Again, Fighting for Forests

Thursday, 17 February 2011 00:00

Written by Neric Acosta

President Noynoy Aquino signed Executive Order 23 this week, declaring a moratorium on the cutting and harvesting of timber in the country’s natural and residual forests and creating an anti-illegal logging task force to enforce this. The EO boldly asserts the state’s role as the primary protector of the country’s natural wealth and heritage found in our forests. After all, Article XII, Section 2 of the Constitution provides that “the exploration, development, and utilization of natural resources shall be under the full control and supervision of the State.”

The EO exercises not only the state’s functions to enforce the laws that prohibit the wanton abuse of the resources of the forests, but also the constitutional mandate to pursue as a matter of state policy the conservation of the country’s ecosystems and their biodiversity to maintain a “healthful ecology,” as framed in the Philippine Constitution. The EO clearly states that the State has the obligation “to protect the remaining forest cover of the country not only to prevent flash floods and hazardous flooding but also to preserve biodiversity, protect threatened habitats and sanctuaries of endangered and rare species and allow regeneration of residual forests and development of plantation forests.”

In the larger context of climate change adaptation and longer-term mitigation measures, returning the forests to the center of ecological and conservationist policy thrusts is not only timely but also imperative. If we cannot stop the unabated destruction of our already degraded forests, which provide us with incalculable ecological services – soil quality, clean water, watersheds, carbon sinks and clean air – we run the risk of rising food insecurity and economic dislocation, greater floods and increasing vulnerabilities to climate-related disasters, and, all told, unsustainable human communities.

That is the spirit with which to view the logging moratorium – not in isolation, but in terms of the larger and longer-term challenge of national adaptation to the mounting impacts of climate change on a high-risk archipelago like ours. As the Worldwide Fund for Nature avers, “the EO creates the crucial, though temporary, space needed for the public and private sectors to build consensus on new land use priorities, re-defining how we sustainably manage our fast-dwindling natural resources in preparation for a climate defined future.”

A logging moratorium, as such, does not address completely the need to abate severe deforestation and preserve biodiversity, nor guarantee the aggressive reforestation of critical watersheds and logged over areas around the country. For sure, a moratorium is only as good as its effective and sustained enforcement. Such bans in the past failed to have the optimal impact of curbing deforestation simply because the mechanisms to make it work were inadequate or unsound. Worse, a ban could even give rise to the unintended or opposite effect – that of even more illicit logging activities – if loopholes remain unplugged and gray areas of implementation are used to circumvent the law, and definitions of what are allowed or prohibited are not made clear and categorical.

The forests are, after all, more than just the physical composition of trees and wildlife habitat; the forests refer as well to the interaction of natural resources with human communities within forestlands. That is why the Community Based Forest Management (CBFM) program initiated in 1995 became the national strategy for the sustainable development of forestland resources, involving upland communities and organizations, local governments, indigenous tribes and local enterprises. Some of the CBFM areas have succeeded in this respect, while others have been abused or have suffered from government neglect or collusion with illegal logging interests.

In this case, the EO will have to further define the needs of the communities who rely on the forests and their resources for sustenance and, as with indigenous peoples, for the anchors of culture and ancestral land. Plantation forests and the domestic local wood industries, on which thousands primarily rely for livelihood and employment, will also have to have clearly defined parameters and rules governing permits and contracts. And necessarily, government will have to ensure that forest monitoring and compliance systems are in place and sustained.

That is why forestry as such is far more complex than it appears. While important to parallel this moratorium on logging activities with massive re-greening – reforestation, or ‘rainforestation’ with indigenous tree species -- there is, apparently, more to forest management than curbing illegal logging and instituting tree-planting programs.

What the EO jumpstarts is the process of making development truly sustainable and consonant with a national climate change adaptation-mitigation strategy. An EO like this should give even more reason to at last clearly delineate our forest lines – and put in place a sound national land use plan. And in the larger framework of the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change, this sets the tone for moving the country towards the nascent global REDD-plus plans.

The REDD – reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation – is a proposed incentive system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions wherein industrialized countries would provide financial incentives for forested, developing countries to manage and protect forests and increase their so-called carbon stocks. While still underdeveloped as a mechanism, the REDD-plus system offers a country like ours unique opportunities to engage local communities and the private sector to rebuild our degraded forests as integral to our responsibility to be a part of the global stewardship of the earth -- and its life-giving though fragile bounties.

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