End the debate, ban all logging
End the debate, ban all logging
Updated 00:53am (Mla time) Dec 08, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 8, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE DEBATE has started again: to ban or not to ban all logging, both legal and illegal. As usual the debaters are divided between those who argue for a total log ban to save what remains of the fast dwindling forests, and those who argue that licensed loggers are good because they protect the forests from illegal loggers who would otherwise denude them. Curiously, among the latter are Michael Defensor, the new chief of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), whose primary concern should be to preserve the environment.
The legal loggers, so goes the latter argument parroted by the DENR, cut only mature trees, employ forest rangers who guard the residual forests and replant the denuded areas. Without them guarding the forests, illegal loggers would cut everything and leave the forests destroyed. After them would come the charcoal-makers who would cut whatever is left, including the seedlings which are easier to turn into charcoal, and after them would come the slash-and-burn farmers, the “kaingineros.”
The trouble with this argument is that we have had licensed loggers and concessionaires and the so-called "sustainable development" for decades, but our virgin forests keep getting raped at an alarming rate. If licensed concessionaires are protecting the forests, where are they? How come the forests they are supposed to protect keep dwindling? And if they are replanting and reforesting, where are these reforested areas? How come denuded forest areas are spreading?
The only "sustainable development" people see is the continued growth of the wealth of logging families. The well-known names in Mindanao are the Almendrases, Antoninos and Plazas, all of whom have members of the younger generation elected to Congress. But the mountains of Mindanao are as bald as the head of Pugo. What did they do when they still had the logging concessions? Did they do any reforestation? Where are these reforested areas?
In short, the theory of "sustainable development" is just that, a theory, and not a practical solution. I suspect that it was an idea thought up and fed by the loggers to the DENR. The government likes the idea because it relieves them of the job of guarding and reforesting the mountains.
In fact, I think that is one reason Defensor is defending the legal loggers: He knows his department alone cannot do the job it is supposed to do. There is never enough money or personnel for that. And there are always loggers to use as convenient scapegoats whenever anything goes wrong, such as the recent landslides and floods that killed hundreds of people and destroyed hundreds of millions of pesos worth of crops and property.
The DENR is among the most coveted Cabinet positions in the government. So many officials, environmentalists and non-environmentalists alike, have taken turns running it, but nobody has been able to make a difference. Forest denudation continues at an alarming rate.
If they cannot do anything to save the forests, why do they covet the job? Is it because the loggers who make a lot of money from the forests are generous to those who cooperate with them? And not only loggers but also miners, quarry operators, commercial fishermen and land-grabbers?
Should we have a total or selective ban on logging? The answer seems simple: we have had selective logging for decades and it is obviously a failure. Isn't it time we tried the other method?
With a total log ban, we would know that any log or lumber we see is illegal. Right now, we cannot tell the difference between a legally cut log and one that has been illegally cut. We have to take the word of the owner that it was legally acquired.
In fact, it is common practice now for logging concessionaires to cut timber illegally outside their concessions and then claim they came from their own concessions. The DENR's forest rangers cannot prove otherwise. And anyway they are so poorly paid that it is easy for the loggers to convince them that they have not done anything wrong. With a total log ban, this ploy will no longer work. A log is illegally cut wherever it comes from.
But where will we get wood for construction and furniture-making? Do what other countries without virgin forests do: import from countries foolish enough to cut their own forests. Japan imported most of our logs during the heyday of the logging tycoons.
Or go into tree farming. The conventional wisdom in tree farming in the Philippines is to plant either fruit trees or the higher-priced hardwood trees for their wood, such as narra, kamagong, mahogany, or molave. But these are slow-growing trees and take decades to grow big enough to be harvested. Before that, the farmer's family starves.
But why not plant fast-growing trees along with the hardwoods so they can be harvested earlier for the farmer to live on while waiting for the more costly hardwood to mature? The acacia and giant ipil-ipil can be harvested in five years. What's more, they are self-propagating. The pods pop when ripe and spread their seeds, which germinate quickly.
The same is true with the lowly kakawati, or madre cacao, which is so easy to propagate. Stick a twig into the soil and it grows. That is why we see kakawati trees growing in rows along property lines. Their branches were used as posts for fencing and then grew into trees. Leave a kakawati tree alone in a forest for a few years and there would soon be a whole forest of them. What's more, the kakawati bears in great profusion beautiful pink blossoms that can compare to the more famous cherry blossoms of Japan.
