Sierra Madre forest stakeholders unite to end illegal logging

MANILA, Philippines – Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca led some 200 forest protection stakeholders from various areas in Luzon met with Environment Secretary Lito Atienza on Wednesday to air their sentiments and propositions to further strengthen the fight against timber poaching. The group included representatives of local governments, law enforcement agencies, indigenous peoples groups, nongovernment organizations, and the church from different provinces situated along the Sierra Madre bio-diversity corridor. The corridor is considered one of the last bastions of lush forests in the country. It spans the province of Cagayan in northeastern Luzon down to Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, Nueva Ecija, Quezon, Bulacan, and Rizal. In her report, Padaca said even if efforts to curb timber poaching had resulted in the seizure of millions of pesos worth of illegally cut lumber and the arrest of several suspects involved in the outlawed activity, their struggle could have been more successful if they had been financially and technically supported by the national government. "I formed an anti-illegal logging task force back in 2004, but members of the task force are largely untrained, ill-equipped, and working with nary a fund from the national government to sustain their struggle to protect our forests," the governor said. Nine of Isabela's 36 towns are located within the Sierra Madre Mountains and most of their residents eke out a living either as hacheros (chainsaw operators) or bugadores (log transporters). "It pains me to see that many of these people, even in other provinces, lose their source of income," she said. "That’s why I am asking Secretary Atienza to help us create livelihood programs and emergency employment to help alleviate the lives of those directly affected by the campaign against illegal logging." Padaca said that members of the provincial task force were even the ones being harassed by some politicians in her province. "Mayor Diaz of Ilagan, whose family owns a furniture business, filed a case against members of the task force for confiscating contraband forest products," Padaca said. "Even the mayor of San Mariano seemed to have conspired with the military to conceal the illegal tree cutting activities because complaints coming from some concerned citizens reportedly fell on deaf ears." Last year, the Padaca discovered millions of board feet of illegally cut lumber hidden in the mountains of Ilagan and San Mariano that were ready for transport. Earlier this month, she revealed that some well-funded and armed timber poachers from the neighboring province of Quezon have migrated to the Isabela side of the protected Sierra Madre National Park. Environmental activists and concerned local officials from the provinces of Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, and Quezon also voiced out their grievances to Atienza, who assured them that all their problems would be investigated thoroughly and that cases would be filed against erring personnel of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). Ironically, the province of Nueva Vizcaya, Cagayan Valley’s watershed haven, was not represented at the meeting. "2009 is an enforcement year. We are bound to uphold our mandate of enforcing the law and we will continue to go after illegal loggers and file cases against our own men no matter what it takes," Atienza saidv He added that the DENR had started the process of reviewing performance, reshuffling key personnel in all areas, and filing cases against erring employees. A priest from Quezon who claimed DENR personnel could not be trusted, challenged Atienza to allow the creation of an independent Citizens Environmental Investigating Committee in the province. Atienza accepted the challenge and immediately ordered the completion of committee members. Meanwhile, he announced that an initial P3 billion had been earmarked for reforestation and livelihood programs for those displaced by campaigns against illegal logging. He also named Bantay Kalikasan project director Marlon Mendoza as the new director of the Forest Management Bureau and former police general Pedro Bulaong as chief of the Environmental Law Enforcement Task Force. - GMANews.TV