Informal settlers' kaingin threatens forest cover of Aurora peninsula

SAN ISIDRO PENINSULA, Casiguran, Aurora, Philippines   – Some 800 informal settlers have invaded this peninsula on this side of the Pacific, threatening to wipe out forestlands due to unabated kaingin (slash-and-burn farming).

Provincial environment and natural resources officer Benjamin Mina warned that the 12,800-hectare peninsula could lose its forest cover in five years unless the kaingeros and timber poachers are driven away from the area and relocated elsewhere.

Mina said some of the informal settlers were even given stewardship contracts by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) but have since engaged in kaingin.

He said that as more families come in, the more they would engage in this practice, which could result in massive deforestation.

Mina said the DENR should declare the peninsula a protected area to shield it from further intrusion by kaingeros.

“If we allow people to come into the peninsula, then we will eventually see the forest cover in this area vanish completely in five years,” he said.

Alfredo Collado, DENR community environment and natural resources officer for northern Aurora, said the area now being occupied by informal settlers used to be part of the Integrated Fort Management Agreement of the Industries Development Corp. (IDC), one of the largest timber licensees in the province.

He said the IDC plans to operate in the area starting in 2013 up to 2018. But the company eventually excluded the area from its operations.

Of the 12,800-hectare peninsula, some 3,000 hectares are considered virgin forests, 60 percent of which are classified as tenured area.  

Collado said that when the IDC abandoned the area, there was no one else protecting it from kaingeros, some of them even setting up coconut plantations.

He said most of the kaingeros come from the adjoining towns of Casiguran and Dinalungan.

Collado quoted one of his men, forester Tony Aguilar who hails from Casiguran, as recalling that there was not a single family of informal settlers when he settled in the peninsula in the 1960s.

“He (Aguilar) was surprised to find out that now, there are several informal settlers in the area,” he said.  

Last month, Collado said operatives of the DENR community office in Casiguran arrested and charged a kaingero.

Collado said the DENR is providing technical assistance to the Aurora Special Economic Zone Authority (Apeco) in hiring and training 19 Bantay-Gubat personnel or forest guards who will eventually be deployed to guard the shorelines of the San Isidro Peninsula.

He said it is up to Apeco to lobby for the declaration of the peninsula as a protected area.