Illegal logging causes near drying up of Rio Chico

GEN. TINIO, Nueva Ecija – The Rio Chico River — a favorite swimming ground and picnic area for hordes of families from adjoining towns of Nueva Ecija, its neighboring provinces and even residents of Metro Manila — is fast drying up with the deepest elevation at only waist-deep.

The river is heavily silted from loosened top soil of the Sierra Madre mountain ranges facing the Nueva Ecija side because of continued illegal logging activities with the blessings of local officials here.

Residents of this town have already gotten used to seeing 10 to 16-wheeler trucks filled with illegally cut logs trudging their roads, thereby wrecking most of the asphalted thoroughfares in the process.

Illegal logging in the province has been constantly exposed in the media, the most recent attempt of which was by a television crew who took shots of illegal loggers in action being shot at allegedly by goons of local officials in this town. Notwithstanding such exposes, the illegal logging continues in the mountain ranges. What used to be lush forest greens are now barren browns lands that are continuously being decimated of topsoil through rapid erosion.

The province has seen many destructive floods in recent history as evidenced by the collapse in 2000 of the concrete bridge leading to Pias. The bridge’s replacement continues to stare blankly at passersby and commuters bound for Pias.

In the morning of last Saturday, three trucks filled with uniformed soldiers were deployed to protect the remaining forests of Sierra Madre from further despoilation. But residents are not convinced that the soldiers will be protecting the forest cover but are being deployed for counter-insurgency operations in the Quezon side of the ranges, which still has virgin forests being effectively by rebels.

Summer has become unbearably hot and dusty because of the absence of forest cover that would have otherwise provided both a shade and source of cool mountain breeze for residents in this town but also a major source of water for most farms in the province that have cracked and dried up from the intense heat of the sun.

Thousands of hectares of farmlands have remained idle and untended because no crop could withstand the heat and the lack of water.

Most farmers in the province are now waiting for rains to come before they could plant anything of value. But the rains are not to be expected until after the first quarter next year because of a projected long El Niño phenomenon that would hit the country in July 2002.

Only the low-lying farms are now planted with palay because of irrigation water from nearby systems in Central Luzon.