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Thursday, December 29, 2005
Logging eyed as cause for Caraga floods
By Ben Serrano
Caraga correspondent
BUTUAN CITY -- Indiscriminate, uncontrolled, and discreet cutting of trees of the more than one million hectares of forest lands in Caraga Region are to be blamed for the flashfloods that hit the region, environmentalists groups said.
The recent flashfloods killed three persons and injuring five others.
It also washed away five homes, damaging at least P50 million of agricultural crops, livestock, and infrastructures.
Environmental groups said the roots of the trees cut in the timberlands, which are supposed to hold floodwaters due to heavy rains were already uprooted causing it to flow indiscriminately to populated areas.
According to the December 26 initial official reports by the Office of the Civil Defense regional office the floods affected 37 barangays in the region and displaced 2,058 families or about 9,972 persons.
The Surigao City government and also Mainit town in Surigao del Norte has declared a "State of Calamity" in their areas.
Lawyer Beverly del Valle-Mordeno of the environmental group Watch our Environment Caraga said that continuing illegal logging in the region has caused floods to reach populated communities.
Mordeno said the lack of political will to stop wanton destruction of Caraga's forest further aggravated the situation as concerned government agencies and its workers are in the first place indebted to politicians.
"These institutions who are supposed to protect our forest are easily swayed by these illegal loggers who have strong connections because they are indebted to these political powers that be in the first place," Mordeno said.
Documentations
However, Mordeno said not all 23 small and medium scale logging and wood firms operating in Caraga region are irresponsible, adding that "because a few of them are actively and religiously engaging in planting trees for reforestation."
Mordeno also blamed some media institutions, religious groups, local government units, and other people's organization for their silence in the continuing wanton destruction of Caraga's forests.
Last week of November, containerized vans containing smuggled lawaan logs worth millions of pesos were intercepted at the seaport in Nasipit, Agusan del Norte with proper documentations for Cebu City and Manila declared as corn products.
Last October, four container vans of hard wood species banned by government for traveling without proper documentation were intercepted at the seaport of Cagayan de Oro City also declared as corn products.
The cargo firm that provided rented sealed vans to a certain Mr. David issued sworn certification that the hot logs were from Caraga Region particularly Agusan provinces.
Earlier a lumad group, Tribal Communities of Caraga Region, Inc. exposed the reported wanton smuggling of logs in Caraga Region, which deprived government millions of pesos of revenues.
They said taxable wood products were declared as planted wood species, which are deregulated and thereby exempted from tax.
The lumad group also filed complaints before Environment Secretary Michael Defensor that 3,105 pieces of logs, which they owned from their ancestral domain vanished into thin air without a trace.
(December 29, 2005 issue)
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