Illegal logging continues in Sierra Madre

Illegal logging is still rampant in the Sierra Madre mountain range, and environmental groups are raising the alarm for the government to get its act together on forest conservation.

Based on the latest research of Greenpeace, an international environmental group, illegal logging is still unabated in the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, where half of the remaining three percent old-growth forests of the country are found.

"It is time for the government to bite the bullet and come to terms in protecting what is left of our forests," Von Hernandez, campaigns director of Greenpeace-Southeast Asia, said during their presentation of their report entitled "Sierra Madre: Under Threat."

A team of Greenpeace researchers and volunteers photographed and videotaped logged-out areas along riverbanks and mountain slopes, as well as logging roads, camps and cultivated agricultural areas within the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park.

The aerial survey was conducted last November on nine sites within the natural park as well as so-called buffer zones or "strict protection zones," as classified under the Republic Act 9125, which created the Sierra Madre Natural Park.

Of the areas surveyed, the Greenpeace team found evidence of illegal logging in five sites, including the Abuan River, the main tributary where illegally cut logs are transported to Barangay Alinguigan in Ilagan, Isabela, Greenpeace said.

Barangay Alinguigan is said to be the biggest producer and distributor of narra-based furniture, timber and timber products in the entire province of Isabela and possibly in the whole country.

The four other sites are Ambabok/Catallangan, Dungsog Lake, Pagsungayan, and Digud/Disabungan.

The Greenpeace team also got information on the modus operandi of illegal loggers from Agta tribal folk.

According to the Greenpeace report, illegal loggers from Quezon dock a "decoy boat" in Palanan, Isabela and wait for a call from their cohorts in the forest for the loading of the contraband.

The volume of "hot" logs, according to Greenpeace, normally reaches 11,000 board feet or 26.4 cubic meters of lauan, or 3,500 board feet or 8.4 cubic meters of narra.

"When the attention of deputized law enforcers are drawn toward the decoy boat in Palanan, the illegal logs are hauled and loaded to a boat waiting in another area, far from the decoy boat," the group said.

While the logs or flitches are being hauled and loaded, Greenpeace said the people manning the decoy boat would proceed to the nearby field office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to pay docking fees or allegedly to deliver bribe money to its personnel.

"When the docking time limit is used up by the decoy boat, the loading in the other boat shall have been finished and the boat shall be on its way to Mauban, Quezon," it added.

The Greenpeace team also gathered that a single chainsaw operator fells about four to five trees per day, while a seven-man logging team, which stays in the forest for two weeks straight, just enough for their food supplies, usually fells about 40 trees.

Greenpeace said it gathered that about 100 to 350 chainsaws are operating on a regular day, cutting down from 400 to 1,400 trees in the Sierra Madre.

The Greenpeace report pinpointed the lucrative furniture industry in Cagayan Valley as largely contributing to the illegal timber trade in the region.

According to the environmental group, there are an estimated 20,000 wood furniture producers in Cagayan Valley, which operate on 12-month cycles and require a constant supply of narra and other hardwood, which cannot be acquired legally in the area due to the prevailing logging ban in the Sierra Madre.

Dr. Roberto Arano, a professor of the Isabela State University who served as a technical adviser to the Greenpeace team, said illegal logging in Sierra Madre could have affected about 2.5 percent of the total 287,000 hectares of the natural park.

"This is, in fact, doubly illegal because while there is a log ban in the Sierra Madre, the cutting of trees is being done within a declared natural park," he said.

Arano said the government fails to monitor illegal tree-cutting in the Sierra Madre because forest rangers do not venture into the forests but merely wait at checkpoints.

Greenpeace said it would submit copies of its Sierra Madre report to the DENR and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), whose conflicting policies are adversely affecting efforts to preserve the country’s remaining forests.

Hernandez criticized what he described as the government’s apparent "schizophrenic" policies and programs on forest use and protection.

While the DENR promotes forest conservation, he said the DTI encourages the furniture industry.

"The conflicting policies on forest use and protection are abetting the destruction of what (are considered) among the last remaining and intact old-growth forest areas in the country," he said.

The World Resource Institute earlier placed the Philippines’ remaining old-growth forests at a measly three percent. 

The Global Forest Mapping of Greenpeace, however, claimed that the Philippines has a virtually zero forest cover.