On the fringes of a busy highlands of a copper mine in Toledo City a community takes serious environmental conservation for the Malubog lake and promote tourism in the locality.
The lake used to be the largest privately-owned reservoir in the Philippines hosted by Carmen Copper Corp. (CCC). It was constructed in June 1970 by Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. and has a surplus capacity of 100,000 cubic meters per day of potable water. The Malubog lake is the source of potable water to households, school, and offices in Toledo City.
The mining company and the neighboring community, rather than being incongruent, these bedfellows are creating an opportunity to transform spaces, livelihood, social, political and environmental geographies in tandem through what is called the ecotourism-extraction nexus.