In 2018 I made an epic journey around the world to photograph environmental defenders whose lives were at extreme risk for the stand they were taking. These were not just any old environmental activists, these people were actively putting themselves on the line everyday to oppose the military, corrupt police, drug cartels, big business and armed wildlife poachers. At the time it seemed quite normal, but in hindsight it was insanely dangerous.
The articles are available on The Guardian. The photographs are credited to me and the stories to Jonathan Watts, for the most part we worked separately, and I traveled alone, walking in to situations that I had absolutely no idea about.
The environmental editor Jonathan Watts did a great job writing the stories, and in many cases had already conducted the interviews but on one of the trips to the Philippines I was lucky enough to have him and a videographer Leo Plunkett come along with me.
Six years later and this is the first time I have written about the experience of making The Defenders, and the first time I have allowed myself to reflect on the situation that we put ourselves in over those few days in Mindanao.
We needed the nuns on our side. That was the key to our safety.
Not that the nuns posed any threat to us, but they had the inside information on the volatility of the situation in Datal Bonglangon village and, knowing the reasons why we wanted to visit, they could organise transport and call ahead to lay the groundwork for three white guys turning up in a village which had recently been torn apart by the massacre of 8 farmers.
We were told that we needed to be careful. We had to be honest with the villagers about why we were there, but the soldiers couldn’t know who we were. So the community was prepped by the nuns, and transport was organised. We only had one day because once we were out, if word got around that we were journalists, a second day could be much more precarious for us, a piece of advice we ended up ignoring, and almost regretting.
The village of Datal Bonglangon is basically nestled inside a massive coffee plantation at the top of a mountain. The road is a dirt road that becomes impassable when the rains come. The coffee plantation is guarded by armed soldiers.
The villagers themselves were stuck. The plantation was encroaching upon their land and their resistance was responded to with extreme violence. Whilst the army did not seem to have any jurisdiction over the village, they were clearly keeping a close eye.
I’m not going to go into the full story of the massacre here, you can read the full story by Jonathan Watts for The Defenders series here. But what I will say is that what we encountered when we entered the village was a community torn apart, families who had lost numerous loved ones, and an anger, sadness and frustration that affected us all profoundly.
Leo and I had four days on the island of Mindanao, Jonathan came along only for the one day to the village as he had a tight schedule to stick to. So on day one, Leo and I got the nuns on side.
Day two we visited another village, just to get a feel for the area, to take some establishing shots and to find out the broader context of life in the rural Philippines.
On day three we went to the village…
From what I recall it was a pretty long journey, the roads were bad and the majority of the trip was spent winding up an informal mountain pass. The landscape was beautiful; a lush, thick, deep green that is only achieved through intense humidity and heavy rain.
We were accompanied by three fixers/bodyguards/interpreters who gave us the illusion and confidence of safety. But when we arrived I think it is fair to say that we were all a little on edge.
Jonathan Watts is a tall man. Very tall. And people in The Philippines are obsessed with basketball. As we drove into the village we parked right in-front of the informal village basketball court and, on exiting the car, were greeted with elation from the community who could not believe that, at his height, Jonathan was anything other than a professional basketball player. This broke the ice. We relaxed a little.
As with many visits to communities, we started off with a community meeting to explain why we were there. This was not as simple as it may seem as we became aware of a couple of heavily armed soldiers circling us and eventually standing within earshot of our meeting and observing our every move.
When another man is watching you, whilst holding a machine gun, it’s quite hard to feel comfortable, but I was amazed at how Jonathan managed to find the space and time to conduct long and involved interviews with several members of the community, most notably Marivic Danyan the young lady who lost her husband, father and brothers in the massacre.
I have worked with several journalists, many of them very good, but to observe someone of such skill as Jonathan go about his work was something I will never forget. The time and space that he allowed for people to talk, and the depth to which he took those interviews was truly impressive. I’m not sure he would feel comfortable with reading that, but credit where credit is due.
Long story short, we did the interviews, we got the photographs and film footage and we returned to our hotel with a feeling of relief and achievement. I think we went out for a seafood dinner. Job done? Not quite.
“I need to go back to the village, we didn’t get the drone footage.” Leo greeted me with in the morning. My heart sank. I was very pleased that we had got back to the hotel without incident, without being followed, and without drawing undue attention to ourselves, and wasn’t keen to give it another crack.
We inquired, through the nuns, as to whether it was safe and it was suggested that there has been some chatter about journalists snooping around. We were told not to go back to the village but that we could try and get as close as possible without being seen.
Jonathan had left early in the morning to go and interview a fisherman in Palawan, so it was just Leo and I. I could not possibly let him go alone and, sadly, he was far more spirited (read ‘braver’) than me. So off we went, back up the mountain. This time more nervous than before (me, not Leo).
The threat of rain was imminent and we knew that if it started to pour we needed to move quickly. The road would become impassible and being stuck at the top of a mountain, on the wrong side of a violent army was probably not going to work out in our favor.
We found a spot to work from, looking out over the coffee plantation, our fixers keeping watch from a tower. The car was turned around, idling, ready to go and we were under instructions that if they spotted the army coming towards us we were to get in the car and drive, no questions asked.
It’s 2018 and the drone has a battery life of about 8 minutes. The plan is to fly the drone for 8 minutes, jump in the car and drive.
Leo put the drone up. The drone disappears. We think it has been shot down. The footage is on the drone. Leo jumps into the coffee plantation to find the drone. I stand by the car ready to go. It starts raining.
Honestly, I’m scared. Our fixers have come down off the tower, they say that they have seen the army driving towards us. I don’t have communication with Leo. We can’t leave him there but we need to go. Now.
Leo appears from the thick undergrowth. He hasn’t found the drone. I call it - “Leave it, we have to go”. I get the feeling he would have gone back in but with the rain is getting heavier and, with the threat of the army on our tail, we just need to leave.
On the way home the rain has caused a huge landslide of mud across the road, we cannot get through and have to wait for a Caterpillar loader to come and clear the road. A nervous wait, that seemed to drag on for hours.
I don’t think I have ever been so happy to get on a plane before. As the wheels come up and we ascend through the clouds a huge sense of relief washes over me. We did what we came to do, but I cannot ignore how close we came to not making it out. We almost didn’t make it home.
Looking at the story now, on The Guardian website, it’s amazing to think that such an extraordinary experience resulted in a powerful, but fairly standard journalistic piece. It strikes me that our experiences over those four days were just drop in the ocean of the fear and anxiety that the villagers of Datal Bonglangon wnet through every day.
