Where have all our forests gone?

Text and Photos by Henrylito D. Tacio
“The illness of our forest is complicated — and cannot be cured — with a one-stop prescription of a single medicine.” — Former Senator Heherson Alvarez.
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During a Subic meeting of local executives some years ago, a distraught Michael Defensor, then head of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), said that only 30 percent of the government’s reforestation projects succeeded. “People hardly recognize the economic benefits from protecting the environment. Most sabotaged the program,” he was quoted as saying.
Defensor seemed to echo an earlier study of the Food and Agriculture Organization, entitled Sustainable Forest Management, which stated, “Most of the (Philippines’) once rich forest are gone. Forest recovery, through natural and artificial means, never coped with the destruction rate.”
A study by the World Wild Fund for Nature in those days showed that more than 119,000 hectares of forest cover disappear yearly. At that rate, it was expected that the remaining forest cover would be depleted within 10 years.
In response to the country’s declining forest cover, particularly in natural forests that are mainly covered with native tree species like narra, kamagong, red and white lauan, tindalo, yakal and molave, which are among the most sought after by illegal loggers, President Benigno Aquino signed Executive Order No. 23 on February 1, 2011.
The presidential directive aims to uphold intergeneration responsibility to protect the environment and to prevent further destruction wrought by natural disasters. It also resulted in the creation of a new anti-illegal logging task force, headed by the DENR honcho.
The Forest Management Bureau, a line agency of the environment department reported that out of the country’s 15.8 million hectares of classified forestland, only 7.168 million are covered with forests.
Environmentalists claim that without forest cover, the Philippines is heading for oblivion. “Where have all our forests gone?” they wonder.
But in a recent evaluation on the progress of EO 23, the current DENR Secretary Ramon Paje expressed confidence in hitting the government’s “zero illegal logging hotspot” target before the end of Aquino’s term in 2016.
“As a result of the order, illegal logging hotspots are now down to 31 from a high of 197 in 2010. We have tightened the noose around the remaining hotspot areas with support from law enforcement agencies led by the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” Paje said.
According to Paje, only a total of 6.4 million board feet were seized by the environment department before the issuance of EO 23. The confiscations significantly increased by 59 percent at 10.28 million board feet as the government’s intensified anti-illegal logging operations went into full swing in 2012.
The figures dropped by 60 percent in 2013 at 4.1 million board feet and by 70.5 percent as of September 2014 at 1.2 million board feet. “This indicates that illegal logging activities have slowed down two years after EO 23 was implemented,” Paje said.
There’s another good news, according to Paje. The government’s National Greening Program (NGP) was 11.6 percent above target. “We have reforested 1,005,013 hectares out of the actual target of 900.000 hectares form 2011 to 2014,” he pointed out. “At the rate we are going, we expect to significantly exceed the NGP target of 1.5 million hectares by 2016.”
Logging — legal or illegal — has been cited as one of the primary culprits of the forest denudation in the country. “The attitude of loggers in this country has always been: get the trees before someone else does,” said one environmentalist.
This attitude puts a premium on short-term profits, but its effect is long-term irreversible environmental damage like decreased soil fertility, loss of groundwater, extended dry seasons, and flash flood. “Logging is most ecologically destructive in the mountains, where most of our remaining forests can be found,” one scribe wrote. “It is next to impossible to replant trees on rocky mountain-sides once their thin skin of topsoil has been washed away.”
Aside from logging, other causes of deforestation are farming, forest fires, mining operations, geothermal explorations, dam construction and operation, and land development projects such as construction of subdivision, industrial estates, and commercial sites.
Volcanic eruptions have also devastated some of the forests. Ditto for typhoons, which have devastated considerable hectares of forest cover. The country’s surging population has also contributed to the problem. At least a fourth of the total population lives in the upland areas, where most trees are located.
Deforestation has resulted in enormous soil erosion, which exacerbated the destruction of watershed areas. At least two provinces — Cebu and Batangas — have lost more than 80 percent of their topsoil to erosion.
“Soil erosion, especially in the uplands, is now an extremely serious problem in the country,” explained Roy C. Alimoane, the director of the Davao-based Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center. “It does not only result in increasing the impoverishment of the Filipino farmers, but also destroys other things down under.”
The rampant cutting of trees has also significantly reduced the volume of groundwater available for domestic purposes. Again Cebu, which has zero forest cover, is 99 percent dependent on ground-water. As a result, more than half of the towns and cities in Cebu, excluding Metro Cebu, have no access to potable water, according to a study conducted in Central Visayas.
Deforestation also threatens the country’s wildlife resources. The DENR reports that of the 1,657 identified bird and animal species alone, 46 are on the verge of extinction and another 18 are on the endangered list. Seven ornamental plants and several others are on the brink of disappearance, the DENR added.
Deforestation has also altered the climatic condition in the country. Periods of drought have become more common and extensive in the dry season while floods have prevailed in the rainy months.