"Intensified monitoring and mopping-up operations in identified illegal logging hot spots in Central Luzon yielded some 226,199 board feet of assorted forest contraband worth at least P6 million and the filing of 70 cases against suspected illegal loggers since the government launched a massive campaign in 1995," said Regidor de Leon, DENR regional executive director.
As part of the government’s efforts to protect and rejuvenate the region’s forests, Ricardo Calderon, DENR deputy regional director for forestry, said the DENR has also placed under community stewardship a total of 251,800 hectares of forest lands in the region, benefiting about 200,000 local folk, including indigenous people.
"The government can only succeed in its forest protection campaign by empowering and enlisting the support of local communities through the aggressive implementation of the community-based forest management program," he added.
Since 1995, Calderon said the DENR has successfully reforested 62,000 hectares of denuded forestlands in the region through various schemes at an annual average of 6,000 hectares.
De Leon said a 1,600-hectare portion of the watershed area of the 200-kilometer Pampanga River has been reforested under the government’s Pampanga River Basin rehabilitation program.
The Pampanga River Basin covers the provinces of Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Pampanga and Bulacan.
The DENR also delineated the boundaries of 2,374 kilometers of forestlands by erecting a total of 2,000 seven-foot concrete markers, De Leon said.
"The forest boundary delineation program (targets) 3,850 kilometers of forest lines in the seven provinces of Central Luzon until 2008 in order to settle issues on squatting and illegal titling inside public forests," he said.
De Leon said their thrusts this year are the promotion of upland agroforestry and ecotourism and further rehabilitation of mangrove, coastal and highly eroded areas.
He said some of the confiscated forest products have either been donated or used in major infrastructure projects in the region.
Meanwhile, De Leon said that under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), the DENR has distributed a total of 7,821 land titles, or patents, covering about 5,000 hectares of agricultural lands and benefiting 39,000 landless farmers in Central Luzon.
These are in addition to the 8,299 land patents issued to landless farmers under the DENR’s regular fund targets, he said.
"A total of 40,614 land titles covering 25,639 hectares of public lands have been distributed throughout Central Luzon since 1999, benefiting more than 200,000 landless farmers," he said.
"We need to empower marginalized farmers and bring them back to the mainstream of economic productivity by giving them security over the land they till," he said. — Ding Cervantes