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Padaca’s war against illegal logging far from over


ILAGAN, Isabela, Philippines – With at least 7,000 more board feet of “hot logs" confiscated here on Wednesday, the provincial government’s anti-illegal logging task force will have to do more in its campaign to curb illegal logging operations here. The illegally cut lumber worth more than P600,000 was intercepted by members of the multi-sectoral task force while passing through one of the checkpoints here. At least 150,000 board feet of illegally cut timbers have been confiscated coming from the towns of San Mariano and Benito Soliven and other parts of the province since Gov. Grace Padaca reactivated the anti-illegal logging task force last July. Reacting to reports of rampant illegal logging operations in the province’s forest areas, the governor has waged a war against illegal loggers to stop the denudation of Sierra Madre biodiversity corridor’s forest cover. Padaca who recently flew with a team over the Sierra Madre Mountains for an aerial inspection said: “I saw thousand of illegally sawn lumber hidden under the forest cover of the mountain. There must be several millions of board feet down there waiting to be transported," she said. “But the loggers cannot bring them down because they know we will confiscate it, and we will even be the ones to go up to seize these contrabands if we need to," she added. - GMANews.TV