly 300 hectares of critical watershed areas, posing risks to reforestation sites and micro-grid solar villages of indigenous Taboli Manobo communities,” said Leon Dulce, Campaigns Support and Linkages Coordinator of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC).

“Coal mining represents the worst driver of the climate crisis as it perpetuates not only the continued production and consumption of fossil fuel that causes global heating, but also destroys forest carbon sinks and worsens the flooding crisis,” Dulce explained.

Over the past years, the Center has been working with the Taboli Manobo S’daf Claimants Organization (TAMASCO) and other partner indigenous communities and groups across the South Central Mindanao region in establishing solar powered micro-grid energy systems within their ancestral domains. These systems have enabled six (6) sitios representing 415 households to experience electricity for the first time, with minimal impacts on their forest environment.

The coal mining corridor, which is currently pursuing an expansion of their operations, sits on top of the headwaters of the 116,000-hectare Kabulnan watershed, which provides potable water to half a million people and harbours key biodiversity areas in the provinces of South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Maguinadano del Sur. Four of the micro-grids that LRC helped establish are situated across this watershed landscape.

The group noted that the Department of Energy (DOE) has recently expressed it is studying the possible shutdown of all coal mining projects in the country, considering its impact on workers and host communities, and the alternatives to cushion the closure of the sector.

“It’s time for the Department of Energy to impose a moratorium on these new or expanding coal mining projects. Indigenous peoples are already showing us scaleable proof-of-concept of a just energy transition that aligns with their rights and safeguards the environment. It’s time we listened to their voices,” Dulce ended.#