‘Illegal logging, fishing resurface in Puerto’

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY — A community-based environmental watch group denounced what it claimed was the resurgence of illegal logging, illegal fishing and trading of endangered plant and animal species in the province and this city.

Antonio Romasanta, president of the Bantay Puerto Foundation, in a statement, said nearly 10 years of vigilant environmental protection and development programs and achievements are going down the drain with the resurgence of illegal logging and illegal fishing.

Lush tropical rain forests are threatened by the resurgence of illegal logging in the upland areas where illegal loggers use chainsaws and portable sawmills, he said.

Even the rich mangrove forests along the city’s coastal areas, including Iwahig, are not being spared by the illegal loggers and wood traders, he added.

"The best proof that illegal logging is back with a vengeance is the open and easy availability of variety of lumber in the city, ranging from choice hard wood like narra, molave and kamagong to common species like lawaan and apitong," he said.

Romasanta also condemned the upsurge in destructive fishing practices like hulbot-hulbot (use of illegal fishnets), baby trawling, cyanide and dynamite fishing, which irreversibly destroy the rich marine and coastal resources in all the bays of Puerto Princesa.

He said dynamite and cyanide fishing is rampant in the northern barangays of Lucbuan and Manalo and in Napsan and adjacent towns in the west coast.

Romasanta blamed the resurgence of environmentally destructive activities in the city to the untimely and questionable scrapping of the Bantay Puerto program, jointly operated by the city government and community residents that protected the city’s forests, bays and coastal areas and all endangered plants and animal species from exploitation.

With the scrapping of the Bantay Puerto program, Romasanta said Bantay Dagat and Bantay Gubat patrols were disbanded by the city government, virtually leaving the city and the island-province’s rich natural resources "open to all kinds of depredation and destruction," Romasanta said.