A forestry expert believes it’s time for government to institute at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources an armed unit trained in enforcing Philippine forestry laws and in preventing illegal logging nationwide.
“Government must enact a law creating a police bureau under DENR,” said lawyer/forester Wilfrido Pollisco, a former regional executive director of the agency.
The bureau’s creation is among anti-illegal logging proposals he presented during the National Conference on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade by the Society of Filipino Foresters Inc. held this week at Subic Freeport Zone in Zambales.
Data presented during the conference show Philippine forest cover in 2004 already shrank to some seven million hectares only from about 27 million hectares in 1575, raising urgency for forest protection.
Pollisco is proposing the bureau’s creation as he observed more and more forest guards are dying in the line of duty and at the hands of armed illegal logging perpetrators.
“Our forest guards are unarmed and defenseless,” he noted.
DENR Secretary Ramon Paje earlier expressed the same concern, noting the country is already losing one forest protection officer every 10 days.
Over 20 of such officers were already killed for protecting Philippine forests, he said.
He proposed elevating to a police and military operation the government’s anti-illegal logging campaign in hotspot Caraga region.
Pollisco said members of the proposed police bureau can be existing operatives of the police and military.
An option can be graduates of Philippine National Police Academy and Philippine Military Academy to be recruited for the proposed bureau and trained to counter illegal loggers, he noted.
“With the bureau’s establishment, professional foresters and forest guards can focus on forestry’s technical concerns instead of having to do the hazardous task of protecting our forests,” he said.
Last year, Malacanang issued Executive Order 23 which bans logging in the country’s natural and residual forests.
Such forests are composed of indigenous tree species not planted by man.
EO 23 also ordered the creation of the task force assigned to curb illegal logging nationwide.
The task force’s Assistant Executive Director Herminigildo Defiesta said government prioritized deputizing, as environment and natural resources officers in Caraga, Maritime Industry Authority personnel and operatives from the police, military and coast guard.
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