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Monday, April 03, 2006
Environment office gets tugboats in anti-log campaign
By Ben Serrano
Caraga Correspondent
BUTUAN CITY -- Personnel of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will no longer use hand signals in their campaign against illegal logging activities along Agusan River.
Instead, DENR Caraga officials said they will now use tugboats to tow suspected illegal logs ashore.
The Agusan River has been used as a cheaper means of transporting logs and lumber from Agusan provinces.
Benjamen T. Tumaliuan, DENR regional executive director, told Sun.Star that Butuan City Representative Leovigildo Banaag, chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, donated P1 million from his Countrywide Development Fund for the purchase of the tugboats.
Tumaliuan said the environment office is taking serious actions to curb illegal logging and timber poaching in the region.
He said more focus is given to closed vans particularly those twenty footers traveling at night.
The official said they use these strategies to ship out undocumented lumber cargoes to as far as cities of Cagayan de Oro, Manila, and Cebu.
Tumaliuan has directed DENR personnel manning the checkpoints to remain in high alert in pinning down and identifying log smugglers.
Recently, DENR Caraga has apprehended at least four twenty footer vans loaded with undocumented forest products at the height of its anti smuggling campaign.
The House Committee on Natural Resources recently conducted public hearing in this city to find ways how to apprehend undocumented timbers on board closed vans.
The committee said it will introduce legislations to at least eliminate use of closed vans for timber smuggling activities.
According to Tumaliuan, the newly acquired tugboats will be equipped with communication facilities that will be used in the campaign against illegal logging drive in Agusan River.
(April 3, 2006 issue)
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