USAID-funded forest area yields illegal logs

KORONADAL CITY — Army-backed deputized forest guards seized 121 pieces of illegally cut flitches and round logs last Saturday inside the USAID-funded reforestation area at the foot of Mt. Matutum in Tupi town.

Tupi’s new municipal administrator, lawyer Emilio Paña, led the team of soldiers from the 57th Infantry Battalion in confiscating the 121 pieces of four-foot long flitches and round logs in a remote part of Sitio Limblesong in Barangay Kablon.

The town’s deputized forest guards identified the illegally cut lumber as Albizza falcatta, a species of wood used in making paper.

Paña said the operation was launched upon the order of Tupi Mayor Valentin Mariano, who received information last Friday that trees are illegally cut inside the reforestation area located within the Mt. Matutum protected zone.

Paña said cutting trees within the Mt. Matutum protected zone is not allowed without authorization from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

"Villagers living nearby reported seeing a group of unidentified men with chainsaws cutting trees and stockpiling the illegally cut lumber," Mariano said.

He added that Paña told him that the men are allegedly selling the lumber to several lumberyards in nearby General Santos City for a good price.

According to Paña, the confiscated lumber was placed in a secure place and was heavily guarded by the town’s deputized forest guards.

None of the persons responsible for illegally cutting trees were arrested because no one was at the site when government troops raided the area.

Jim Sampulna, regional executive director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Central Mindanao, said he already instructed South Cotabato’s Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer, Gerry Sequito, to send a team from Barangay Kablon to conduct an investigation regarding the presence of illegally cut lumber inside the reforestation area.

Sampulna said he also instructed Environment and Natural Resources Officer Jerry Saladero, of General Santos City, to investigate the alleged involvement of some lumberyard dealers in the illegal cutting of wood in Tupi.

"I ordered Saladero to identify the buyers of the illegally cut lumber in Tupi so that the DENR-12 can file charges against them," Sampulna said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Sampulna lauded Mariano and his deputized forest guards for supporting the anti-illegal logging drive of the DENR.