Move to save Vizcaya mountains, watersheds launched

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya — Seeking to help preserve the environmental diversity of the forest areas in Cagayan Valley, a multi-sectoral group here launched over the weekend a concerted effort to save the province’s remaining watershed areas.

Called the Palali-Mamparang Mountain Range Conservation Project, the group aims to ensure the biodiversity of the Palali-Mamparang Mountain Range, a section of the Sierra Madre Mountains in Kasibu and Quezon towns, which is also part of the Sierra Madre Biodiversity Corridor.

The Palali-Mamparang Range is one of the eight biodiversity hot spots in the country, according to the newly launched Friends of the Environment for Development and Sustainability (FRENDS).

Besides rampant illegal logging, mining and brushfires, FRENDS also identified the alarming conversion of forest lands and agricultural lands into other uses as one of the leading factors of the continued degradation of the Sierra Madre, which is home to many endemic endangered species.

FRENDS also noted with alarm the rapid loss of forest lands in the various sections of the Sierra Madre, emphasizing that 13 types of forests have been identified to be endemic to the country’s longest mountain systems, four of which are within the Palali-Mamparang ranges.

Earlier reports showed that the forest cover of Nueva Vizcaya and neighboring Quirino province are being diminished by as much as 5,000 hectares every year or 10 hectares daily.

The United States Agency for International Development-(USAID)-assisted Philippine Environmental Governance (EcoGov) in Luzon, is now striving to reduce destructive activities within the forest reserves of the Sierra Madre mountain range.

Quirino’s forest cover has reportedly been reduced by as much as 3,545 hectares in a year or 9.7 hectares daily while its former mother province of Nueva Vizcaya, which still has 51 percent forest cover is continuously reduced at 456 hectares every year or 1.2 hectares daily.

The conservation project, which also intends to rehabilitate and develop the said area, consists of a series of programs and activities intended to preserve and develop the Sierra Madre range, which straddles the municipalities of Quezon and Kasibu towns here.