Senators seek total log ban to prevent floods, landslides

MANILA, Philippines - Senators are reviving proposals for a total log ban to preserve what is left of the country’s forests and prevent an ecological disaster more destructive than than of tropical storm “Ondoy” and typhoon “Pepeng.”

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, Senators Loren Legarda and Jamby Madrigal filed separate bills seeking to stop the unabated denudation of our forests, which aggravated the floods that submerged Metro Manila and several provinces in Luzon and triggered landslides that caused widespread loss of lives and property.

Pimentel challenged his colleagues in Congress to muster the resolve to approve the bill imposing a total ban on commercial logging.

He lamented that the entire nation was suffering from extreme physical dangers and economic hardship, reaping the wrath of nature as a result of apathy and inaction of Congress on the 25-year log ban bill that he and other lawmakers had filed as early as 1988.

Pimentel, Legarda and Madrigal are seeking a 25-year log ban while Zubiri is pushing for 35 years.

“The total ban on logging should have been implemented a long time ago because there is no question that the denudation of the forests contributed heavily to the rushing of excess water from the mountaintops to the low-lying areas,” Pimentel said.

He also dared President Arroyo and Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Lito Atienza to implement a ban or moratorium on logging, especially in areas where there is grave degradation of the environment.

He said such draconian action would disprove the impression that the government was merely giving lip service to measures to preserve the country’s dwindling forests and save the people from the harmful consequences of climate change.

“The executive branch can cancel logging permits, dismantle huge fish pens in Laguna Lake and other bodies of water that impede the flow of water into the seas. It is matter of political will really, because the laws are already there.”

He said although public sentiment has favored a total log ban, it would still be a tall order to have such legislation approved by Congress because of the powerful logging lobby.

“However, it would be an unforgivable offense on the part of the legislators to allow themselves to be used in advancing the interest of loggers at the expense of the welfare and survival of their constituents,” Pimentel said.

Critical state of forests

He said the critical state of the country’s forests was graphically illustrated in the heavy flashfloods during typhoon, soil erosion and landslides, siltation and drying up of rivers and other inland waterways, depletion of ground water resources and shrinking wildlife.

The forests, he stressed, should have a respite from logging for at least 25 years – the length of time it would take for hardwood trees to mature and for the country to regain its lost forest cover.

Of the country’s 15 million hectares of forest at the start of the 20th century, less than seven million hectares are left, including 800,000 hectares of virgin forests. About 200,000 hectares of forests are destroyed annually through legal and illegal logging and slash-and-burn farming, according to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Zubiri said despite catastrophic flashfloods like the ones in Ormoc, Leyte, Mindoro and Davao, intensified logging continued.

Legarda noted that deforestation accounts for 18 percent of the carbon dioxide produced each year, causing global warming and posing risks to forests via increased fires and the spread of pests.

“There is an urgent need to stop deforestation in the country, which from 1990 until 2000 was at the rate of 1.4 percent, the highest among Southeast Asian nations, together with Myanmar with the same rate. The benefits of ensuring the sustainable growth and development of our forest resource and the richness of our biodiversity are boundless and cannot be compensated by commercial progress,” Legarda said.