DENR decries slays of forest workers

Illegal logging, mining blamed for rise in slays

MANILA, Philippines―Philippine forests have become unsafe for the people working to protect them.

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje recently expressed concern over the number of forest workers, whether volunteers or employed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), threatened, harassed and killed in the line of duty.

Paje attributed the rise in these acts of intimidation and downright murder to the government’s revitalized campaign against illegal loggers, who, he said, had shown “sustained and recurring strength.”

“It has become very hazardous nowadays to implement environment programs. And it’s really hazardous to stay in the forests. But we cannot abandon our work,” Paje said in an interview.

“Our people are sometimes afraid to do their work. They enter the forest with only a piece of paper, a seize order, but they are greeted by guns,” he said.

Illegal loggers and miners are not the only ones who pose a danger to forest workers. The clashes between the military and the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, have also made it difficult for them to do their work in remote areas, DENR officials and volunteers said.

Since 1990, over 50 DENR employees have been killed, and about the same number have been injured, while at work, according to DENR data. Some workers were killed while inspecting “hot” logs at checkpoints, and others, in connection with their activities against illegal logging.

Forest ranger

The latest fatality was Rolando Sinday, a forest ranger in Surigao del Sur who was gunned down by masked motorcycle-riding men while on his way home last month.

Sinday was reportedly killed by armed groups hired by illegal loggers bent on regaining lost ground in the province. Paje said Sinday was involved in an operation in July that resulted in the confiscation of 3,000 cubic meters of illegal logs.

Only a month earlier, Nelson Luna, a deputized environment and natural resources officer, was shot dead at a DENR checkpoint in Bislig, Surigao del Sur.

Thirteen other people have been killed while doing environment work since the early 1990s, according to DENR data. Some of them were radio and print journalists who were targeted for their environmental campaigns.

The nongovernment organization Kalikasan said that 40 environment workers, mostly antimining activists, were killed in 2001-2010, and that 47 survived murder attempts in the same period.

According to the lists supplied by the DENR and Kalikasan, the latest non-DENR employee killed while conducting environment work was Leonardo Co, a noted botanist.

Co and his team were on field work commissioned by Lopez-owned Energy Development Corp. in the forest in Kananga, Leyte, when fired upon.

Co and two companions were killed in what the military has claimed to be an exchange of fire between soldiers and NPA rebels. But a fact-finding team composed of his fellow scientists found no evidence of a crossfire in the forest.

Last virgin forests

The dangers that the “green army” faces while on field are best illustrated in the forests of the Caraga region in Mindanao, which have become a battleground between environment workers and illegal loggers.

Caraga, which is composed of the provinces of Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Sur and Surigao del Norte, and Dinagat Island, is home to virgin forests and hardwood plantations. It is at the heart of the government’s forest protection program.

Caraga has a total land area of 1.9 million hectares of which 1.3 million hectares are forest land, with 339,963 hectares under government protection. The rest are plantation forests.

Most of the trees that grow in the region are hardwood trees such as narra, apitong, lauan and tanguile, which fetch a high price in the market, said DENR Caraga information officer Eric Gallego.

Because of these trees, illegal loggers converge on Caraga to make their fortune by wheeling and dealing with the lumad (indigenous peoples), who have the right to certain areas under the ancestral domain principle, Gallego said.

“Caraga is really the country’s last bastion of virgin forests,” he said. “So the illegal loggers seize the opportunity and buy trees from the lumad at P500 each. Because the lumad are poor and starving, they let the illegal loggers cut the trees,” Gallego said.

Regional environment officials have seized 11,325 cubic meters of logs and 153,593 board feet of lumber from illegal loggers this year, according to a report from the region.

The DENR has filed 12 cases of Forestry Code violations and padlocked 97 illegal sawmills in the region in the same period, the report said.

Cat-and-mouse game

The work of forest rangers and DENR officials in Caraga has evolved into a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with illegal loggers and their private armies.

Gallego recalled one companion who was abducted when he refused to let two trucks loaded with illegal timber go: “He was kidnapped. He was brought to the mountains and they kept him there for six days.”

Since the government ordered stepped-up efforts against illegal logging, Gallego has noted a rise in the number of threats against his colleagues. “Every time there is a campaign like this, people always retaliate,” he said, adding:

“The fear that someone is at your back is always there. But as our Cenro [Chief Environment Regional Officer] told us, we cannot stop. This is our job, we have to protect our forests.”

But justice for the victims has been elusive. “Until now,” the murderers of Luna and Sinday have yet to be identified, Gallego said.

He added that he and his colleagues often requested a police escort before entering a forest area for inspection but that the dangers had not stopped.

In August, for instance, a DENR group of four accompanied by Christopher Mazo, the police chief of Lianga, Surigao del Sur, was ambushed in the town of San Agustin after coming from a site inspection.

“Chief Mazo was killed by sniper fire from alleged NPA rebels. Four DENR personnel were hurt during the ambush,” a DENR report said.

Better protection

Paje said the threats to the lives of the DENR workers and other environmentalists had made it hard to implement environment laws and undermined government efforts to protect and rehabilitate forests.

As part of the government plan, the DENR has declared that it would no longer issue logging permits in natural forests. It is also hoping to reforest 8 million hectares by making it mandatory for certain college students to plant trees before graduation.

The Aquino administration considers the protection of the Philippines’ natural and plantation forests―which comprise a total of 7.16 million hectares―as the core of its climate change mitigation and adaptation program, Paje said.

Early this month, Paje and law enforcement officials met to discuss a new tack to protect DENR field workers after President Benigno Aquino III, through Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, directed the police and the military to help in the DENR drive against illegal logging.

Ochoa’s order dated Dec. 13 read in part: “[Y]ou are hereby instructed to accord the DENR Anti-Illegal Logging Task Force the necessary police and military assistance to prevent the harassment, intimidation and killing [of] DENR employees, volunteers and other government staff.”

Paje said the police and military leadership had agreed to escort DENR officers entering hotspots.

He has also appointed retired Maj. Gen. Renato Miranda―one of the military officials charged with attempting to overthrow the Arroyo administration in 2006―to lead the newly beefed-up Environmental Law Enforcement Task Force.

He said Miranda’s military background would be useful in the enforcement of environment laws, especially in remote areas where there were private armed groups.

Magna Carta

Paje also said he was pushing for the proposed Magna Carta for Environment and Natural Resources Personnel, now pending at the Senate.

He said he was backing the inclusion of nongovernment environment workers like Co in the Magna Carta because of their valuable contribution to environment protection.

The proposed Magna Carta provides for the protection and benefits of the personnel of the DENR, its bureaus, regional officers and attached agencies, environmental units in other government agencies, and the ecological waste management department of the local government units, including forest rangers and park rangers.

Private citizens and groups engaged in environment protection such as NGOs and environmental units of private corporations or enterprises will also receive the same protection and benefits.

The proposed Magna Carta recognizes the dangers faced by these field workers.

A hazard allowance equivalent to 25 percent of the monthly basic salary will be given to those involved in dangerous undertakings, such as field inspectors, waste monitoring and sampling specialists, and those whose duties expose them to radiation, volcanic eruption and other occupational risks. –Kristine L. Alave, Philippine Daily Inquirer