About human internal migration and development in Southern Philippines marginalized areas

Given that marginality plays an obvious role in the economical and human development, we assume that marginalized areas can not, by their own status, fully participate to the local economy. We define marginalized area as area with low transport facilities, no/poor ability to negotiate with economic and/or political actors, lack of basic infrastructures and, as a consequence, a manifest poverty. However, although such areas do not seem to be adequate for livelihood development, some of them attract many people. In fact, migrations are an alternative survival strategy in the Philippines and in particular internal migration. Due to some specific characteristics Mindanao Island (Southern Philippines) is of the most attractive regions of the Philippines, while remaining one of the most marginal. In this paper we assess the influence of internal migration on (i) land use and (ii) marginality in Agusan del Sur Province (Mindanao). At provincial and municipal level, we compare the evolution of migratory pressures with land use data and marginality indicators. We also use two Landsat images taken in 1976 and 2001 and original data from a social survey (2006) to consolidate our results. Our study correlates the attractiveness' reasons of the study area with the observed land use changes since 30 years ago. Remote sensing processes of the Landsat images show local agricultural colonization spots. A set of clues indicate that internal migration is a key factor of such changes.