Restrict charcoal making, LGUs urged

MANILA, Philippines - The Climate Change Commission (CCC) called on local government units yesterday to help step up forest conservation efforts and restrict charcoal making in order to boost the nationwide campaign against global warming and climate change.

Pervasive charcoal production in many parts of the country is rapidly putting forest preservation efforts at risk.

Secretary Heherson Alvarez, CCC vice chairman, said the battle against deforestation should now also take into account the impact of charcoal production, which he tagged as the “silent killer of the Philippine forest.”

Alvarez said failure to curb rampant charcoal production contributes to massive depletion of the country’s forests, which consequently causes more disastrous cyclones entering the country.

“Charcoal producers cut trees in watershed areas and forests, which prevent drought during El Niño and serve as the carbon sink of the world,” he said.

Charcoal makers usually cut trees like ipil-ipil, mahogany, gmelina, and madre de cacao to produce charcoal, he said.

Alvarez lamented that charcoal producers indiscriminately cut trees, even chopping juvenile ones, and employ technology that enables them to sustain their business as an all-season activity.

Alvarez said charcoal makers used to thrive only during the summer or dry season when it is easier to dehydrate wood, but that they have learned to produce charcoal even during the wet season, even managing to produce an average of 500 sacks of charcoal per production.

Alvarez said forests are vital in addressing climate change because trees help capture carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which however is now loaded with greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that cause global warming and climate change.