Why I Support A Total Log Ban in the Philippines By Michael A. Bengwayan, Ph.D.

Why I Support A Total Log Ban in the Philippines

By Michael A. Bengwayan, Ph.D.

The Philippines, one of the twenty megadiversity hotspots in the world, is in danger of losing all its forests.

Its forest cover is ranked 4th in the world’s top 10 most threatened forest hotspots. If the deforestation rate of 157,400 hectares per year continues, the country’s remaining forest cover will be wiped out in less than 40 years. The area lost to deforestation every year is twice the land area of Metro Manila.

In 2005, DENR bared that the Philippine forest cover was only 7.391 million ha. This increased to 7.665 million ha in 2010. However, the figure is just 25.6 percent of the country’s 30-million ha land area, way below the 54 percent ideal forest cover for tropical countries.

The deforestation in the country can be traced to centuries of colonial rule, visionless leaders, flawed laws, commercial logging, corruption and misguided government policies.

During the pre-colonial period, forests covered at least 90 percent of the country’s total land area. Cultural and religious traditions of the people then allowed the forests to regenerate even if they were used to supply food and building materials.

But during the Spanish colonization, trees were felled to build roads, bridges, docks and ships for the galleon trade. Forests were replaced by sprawling haciendas owned by Spanish friars, officials and rich families.

When the Americans took over, large-scale, export-oriented commercial logging was introduced. We had 21 million ha of old-growth forests covering 70 percent of the land area in 1900s. But the Americans raped much of these. Logs were exported mainly to the United States and used to support the mining industry set up by the Americans. By the 1940s, only 9 million ha of forests covering 30 percent of the Philippine land area were left.

Deforestation further worsened during the Marcos regime. The logging industry was controlled by foreign companies and the local elite, some even holding public offices. Timber Licensing Agreements (TLAs) were given out by the Marcos regime to loyalists. From 1965 to 1986, the Philippines lost 7 million ha of forests.

TLAs were adjudged unconstitutional under Cory Aquino’s presidency. But instead of immediately revoking the TLAs, a “phase-out” policy was adopted to solve the problem. During the Arroyo administration, however, at least five TLAs were reinstated in 2005 and 2008, including the TLA of Surigao Development Corp., allegedly owned by a senator.

Even with the shift toward Integrated Forest Management Agreements (Ifma), Community-Based Forest Management Agreements and Socialized Integrated Forest Management Agreements as the main policy for forest management, the logging industry remained extractive

and was geared for export. The Arroyo administration encouraged foreign mining companies to operate even within old-growth forests through the Mining Act of 1995.

Today, combined reforestation efforts by the government and the private sector are not enough to arrest the rapid deforestation. Previous administrations had been weak in compelling timber license holders to fulfill their obligation of reforesting concession areas.

Although the national government allocates funds for reforestation, projects have been largely dependent on foreign funding. Moreover, opportunities for rehabilitation created room for graft and corruption. On Sept. 22, 2010, Sen. Franklin Drilon exposed on national television the alleged use of P1 billion in DENR funds for the May 2010 general elections.

We are now experiencing disasters of terrifying magnitude such as floods and landslides that result in loss of life and livelihood due to devastating effects of forest destruction. The most unforgettable of these is perhaps the Ormoc flood on Nov. 5, 1991, which killed almost 8,000 people.

In 2000-2010, there were 27 deadly floods and 24,212 by landslides that affected1.6 million people. Damage to agriculture and infrastructure ran into billions of pesos.

Forest destruction has also led to human rights violations, land grabbing, militarization, abuse of the free and prior informed consent, and killings. Indigenous peoples are the usual victims because their ancestral domains are generally found in forests..

Other effects of deforestation are loss of biodiversity and continuing threats to endemic plants and animals. The Philippines has 6,091 endemic plant species and 591 endemic animal species. Among the animal species, 151 are now endangered.

Today, commercial logging is still the leading cause of deforestation. Mining also threatens our forests. Through the Mining Act of 1995, mining companies are given timber rights, which allow them to cut trees inside their concessions. As of March 2011, more than 1 million ha were covered by mining permits and applications.

One other threat to our forests is the so-called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), an international policy proposed by developed countries to mitigate the climate crisis supposedly through forest protection. Plantations were included in the forest definition within the REDD+ framework. Upon implementation, REDD+ will reward perpetrators of deforestation such as commercial loggers by encouraging them to expand operations and turn natural forests into plantations to increase their profit.

It is because of the above why we want President Duterte to sign a total log ban law. Deforestation cause widespread poverty and landlessness. Poverty drives people upland so they can eke out a living. In a country where more than half of the population is poor, forests are rich sources of food and other resources, which are very attractive to those desperate for survival.

The Executive Order No. 23 (Declaring a Moratorium on the Cutting and Harvesting of Timber in the National and Residual Forests and Creating the Anti-Illegal Logging Task Force) to impose a total log ban throughout the country has not been effective..

It allowed tree cutting by government agencies and private land owners. DPWH and DENR allowed the cutting of thousands of trees, many century-old trees.

The Executive Order No. 26 of Benigno Aquino to implement the National Greening Program, which aims to plant 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million ha by 2016 was also saddled by corruption.

It is controversial. Ancestral lands are included for reforestation under EO 26. This rings alarm bells for indigenous peoples because many of them have been driven away from their ancestral lands to make way for tree plantations.

With the dwindling forests, coupled with the threats of more disasters brought by climate change, it is high time for a log ban and a massive reforestation effort.

But it can only be done if there are more good honest men in the government and private sector.