“To be poor and be without trees is to be the most starved human being in the world. To be poor and have trees is to be completely rich in ways that money can never buy.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estés, author of The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die
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The year was 1960. Primitivo Besenan, from Cebu, had decided to migrate to Kialeg, then a far-flung barangay of Bansalan, Davao del Sur. At the time of his arrival, food was not a problem; rice was in abundant supply, vegetables and fruits were aplenty and the environment was most ideal. Rainfall was constant and the town had a thick forest cover.
Raising livestock, like pigs, was a profitable venture. People never spent more than a few hundred pesos because “feeds” could be had for the taking in the nearby verdant forest cover. “When I started my own livestock project,” Besenan recalled, “I had no problem whatsoever. I simply went into the forest and harvested what I needed from it.”
Dionisio Geronda, also a farmer like Besenan, agreed. Born just five kilometers away from the town proper, he admitted: “We didn’t have any problem as to what we would eat in those times.”
In his own farm, Geronda never used pesticide to get rid of insects and pests attacking his crops. “We didn’t use pesticides then but our harvests produced plenty,” he said. In fact, he also had no need for fertilizers. He used livestock manure to give the much-needed nutrients to his still fertile lot.
A decade later, the scenario has completely changed. Fewer animals were raised. More farmers had to rely on pesticides and commercial fertilizers. Because of this, income went down compared with that of the 1960s.
This is now a common reality in Magsaysay, as it has now become a town and separated from Bansalan. A lot of farmers are now living in harsher conditions as drought becomes a way of life during the summer months.
The usual culprit: deforestation. The wanton felling of forest cover has resulted in making what used to be forest land into barren, rock-covered and unproductive farmlots.
Based on the municipalities records, only 1,913 hectares (11.43% of the town’s total land area) are now classified as forest lands. The denudation of its forests is among the reasons for flashfloods and drought occurring every now and then.
There is also an alarming rate of siltation in the town’s major river resulting from soil erosion on denuded forest land. Crop infestation is also becoming a way of life in the lowlands. In the uplands, corn production has declined considerably.
Despite laws banning cutting of trees, deforestation happens not only in Magsaysay but almost in all parts of the country. “Our forests are being denuded at the rate of 25 hectares per hour,” deplored Mark Villar when he was still a congressman of the lone district of Las Piñas City.
The first nationwide forest inventory was completed in 1969 and only 10.4 million hectares of forest were left out of the 17 million hectares that used to occupy the country’s land area of 30 million hectares.
By 1980, only about 7.5 million hectares of forest were left. At the end of 1990, only 6.64 million remained. Most of those considered “old growth forest” were confined to steep and very steep areas and were not often accessible.
In 1995, the country barely had 5.6 million hectares (less than 19% of the land area) of forest cover. “For at least 20 years now, we have this forest crisis which has been getting worse every year,” Dr. J.A.V. Revilla, then a visiting professor at the Forestry Development Center of the University of the Philippines at Los Baños (UPLB), told a conference organized by the National Academy of Science and Technology.
“At the rate we are re-establishing forest cover during the last 20 years, it would take us 250 years to reforest (the country),” Dr. Revilla deplored. “That is assuming that forest cover loss stops immediately and that we finally become effective in our reforestation efforts.”
If you think deforestation happens only in the uplands, you’re wrong. Even in the lowlands, cutting of trees is also rampant. Most of these trees are found in the coastal zone and they’re called mangroves.
Mangrove forests are composed of 97 species of trees. Manila was originally named “Maynila” (meaning “there is nilad”) after a mangrove species known locally as nilad and found extensively in the Pasig River delta.
Mangrove forests used to cover about 450,000 hectares; now, it has shrunk to 150,000 hectares and most of them can only be found in Palawan and some areas of southern Mindanao.
“The rate of loss has slowed, but mangrove forests are under continued threat from the expansion of areas used for fishponds, housing and industry, and harvesting of wood for charcoal,” said the Coastal Resource Management Project of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
More often than not, loggers – both legal and illegal – in cohorts with politicians were blamed for the rapid disappearance of the country’s forest cover, particularly those located in the uplands.
In 2002, a report which appeared in The Manila Times said that 354,00 board feet of giant trees – many already sawn to sizes – were discovered in Don Salvador Benedicto, a mountain town in northern Negros.
“Government officials, environmentalists and the public were reportedly shocked by the magnitude of forest destruction in the town, part of the 35,000-hectare wide Northern Negros Forest Reserve,” the news report said.
Loggers are not the sole culprit. Even farmers themselves are partly to be blamed. In a news report published by the Manila Bulletin, this information was taken: “Vast tracts of forest lands which were once lush now stand barren, unproductive due to widespread and continuous practice of kaingin (slash-and-burn farming). As a result, severe denudation and soil erosion have made it almost impossible for these lands to recover, if at all.”
Other causes of deforestation include mining, overgrazing and road construction.
Meanwhile, the country’s surging population – currently totaled more than 100 million – has also contributed to the problem. At least a fourth of the total population live in the upland areas, where most trees are located.
Dr. Ernesto Guiang, who was once with the Development Alternatives, Inc., echoes the same concern: “We are now at the eleventh hour. We have to pay attention to the handwriting on the wall with respect to our forests.” (To be concluded)
