TITLE: ‘Walk the talk’, Aquino told on logging ban
Source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/
By: Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines -- An environmental group is challenging President Benigno Aquino’s logging ban, saying he should “walk the talk” by stopping influential politicians from cutting trees.
Clemente Bautista, Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment national coordinator, said “big political families have interests in logging operations.”
Bautista cited as an example the commercial logging permit issued to the San Jose Timber Co., owned by Senator Juan Ponce Enrile. The permit is good until 2023 and covers 95,770 hectares of forestlands on Samar Island.
“We challenge the administration to walk its talk by canceling the logging permits awarded to Senator Enrile’s logging company, which is destroying the natural forests of Samar,” he said.
Eastern Samar Representative Ben Evardone confirmed that Enrile’s firm has logging concession in Samar, but added that it is no longer operational.
Aquino has issued EO 23, declaring a “moratorium on the cutting and harvesting of timber in the national and residual forests” in the country and creates an anti-illegal logging task force to implement the ban.
The President issued the order in the wake of the successive rains and flooding in parts of Visayas and Mindanao that caused deaths, displacement of thousands of families and destruction of crops and property.
Bautista said that since EO 23 clearly stated that logging operations will no longer be allowed in natural and residual forests, the government should immediately cancel the permits of big-time loggers such as in the Sierra Madre Mountain range in Luzon, Mt. Hilong-Hilong in Agusan del Norte, Mt. Kitanglad in Bukidnon province, and others.
Citing records of the Forest Management Bureau (FMB), Bautista said that in 2008, 1.4 million hectares of the country’s forests were covered by different logging agreements, like Timber Licensing Agreement (TLA) and Industrial Forest Management Agreement (IFMA).
The Philippines has only 7.2 million hectares of remaining forest as of 2003, according to Kalikasan.
Bautista also said that EO 23 does not address other major factors causing deforestation, such as corruption within the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and local government units.
At the same time, he said the order still allows logging in plantation forests, which he said should also be preserved.
Based on FMB’s data, logging companies with IFMA, TLA and other logging permits were able to reforest only 97,741 hectares since 1976. Bautista said this was “insignificant” compared to the millions of hectares of natural forests destroyed.
Still, Bautista believed that a genuine implementation of the order “will stop large commercial logging operations and slow down deforestation in the country.”
Complete URL: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20110204-318435/Walk-the-talk-Aquino-told-on-logging-ban
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