Philippine Archipelagos Losing Last Remaining Rainforest
10/1/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Philippine Archipelagos Losing Last Remaining Rainforest
Source: Friends of Peoples Close to Nature
Tel.: 4153-4288
Fax: 4152-871851
h.heller@gmx.net
www.fpcn-global.org
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: October 1, 1999
The Philippine archipelagos loses the last remaining rainforest due
to the greed of a few.
Stop the Government from Destroying the last Rainforests in the
Philippines
97% of the natural forests in the Philippine territory has been
destroyed. Much of the land is now barren, unsuitable for
agriculture.
Even the remaining 3% natural forests are mostly degraded. Less than
1% of the fromer forest is still intact.
Pristine forests, left in only tiny patches, still exist only in
mountain regions, on Palawan island, on Mindoro and Mindanao and in
the mountain range in northeastern Luzon, called "Sierra Madre".
Once, before the loggers came, the forests on the Philippine
archipelagos were among those forests with the greatest biodiversity
on earth.
Some of the forest has been destroyed by "kaingineros", slash-and-
burn farmers. Bust by far most of the forest destruction has been
carried out legally by logging companies. All logging companies are
closely linked with Government officials. Almost all wealthy and
influencial family clans, presented in the Senate or in the Congress
House, achieved their wealth and influence by robbing of timber on
ancestral lands. Legal forest management and protection is therefore
carried out by them.
Much of the remaining natural forest is now controlled or owned by
high-ranking Military.
***** To the Negritos ( the aboriginals) : "The military is
interested in our Land because the soil is good for growing sugar and
coconut. A certain colonel warned us that if we do not vacate our
land, our tribe will be exterminated." *****
One big forest tree can bring a profit of up to 100 000 US $ !!
Nowhere forest land in the "Sierra Madre" had been a terra nullius
(land without human beings). It was ancestral tribal land of the
agtas, a Negrito tribe. Negritos are the aboriginees on the whole
archipelagos as well as whole southeast Asia.
Until a few decades ago the Agta enjoyed an independent life as
forest dwellers in a still intact rainforest and wanderers along the
Pacific coast.
All the Agta land land has been stolen. There is no land for them any
more.
*****
" We no longer have a place to go.
Every place we find, government
projects or plantations follow.
We are like swine that are being
hunted down, scrounging around
in ever decreasing number of places.
Will we die like this ?
Will we die in the land of our
birth like this,
without a measure of dignity ?"
(A Negrito)
*****
Please write to the president of the Philippines and demand a logging
ban in the tribal Agta land.
President Estrada
Malacanang Palace
Manila
Philippines
Please reply to us, if you have suggestions how to stop the logging
insanity.