Illegal logging is so lucrative, it seems, that those engaged in it are willing to commit murder to keep their business alive. If suspicions prove correct, the latest target was a physician from Surigao del Sur, who was shot last Monday in Carmen town. Isidro Olan is recuperating in a hospital from a gunshot wound in the right shoulder.
Olan is the executive director of Lovers of Nature Foundation Inc., which for a decade now has been involved in the reforestation of denuded watersheds in the villages of Puyat and Hubason in Carmen. He was driving home with his wife when waylaid. From spent shells recovered at the crime scene, police said the suspects were armed with caliber .45 and caliber .22 handguns and a shotgun. Police were told that Olan had been receiving threats for a month that he would be kidnapped or murdered.
Like journalists and left-wing activists, environment advocates live dangerously in this country. In October last year, Italian Catholic priest Fausto Tentorio, who had fought to protect Manobo lands in Mindanao from mining activities, was fatally shot eight times as he was boarding his pickup truck in North Cotabato.
Human rights watchdogs have counted 36 murders of environmental activists since 2007, with seven in 2011 alone. This year, Jimmy Liguyon was shot dead at his home in San Fernando, Bukidnon last March. On May 1, Francisco Canayong was waylaid as he was cycling home and stabbed dead. On May 9, Margarito Cabal, a local official who was opposing the construction of a mega-dam, was shot dead at his home in Bukidnon by two men on a motorcycle.
As in the killings of journalists, most of the murders of environmental advocates have not been solved. Olan is lucky to have survived, but there is no certainty that those behind the attack will not return and try to finish him off. The best deterrent, as in the murder cases, is the arrest and prosecution of the assailants. When people see that they can get away with murder, it guarantees a culture of impunity – and more violent attacks.