A House solon is pushing for institutionalization of nationwide sustainable forest management (SFM).
Agham party list Rep. Angelo Palmones believes that SFM, which professional foresters are advocating, will help promote continuous availability of products and services from forests without jeopardizing these eco-systems’ inherent values and future productivity as well as the physical and social environment.
“We must strike a balance,” he said Thursday during the national conference Society of Filipino Foresters, Inc. (SFFI) held in Zambales province’s Subic Freeport.
He is supporting the enactment of the proposed SFM Act and other bills on boosting Philippine forestry.
Last year, the government launched its 2011-2016 National Greening Program (NGP) to reforest some 1.5 million hectares of open, degraded and denuded Philippine forest land using about 1.5 billion seedlings of indigenous and exotic tree species.
The government embarked on NGP -so far its biggest reforestation bid- as data show that Philippine forest cover in 2004 already shrank to around 7.2 million hectares or roughly only a fourth of the country’s 30 million hectares land area.
Data also showed the country’s forest cover in 1575 reached about 27 hectares or 90 percent of total land area nationwide.
Experts cited the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s as Philippine forestry’s dark decades.
It was during such decades when the most rapid shrinkage in forest areas nationwide occurred, they noted.
Deforestation occurred at an annual rate of 316,000 hectares in the 1980s due to land conversion, shifting cultivation, forest fires and over-logging, data also indicated.
Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay is backing the bid for sustainably managing forests nationwide, noting imposing a total log ban is not the way to go.
“Such ban isn’t possible for the Philippines because we need sources of wood for our furniture, paper and other needs,” she said during the event.
She noted that such sources are increasingly in demand as more and more local government units (LGUs) are banning the use of plastic bags in favor of those made from paper.
Quezon City is among LGUs that already banned use of plastic bags.
For the conference, SFFI decided to focus discussions on forest law enforcement, governance and trade so root causes of deforestation and degradation can be better addressed.
“The discussions will help bring forestry to the forefront of national development,” former SFFI national council president Vicente Paragas said during the event.
Outputs during the conference would serve as inputs for preparing the national action plan on forest law enforcement, governance and trade, SFFI national council vice-president Joey Austria said earlier.
“We need to develop a comprehensive approach,” he said.
He noted poverty is a common trigger of illegal logging and other causes of deforestation nationwide. [PNA]
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