Livelihood package for ex-watershed loggers eyed

From "hot" logs to mangoes, vegetables and goats.

Former illegal loggers at the 20,760-hectare Doña Remedios Trinidad-Gen. Tinio Protected Watershed Area which straddles Nueva Ecija and Bulacan, will experience this change if a P1.3-million alternative livelihood package for them gets underway.

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Elisea Gozun said giving the former illegal loggers seed capital for the production of "carabao" mangoes, vegetable-farming and goat-raising is one of the short-term measures being eyed for them.

Last June 14, Gozun and Nueva Ecija Gov. Tomas Joson held a dialogue with residents of Gen. Tinio town engaged in timber poaching in the watershed.

The two officials gave timber poachers a 15-day grace period to stop their illegal activities, or face arrest. The women had asked for two months to allow their husbands to come down from the mountain, but Gozun rejected their request.

According to the villagers, they have inherited illegal logging in the watershed from their parents since the 1970s, with the timber being sold to contractors in Cabanatuan City and Metro Manila.

Gozun ordered that areas in Gen. Tinio be identified where the poachers and their families could go into community-based forest management programs.

In an agreement, the villagers agreed to a census of families engaged in the illegal trade and an inventory of forest products in their possession which would be sold to the provincial government or DENR-registered buyers.

Last July 5, the inventory yielded a total of 124,026 board feet of lumber, mostly narra, kamagong and lauan, valued at P3.16 million.