SPECIAL REPORT: Phl now a heavy importer of logs (Conclusion)

MANILA, Philippines – The grim projection is out: At the rate the Philippines is ravaging its natural resources, it world be the first Southeast Asian country to lose its forests within the first half of the present century.

Centuries back, the country’s primeval forests were a paradise to behold.

During the last quarter of the 16th century, at the early period of the Spanish colonization of the country, forests covered about 27 million hectares (more than 90 percent) of the total land area of 30 million ha.

The mountain ecosystem then natured about 3,500 species of indigenous trees, 8,120 species of flowering plants, 950 species and subspecies of birds, 240 to 260 species and subspecies of reptiles, and 640 species of mosses.

Many years back, too, about 3,800 species of plants endemic to the Philippine archipelago and not found anywhere in the world had been recorded.

By 1920 when there were only a little more than 12 million Filipinos, there were still about 18 million ha. of natural forests. This shrank to 17 million ha. in the mid-1930s, when the population was about 15 million.

By the 1990s, when there were already more than 70 million Filipinos, only 5.4 million ha. of forests were left, much of which were nonproductive and less than a million hectares of virgin forests.

In 2005, with the country’s burgeoning population having reached 86 million, only 16 provinces – 14 in Luzon and one each in the Visayas and Mindanao – had forests cover of only more than 50 percent, based on Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) figures.

That was five years ago and, for sure, a big chunk of those forests has also been scraped.

With the sordid state of the country’s mountain ecosystem, the coming generations of Filipinos can only read in books and historical accounts the paradise that once was Philippine forests.

Many of the country’s prized floral (plant) and faunal (animal) species have vanished or are headed for extinction because of the unabated destruction of mountains attributed to logging, swidden or kaingin (slash-and-burn) farming, forest fires, posts and diseases, and irresponsible mining operations.

Yet the worst has yet to come.

What are left of the country’s remaining forest do not stand a chance against the millions of Filipinos now occupying the uplands in view of the lack of life-sustaining opportunities in the lowlands.

No less than the DENR had reported that as of 1999, there were already 18.3 million people, mostly among the country’s “poorest of the poor”, in the uplands.

It has further been projected that the number of forest dwellers will soar to 37 million by 2015, which is only less than half a decade away.

If these trends continue, warned environment expert Dr. Ma. Concepcion Cruz years back, two major adverse consequences would occur.

One, to meet the food needs of people living in mountains, more forestlands will be cleared for agriculture.

Two, as upland agriculture intensifies, soil erosion, flooding, siltation and sedimentation will take place, affecting the lowlands. Upland migrants, possessing little cultural adaptation to mountain environments, will reduce the forests into degraded croplands, as vast tracts of mountain areas have already been converted into veritable dustbowls.

Over the decades, as again today, the issue of “total log ban” cropped up whenever natural calamities bludgeoned the Philippines.

But a fact remain: Who will implement the total log ban?

The perturbing thing is that both pro and con are correct. What will the “Solomonic” solution then be?

This writer still remembers well the results of studies done by the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) on the suspension or cancellation of licenses of some timber logging concessions found violating forestry laws.

After the concessions had left, hordes of upland dwellers descended upon the logging sites and, mostly applying the “carabao logging” practice, wiped out what was left from the logging operations.

We recall, too, the candid admission of a former DENR official in a public forum that because of the miserable lives of the upland settlers, the government could not muster the necessary “political will” to implement forestry laws.

In recapitulation, a forest scientists and professor once reworded a song titled “Where have all the flowers gone.”

Here’s Dr. Edwino Fernando’s version: “Where have all the trees gone?/ Men have cut them every one/When will they ever learn?/ When will they ever learn?”

When will Filipinos ever learn from the death-dealing catastrophics that now happen with regularity during typhoon and rainy seasons owing to the destruction of the country’s forest resources?

Perhaps, when the last tree in the mountain has been felled. –Rudy A. Fernandez (The Philippine Star)