Tree Growing during the celebration of St. Columban’s Day. Photo: John Din
I am a link. A link to what? A link between what began decades ago and the imagined future of a recovered and restored forest. In the early two thousand, San Columbano de Bantolinao was just a dream. It was a dream of a future in which organic farming is enhanced and forest restored on a bald mountain considered a watershed for Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental.
It all started with some members of the Negros Nine. They are a group of nine people, six lay and three priests, who were falsely accused of murdering a mayor in 1983. From there, a dream of integral human development and societal transformation was envisioned, where human rights and the plight of the poor are recognised. Living on an island heavily dependent on sugar cane, the protagonists – the poor - realised that the call for human transformation is not situated in a vacuum; it calls for a greater understanding of integral human development, as Pope Francis called for in Laudato Si’. This journey towards an expanded understanding of integral human development led to the birth of Santuario de San Columbano, a forest restoration project of the Negros Nine.
Over the years, hundreds of people have been involved in efforts to reforest and stonewall an area of around sixty hectares of land. Mostly planted with native trees, the project has survived a series of typhoons that damaged the planted trees, the threat of charcoal-making by people trying to survive during the lean months while waiting for the sugar cane harvest, a spell of drought and the La Niña phenomenon.
Yet, despite it all, and with practically little government support, the forest restoration thrives. It withstood the climatic challenges and human stupidity. Most sections of the forest are now able to sustain themselves with less human intervention. The different species of birds are now doing their job to bring more seeds to an ever-welcoming environment for growth. I presume many species in the area are still to be known and discovered.
I moved to San Columbano de Bantolinao in June of 2025. The past few months have been dedicated to observation, understanding and knowing the dynamics and patterns of this place. This means regular walks around the reforestation area while enhancing the organic farm. Almost a decade of advocacy work in Manila has awakened in me the need to go back to the land to complement the advocacy work through care for people and creation.
I must recognise that there are many things that I still do not know and understand about the place. Having spent years in the busy city of Manila, each day on the farm feels like any other, but growth is happening everywhere around here. It’s hard to see the invisible little growth that can only be recognised after a certain time.
What inspires me is to see the great leap from the beginning of the project to the present. After two decades, the fruits of community labour against all odds are unimaginable, turning a bald mountain into an Amazon-like forest. From above the canopy, one can easily mistake it for any tropical forest on the globe. What seemed impossible many years ago is made possible by the countless people who have been part of this enormous task.
For me, as a missionary in the context of where I am living and working now, it is both a graced moment and a challenge to be part of the link between the past and the present, between the generation before us and those who will come after us. We are in a crucial context where life in its immense journey, which has brought out everything in all its forms, is now threatened with extinction because of our way of living. A way of living that estranges us from the truth that we are part of the whole of creation. This calls for a lifetime path of renewal – recovering that age-old wisdom and truth present in the worldviews of most indigenous people around the world and supported by science, that everything comes from the same source, is mutually interdependent, and shares a common future. The restoration of the forest, mindfulness of the rhythm of nature, and organic farming are pathways for what Laudato Si’ calls “to thread on the long path to renewal”.
Columban lay missionary John Din lives and works in the Philippines.
Related links
- Read more from the current Columban eBulletin
