Care, in Bohol, is something people do with their hands. By day, we hope to learn from the Abatan River, and if we’re lucky, help. The communities along it run mangrove planting and eco-restoration work to protect a 1,000-acre estuary that holds 32 mangrove species and Pteroptyx macdermotti, a rare firefly found only in the Philippines.
The Abatan runs twenty kilometers through five towns to a mangrove estuary the communities along it chose to protect. The guides don’t come from outside. They live on the river, and they replant the mangroves themselves. By bandong boat, we visit the villages along the banks, where weaving and fishing are part of daily life, not a show put on for visitors.
After dark, we paddle out. The fireflies live in the mangroves the guides have spent years putting back, and on a clear night the trees light up from the inside. It’s the whole episode in one image: something beautiful that exists only because someone keeps taking care of it.
