Excerpt and photo from fairplanet.org
In Batanes, the Philippines’ northernmost island, Indigenous peoples’ farming practices serve as a model for food sovereignty and climate resilience.
Marilou Fitero and her then 6-year-old daughter, Dianne, were huddled under their table for hours, their hands pressed tightly against their ears to block out the deafening roar of 215 kph winds and the terrifying sound of iron sheets being torn from roofs and hurled across their hometown.
Batanes is the smallest island-province in the Philippines, located at the northernmost tip of the archipelago. This isolated island, positioned within the Pacific’s typhoon belt, is home to over 18,000 indigenous Ivatan people, who are renowned for their resilience in the face of severe storms.
But Kiko, a super typhoon in the region, was one of the most devastating storms the island had ever experienced.