In the Philippines, a tribal leader guards a forest stronghold

It was nearly midday when we reached the summit, but the sun had not yet touched the observation deck. The sea of green stretching across 3,700 hectares of the Higaonon tribe’s ancestral land in the Philippines’ Northern Mindanao region offered calm and quiet—until a short squeaky ngeek-ngeek echoed through the vast landscape.

The all-black female Mindanao hornbill (Penelopides affinis), just a few meters above us, was doing its routine check. “Now we know it’s time for lunch,” quipped Datu Lumiliwan Ramil Ansihagan, one of the community’s tribal leaders.