Antonio V. Osmeña
Estatements

PEOPLE have always had an impact on the environment. Throughout most of Cebu’s history, however, this impact was fairly small and localized, because then humans were hunter-gatherers.

They were few and their main energy source was their own muscle power. Today, Cebu is at a critical turning point.

The prospects for Cebu’s inhabitants are both brighter and darker than at any time in history. Prophets of doom warn that Cebu’s life-supporting systems are being destroyed, and technological optimists promise a life of abundance for everyone. It is the effect of protecting the diversity of life in the beautiful blue planet that is our home.

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The difficulty of obtaining an adequate food supply in Cebu in the mid-16th century was one of the main reasons the Spanish conqueror Miguel de Legazpi abandoned the island in search of a more hospitable agricultural environment elsewhere in the archipelago.

Nevertheless, Cebu has always been a major population center, primarily due to its key location astride the archipelago’s main trade routes. However, Cebu’s land resources are in critical need of a comprehensive land use plan.

According to the records of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, particularly the Lands Management Services, of the total land area of 539,762 hectares in Cebu Province, 349,000 hectares have been declared alienable and disposable (A&D).

At least 189,124 hectares hopefully remain as timberland and 1,638 hectares are minerals. Considering that 65 percent of Cebu’s land resources are controlled and owned by the private sector, how will the government administer ethical views on land resource use? Unfortunate as it is, today land and its resources are commodities to be developed and used as the owners desire, to maximize their profits. How enlightened are our local elected government officials to have the political will to implement the major ethical view on land resource use?

There is indeed a need for the inhabitants of Cebu, especially the civic, professional and religious organizations, to show the way for elected government leaders to implement zoning laws on the basis of the following ethical views:

(1) A large portion of land resources should be preserved from development by timber, mining and other interests.

Such areas should be used only for nondestructive forms of outdoor recreation and left as ecological reserves and living laboratories for learning how nature works;

(2) Instead of being preserved, land resources should be used wisely for a variety of purposes, including recreation, grazing, and wildlife and water conservation, and managed in ways that do not damage or deplete them for future generations; and

(3) Land and its resources should be treated with love and respect by balancing strictly human needs with those of other living creatures, with the overall goal of preserving the capacity of large amounts of land for self-renewal of its plant and animal life.

The legal basis for zoning is the police power under which a sovereign state, or its duly constituted arms and branches of government, may control the use of private property, where the interests and protection of health, welfare, morality and environmental survival of the citizens as a whole make such control necessary or even mandatory.

What made the government now amend former president Ferdinand Marcos’ decree pro-hibiting the development of land with a slope of over 60 degrees, other than for silviculture use?

The prohibition was formulated to prevent flooding within its coastal plain. Just as agriculture is the cultivation of fields, silviculture is the cultivation of forests to produce renewable timber resources.

The long, narrow island of Cebu possesses a rugged, mountainous interior with only 30 percent located along the coastal lowland plains. Its interior hinterland is a porous limestone base where deforestation and subsequent erosion over the centuries have left much of the island unsuitable for agriculture, but then indigenous trees will survive with government-private cooperation in forest management.