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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Philippine
Island Earns Rare Logging Reprieve
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org
http://forests.org/ -- Forest
Conservation Archives
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest
Conservation
08/05/00
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY
Asia's
biological heritage continues to be plundered for short-term,
impermanent
economic gains by the powerful few. Asia
is losing
forest
area more rapidly than any other region.
Already some 88
percent
of Asia's forests are gone. Many
countries' timber
industries
have gone bust, and are now exporting their deforestation
to the
World's remaining rainforests. CNN
reports that somehow the
island
of Palawan in the Philippines has managed to escape ecological
collapse,
by ending logging before the island had been totally
deforested. Islanders now grapple with how to make a
living in an
ecologically
sustainable manner--a challenge that faces all the
Earth's
occupants, whether they know it or not.
Many countries that
are
approaching the end of their commercial logging boom period would
do well
to follow Palawan's example of holding onto remaining forest
resources
by canceling remaining logging contracts and banning
commercial
scale logging. Simultaneously, such
areas should be
investigating
in earnest alternative ecologically based developments
that
depend upon standing and regenerating forests.
Carbon trading,
eco-tourism,
community based eco-forestry and non-timber forest
products
are examples that all deserve greater international support
through
research and funding. Future
development potential and
standard
of living in much of the World will be determined by how
much is
conserved now. Whatever remains will be
all that there is to
serve
as the basis for ecologically sustainable and restorative
resource
management, and as the blueprint and genetic material for
the age
of ecological restoration to come.
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Philippine island earns rare logging
reprieve
Source: Cable News Network, Copyright 2000, all
rights reserved.
Date: August 4, 2000
By: Correspondent Gary Strieker
PHOTO
CAPTION:
Logging
has stopped on the island of Palawan, but long-term ecological
and
economical effects remain
Unlike
much of Southeast Asia, one island in the Philippines has
managed
to halt large-scale logging. The reprieve could help
preserve
the ecological health of Palawan, but some islanders must now
struggle
to ensure their economic livelihood.
On the
land there are still scars and open wounds from years of
logging,
oozing silt into lagoons and smothering the coral reefs.
"With
all the activities of cutting down the trees out there, inside,
they
were depositing all the big logs, ready for pickup by big ships,"
said
Geronimo Reyes of the International Marinelife Alliance.
Also
remaining are many of the people who had worked for the loggers,
now unemployed
and seeking other ways to feed their families. Life is
not as
easy as it was before, said one man.
In
other parts of the Philippines, loggers are still cutting the
remaining
forests, leftovers of a logging boom that made fortunes for
political
and military cronies under former president Ferdinand
Marcos.
But on
the island of Palawan, the era of destructive logging has
ended,
a direct result of free democratic elections in 1992.
"Suddenly
there were people who came to realize that there must be
some
things that must be done about the natural environment," said
Salvador
Socrates, the late governor of Palawan, in one of his last
interviews
before he died in a recent plane crash.
Existing
logging concessions here were cancelled, and new legislation
banned
all commercial logging on the island.
Palawan
is an unusual place, where powerful, politically connected
logging
interests were soundly defeated by free elections and where
even
the former logging bosses now profess to be environmentalists.
The
change was a victory for those who campaigned to save the forests,
but it
created a new set of problems.
Many
unemployed logging workers turned to illegal fishing with
dynamite
and cyanide. And without logging there's more pressure to
create
other new jobs for young people.
Authorities
in Palawan say many new jobs will be found in a growing
tourism
industry, based on a spectacular natural environment that is
now
protected.
Much
has already been lost here. Stumps mark the site of what was once
a dense
forest of massive, ancient trees. Philippine parrots, once
common,
are rarely found.
But the
people who live here are grateful that the logging company did
at
least build them a 10-mile road leading to town, more than the
government
ever gave them.
The
government's major challenge now is finding a balance between
conservation
and economic development, according to the late governor
Socrates.
Palawan
is one of the few places in Southeast Asia where public and
private
efforts are working together to achieve that balance.
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