How KM Reyes is helping secure rainforests in the Philippines

“One day five years ago, I stepped out of that hut that I was living in — sometimes I live in bamboo huts,” KM Reyes reflects.“I looked up at the mountains, and I looked down.” She was working on creating a second national park in the Philippines after successfully helping designate Cleopatra’s Needle Forest Reserve, the largest critical habitat in the country. “I realized I was the woman in my mother’s painting, and I had come home.”

The painting that had always hung in Reyes’ childhood home showed an anonymous woman gazing at a vast, untamed, misty landscape — a symbol of quiet contemplation that once felt alien to her. 

For the first time in her adult life, Reyes felt rooted. Immersed in the forest. As a young adult, Reyes had drifted restlessly from job to job, country to country. “I was all over the shop,” she laughs. Then she arrived in the Philippines on what was supposed to be a short visit. Eleven years later, she’s still there.

“For someone who's so rootless, the forest for me is a place that represents home.”

As a conservation lobbyist and National Geographic Explorer, Reyes has dedicated her life’s work to creating national parks in partnership with local and Indigenous communities who call the forests of the Philippines home. She co-founded the environmental, women-led, youth-driven Centre for Sustainability PH (CS), the force behind Cleopatra’s Needle’s protection as a critical habitat in 2016.

“The whole point of a critical habitat is that you need to prove that an area is critical for survival of endemic and threatened species,” Reyes explains. Most critical habitats are concentrated to a few thousand hectares. The second largest in the Philippines is the Carmen Critical Habitat for Marine Turtles, which has nearly 15,000 acres (6000 hectares). The one Reyes helped secure stretches over 100,000 acres (41,000 hectares). She and her team of six managed to do it in one of the deadliest countries for land defenders in the world — and the most dangerous in all of Asia.

“It’s important work,” Reyes presses. “The Philippines used to be 90 to 95 percent covered in pristine rainforests. Now only three percent of that pristine forest remains.”

Ancestral lands

In the 1970s Reyes’ grandmother fled the Philippines and resettled with her children in Australia when former President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law. Reyes’ mother, a journalist and changemaker, embedded the same spirit in her daughter, urging her to always find ways to be of service. She even named her with a mission in mind.

“KM” stands for the first-ever Filipino youth-led organization, which bore those initials. “So my name is loaded,” Reyes laughs. The organization’s full name remains undisclosed for her safety. 

“In a place like Palawan, which is very far-flung, we’re very remote, so we’re really at the mercy of the local government, and we’re working at the intersection of various government interests.”

Reyes reflects that arriving at this career was the culmination of various expressions of community-driven work: 

For one, she’s a certified yoga instructor. Before co-founding CS, she was queuing backbends and moonlighting as a cocktail waitress in Europe. She eventually channeled service work into the human rights space and wound up working with nonprofit organizations across Europe, Latin America and North Africa — it aligned with her other interests in political sciences and history. She advocated for housing tenure in gentrified areas and fought for youth and women’s rights through the arts.

“No criticism, but I grew up with a lot of drugs in my neighborhood,” says Australian-born Reyes. “Sydney parties were full of drugs, and I always wondered where it came from.”

It led her to communities affected by narcotrafficking in Latin America. She was working as a community organizer in one steep mountain neighborhood when it was devastated by a landslide. 

“That was a big wake-up call for me. I saw all of my work slide down a mountain. I talked about wanting to support communities through human rights, but if they don't have access to basic land, it’s moot.”

After the landslide, Reyes returned to university and studied environmental security. “I had no connection to the Philippines at the time,” Reyes recalls. 

But on a short visit to “find her roots” in the Philippines, as she puts it, she found a home in Palawan.

CS’s ongoing research in the CNCH, which is located on the island of Palawan, has so far identified 61 endemic species and 31 globally threatened species, like the critically endangered Pangolin (the number one animal poached globally). The CNCH also safeguards a watershed that supplies clean water to 30% of Palawan’s capital city, Puerto Princesa. “Most importantly,” emphasizes Reyes, “it’s the ancestral homeland of the Indigenous Batak tribe, of which there are roughly 200 members left on the island.”

“I would argue they’re more endangered than many of the species we’re working to protect.”

Critical habitat status helps shield these lands from deforestation, mining and wildlife trafficking. But protection is only the beginning, says Reyes. She and the CS team are investing in local communities through training programs — empowering Indigenous and local forest rangers to conduct biodiversity monitoring and teaching them science communication skills.

“The most important role that we can provide is research and data so that communities have the information they need to make their informed decisions."

Eyes on Kensad mountain

Right now, CS is in the process of proposing a Kensad Critical Habitat for Kensad mountain in southern Palawan — an area known for mining. “And a lot of the communities there are for mining,” Reyes acknowledges. 

“But CS doesn’t fight communities’ wishes, it seeks to understand them.” So a vital part of the protection process is early dialogue. “The community consultations really guide everything we do.” 

The work is a multi-step process; Reyes describes it as “painstaking.” The team knocks on doors, introduces their organization, and asks people about their knowledge, attitudes and practices, including their feelings toward the area’s management. Additionally, they conduct scientific research, and finally, lobby for protection. “It’s three steps, but it isn’t linear. They all kind of work in parallel.” 

Reyes hopes to have the Kensad research completed in partnership with the Indigenous Tagabanua community by the latter half of this year. Her team’s work demands a unique resilience, she explains, one she’s had to cultivate through her journey. 

She remembers Cleaopatra’s Needle’s final hurdle: a crucial meeting with the Batak community. After 18 months of consultations — ten river crossings (some drowning her motorcycle) — support still wavered.

“The sun was going down. We had been in deliberations all day. It looked like it was over,” remembers Reyes. Then one sole female tribal counselor stood up and made a game-changing intervention. 

“She turned around the whole room, who ultimately gave their consent to the area being protected.” 

“It really just takes one person.” That moment still fuels Reyes as she pushes forward in Kensad. She’s holding onto “the power of one” and her unwavering mission.

“I’ve had moments where I’ve really questioned whether I’m on the right path. I remember the mission is to protect rainforests by establishing national parks. That’s what I believe in.

ABOUT THE WRITER
For the National Geographic Society: Natalie Hutchison is a Digital Content Producer for the Society. She believes authentic storytelling wields power to connect people over the shared human experience. In her free time she turns to her paintbrush to create visual snapshots she hopes will inspire hope and empathy.