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Thursday, June 15, 2006
NegOr forest cover up 5%
By Jimmy P. Abayon
NEGROS Oriental's forest cover is now ten percent of its total land area, five or six percent more than it was a decade ago, if data presented by the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) are to be believed.
City environment officer Charlie Fabre told a recent Environment Month Kapihan sa PIA at Bethel Guest House that although the figure was still subject to ground verification, land satellite data showed a “marked increase” of “about four to five percent” in the forest cover.
Fabre said the deterioration of the province's forest worsened in 1987 after the government cancelled the logging concessions in the country in 1980.
"DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) was not (then) prepared to protect the remaining forests from logging concessions," he said.
Despite this, he said, the DENR plodded ahead with its forest protection and conservation projects in the province.
The result is the “slight increase” in the forest cover, Fabre said.
The 10 percent cover, he explained, includes man-made and natural forests, but excluded those in alienable or disposable lands, which DENR has not clearly surveyed.
Fabre said Basay municipality showed a marked forestry progress.
"In Basay in 1990, wala'y makitang kahoy pero karon aduna na ta'y mga 70 percent natamnan ug kahoy," the Cenro said.
He also attributed the increased forest cover to the eco-governance program of which Fabre identified Bayawan City as DENR's leading eco-governance partner in the province.
At the moment Bayawan City is establishing rubber plantations and a janthropa nursery, a plant variety that produces bio-diesel.
The provincial DENR is also pushing for the lifting of the suspension order on community-based forestry management sites, which former Secretary Michael Defensor issued after receiving reports of alleged violations by people's organizations managing them. (With reports from Rachel Nessia of the Philippine Information Agency)
(June 15, 2006 issue)
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