Updated 00:53am (Mla time) Dec 08, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 8, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE DEBATE has started again: to ban or not to ban all logging, both legal and illegal. As usual the debaters are divided between those who argue for a total log ban to save what remains of the fast dwindling forests, and those who argue that licensed loggers are good because they protect the forests from illegal loggers who would otherwise denude them. Curiously, among the latter are Michael Defensor, the new chief of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), whose primary concern should be to preserve the environment.
The legal loggers, so goes the latter argument parroted by the DENR, cut only mature trees, employ forest rangers who guard the residual forests and replant the denuded areas. Without them guarding the forests, illegal loggers would cut everything and leave the forests destroyed. After them would come the charcoal-makers who would cut whatever is left, including the seedlings which are easier to turn into charcoal, and after them would come the slash-and-burn farmers, the “kaingineros.”
The trouble with this argument is that we have had licensed loggers and concessionaires and the so-called "sustainable development" for decades, but our virgin forests keep getting raped at an alarming rate. If licensed concessionaires are protecting the forests, where are they? How come the forests they are supposed to protect keep dwindling? And if they are replanting and reforesting, where are these reforested areas? How come denuded forest areas are spreading?
The only "sustainable development" people see is the continued growth of the wealth of logging families. The well-known names in Mindanao are the Almendrases, Antoninos and Plazas, all of whom have members of the younger generation elected to Congress. But the mountains of Mindanao are as bald as the head of Pugo. What did they do when they still had the logging concessions? Did they do any reforestation? Where are these reforested areas?
In short, the theory of "sustainable development" is just that, a theory, and not a practical solution. I suspect that it was an idea thought up and fed by the loggers to the DENR. The government likes the idea because it relieves them of the job of guarding and reforesting the mountains.
In fact, I think that is one reason Defensor is defending the legal loggers: He knows his department alone cannot do the job it is supposed to do. There is never enough money or personnel for that. And there are always loggers to use as convenient scapegoats whenever anything goes wrong, such as the recent landslides and floods that killed hundreds of people and destroyed hundreds of millions of pesos worth of crops and property.
The DENR is among the most coveted Cabinet positions in the government. So many officials, environmentalists and non-environmentalists alike, have taken turns running it, but nobody has been able to make a difference. Forest denudation continues at an alarming rate.
If they cannot do anything to save the forests, why do they covet the job? Is it because the loggers who make a lot of money from the forests are generous to those who cooperate with them? And not only loggers but also miners, quarry operators, commercial fishermen and land-grabbers?
Should we have a total or selective ban on logging? The answer seems simple: we have had selective logging for decades and it is obviously a failure. Isn't it time we tried the other method?
With a total log ban, we would know that any log or lumber we see is illegal. Right now, we cannot tell the difference between a legally cut log and one that has been illegally cut. We have to take the word of the owner that it was legally acquired.
In fact, it is common practice now for logging concessionaires to cut timber illegally outside their concessions and then claim they came from their own concessions. The DENR's forest rangers cannot prove otherwise. And anyway they are so poorly paid that it is easy for the loggers to convince them that they have not done anything wrong. With a total log ban, this ploy will no longer work. A log is illegally cut wherever it comes from.
But where will we get wood for construction and furniture-making? Do what other countries without virgin forests do: import from countries foolish enough to cut their own forests. Japan imported most of our logs during the heyday of the logging tycoons.
Or go into tree farming. The conventional wisdom in tree farming in the Philippines is to plant either fruit trees or the higher-priced hardwood trees for their wood, such as narra, kamagong, mahogany, or molave. But these are slow-growing trees and take decades to grow big enough to be harvested. Before that, the farmer's family starves.
But why not plant fast-growing trees along with the hardwoods so they can be harvested earlier for the farmer to live on while waiting for the more costly hardwood to mature? The acacia and giant ipil-ipil can be harvested in five years. What's more, they are self-propagating. The pods pop when ripe and spread their seeds, which germinate quickly.
The same is true with the lowly kakawati, or madre cacao, which is so easy to propagate. Stick a twig into the soil and it grows. That is why we see kakawati trees growing in rows along property lines. Their branches were used as posts for fencing and then grew into trees. Leave a kakawati tree alone in a forest for a few years and there would soon be a whole forest of them. What's more, the kakawati bears in great profusion beautiful pink blossoms that can compare to the more famous cherry blossoms of Japan.
posted by Dante at 5:51 PM
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