Philippines Primary Forest Drastically Reduced>From our field studies in the areas termed as primary forest we, FPCN (Friends of Peoples Close to Nature) estimate that at least two third of the remaining 800000 hectares primary forest is already heavily degraded, leaving the forest without a schielding canopy and therefore without the chance to become intact again.
Most of the Philippine primary forest was and still is dipterocarp forest. This forest needs a canopy for its growth. The dipterocarp tree forest is also by far the most valuable forest. Scientific studies show that the dipterocarp forest in the Philippines ranks among the forests with the richest biodiversity worldwide.
Palawan, falsely still seen as the last frontier, has lost allmost all of its intact primary forest, leaving only less than 30000 hectares around Mount Puyos (CleopatraŽs Needle) and even less than that around Mount Mantalingahan. There are some three areas of intact forest in about the same size left in Mindanao, none in the Visayas (only Samar has some intact forest patches), and two areas in Luzon, one the central part of the Sierra Madre and another much smaller one the northern part of the Cordilleras.
This remaining intact primary forest is also the by far most profitable forest for the logging industry. Nearly all of the industrial logging therefore concentrate on the some 200000 hectares remaining intact primary forest and it is sad to see most of this land is concession land for the logging industry.
Of outstanding biological value is the remaining intact primeval forest in the central part of the Sierra Madre. While the northern Sierra Madre has been logged over completely and after the withdrawal of the logging industry, because of no further profitability, has been declared as Northern Sierra Madre National Park in 1997 ( not included is the valuable area north of Maconacon until Palaui island), the central part with the most valuable forest in the Philippines in currently heavily logged over.
As the logging industry works under the protection of private armies and generally does not allow acess to the concession land, investigations of the destruction caused by the legal logging industry is risky and can be very dangerous.
FPCN identified three logging companies destroying the last and most valuable primary forest in the Sierra Madre and taking mainly Narra wood
IDC (Industrial Development Company), owned by George Ong and based in Casiguran with the Ildefonso peninsula are main logging area and concession land
PATECO (Pacific Timber Expor Company), with the headquarter in Manila and its logging base in Dilasag. Main logging area is between Dilasag and Dinapigue along the cost and from there some 30 km inland boardering the denuded Cagayan valley. Almost all of the timber goes the the USA
NP, based in Dinapigue having its concession land north of that belonging to PATECO and extremely desastrous, even in the southern part of the National Park.
All the consession lands in the Sierra Madre are ancvestral tribal lands of the Agta-Negritos since time immemorial. The logging industry just ignores the existance of the Agtas, destroy their livelihood and make them extremely endangered. The Ita tribe in the northern cordilleras are already extinct due to logging activities on their ancestral land.
Illegal smale scale loggers, logging with carabaws and using lancias (small boats) for transportation of loggs are seen as criminals, when prosecuted.
As the logging companies are violating the same laws, they could as well be prosecuted as criminals for violating laws.
the logging ban of loging in ancient forest areas
the logging ban of logging narra and almasiga trees
the logging ban of logging in National Parks
The problem is that DENR gives logging licences under violation of existing laws. The secretary of DENR, Cerilles, runs his own logging company with concession areas in intact primary forest land in Mindanao. The secretary of interior, Alfredo Lim, also has a logging company with concession land on the remaining intact forest land in the northern Sierra Madre.
Please help to verify the protection of the last intact primary land in the sense of what logger and Secretary Lim currently used to express as law and order.
Please also see the Agta slide show in the internet on the FPCN website http://www.fpcn-global.org