Final forests and last landscapes

Two books have occupied my reading time these past few weeks. Both speak of the close-to-terminal condition of our environment in all its breadth and scope, the larger natural one of our fast dwindling forests and the built one of our fast expanding but environmentally deteriorating cities. The first is a new book, The Last Great Forest, another laudable volume by the erstwhile environmentalist-author-publisher Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan. The second was published over 30 years ago, a seminal work entitled The Last Landscape by the famous American sociologist William Whyte. Both are timely and contain messages we need to heed to give ourselves, and all other species we share this country with, a chance for survival.

Our Once Great Forests

The Last Great Forest tells the story of Luzon’s Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, one of our last remaining forests. A sad state indeed considering that at the turn of the century forests covered 70 percent of the country. This made for 21 million hectares of amazing forests, acknowledged as one the most bio-diverse in the world. Today, we have barely five million hectares left, of which only 800,000 hectares are primary forests. In five years, unless deforestation from logging and mismanagement is stopped, we will lose even this remaining bit of emerald paradise.

Author Tan traces the degradation of our forests in the short but succinct introduction of the book. He lays out the facts of our forests’ demise, the losing battle of an almost inutile reforestation program and the effects of habitat loss, cultural community displacement, and increasing occurrence of natural disasters like flooding and its attendant economic effects.

This loss of the forest cover has lead to diminishing watersheds and unreplenished aquifiers that spell water shortages and "plummeting yields for palay and primary agricultural crop." Runoff from denuded slopes silts up coral reefs, which disrupts the marine food chain and leads to less and less fish to catch. Fish and seafood, Tan reminds us, are the "primary source of protein for 50 percent of all Filipinos." (The other 50 percent, I suspect, are getting by on genetically enhanced nutrition-deficient hamburgers and instant noodles. But enough of my diet.)

The forestry industry has made fortunes for a select few but it has compromised the very source of life and sustenance for majority of Filipinos. Perennial food shortages, warns Tan, will continue because of the depletion of water resources and the degradation of coastal habitats, all stemming from forest loss. The most badly hurt, says Tan, will be the poor and... "The biggest losers are our children."

We do have laws protecting our forests yet there is a big gap between the letter of the law and the reality of life in these islands of ours. The story told in this book is one of partial success in conservation and the remaining issues and challenges we all face in the struggle to hold on to a disappearing resource.

Last Great Natural Park

The Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, the focus of the book, is the largest protected area in the Philippines. It is a mountain range that is recognized as both nationally and globally important because of its enormous bio-diversity. The forest contains a dozen major habitats including lowland evergreen dipterocarp rainforests, lower level montane and mossy forest, forest over limestone substrate, ultrabasic forest, beach forest, estuaries, seagrass beds and coral reefs. And you thought forests were just a bunch of trees.

The book not only gives the reader a comprehensive take on seeing "the trees for the forests" and vice versa but also looks at endangered fauna that these habitats sustain, including that of homo sapiens. The pictures in the book speak more loudly than any description, the grainy texture of recycled paper (on which the book is printed) notwithstanding. Tan covers the area’s geomorphology and the history of human settlement, citing demographic movement and the dwindling indigenous Dumagat population and culture. He also cites the rapacious impact of "non-resident" activities of resource extraction – mining, logging and illegal fishing methods.

Hope Amid Tragedy

There is hope, so Tan sketches, in the NIPAS Act, a de-centralized program for national park management under the DENR in cooperation with local governments, indigenous peoples, and a slew of NGOs, foreign and local. Among these are the Protected Area Management Board, the Northern Sierra Madre Wilderness Foundation, Plan International, Conservation International and the Isabela State University.

The combined efforts of all these stakeholders and government have produced results but there remain numerous obstacles to the program’s sustainability. Illegal logging still continues, pressure mounts vis-a-vis urban encroachment, land-use planning is lacking in focus and implementation, enforcement of conservation laws, policies and programs suffer from lack of personnel, and extractive activity still finds support from the political powers that be.

Tan paints a bleak picture where the worse-case scenario spells further and possibly irreversible loss of bio-diversity, social and cultural obliteration of the Dumagat people’s way of life, loss of forest cover leading to erosion, damage to coral reefs and falling fish and seafood catch. There will be more floods (Tan cites the Ormoc tragedy...how quickly we forget.) Food production overall for the region will fall and finally the water supply of the region and thereby even of the National Capital Region (Metro Manila and surrounding areas) will be compromised.

The message put forward in the book is clear. An immediate moratorium on logging must be implemented and policies concerning timber agreements reconsidered. Government should put its foot down, enforce the law and shut down illegal activities. No new roads should be built to further cut up the park and no mines allowed. The local residents and NGOs as well as LGUs should be supported and their capabilities built up. Finally, the general public’s interest and concern will lend moral support to all initiatives. All these will hopefully lead to saving this last great forest. It should be the greater good for the greater number. We have no choice...and almost no forests left.

Tan’s book covers one end of our environmental/ecological spectrum. Next week we will look at the second book in this two-part, two-book review. This will cover the other end – the jungles of concrete of our towns and cities that, unlike our dwindling green heritage, are spreading uncontrollably out of control. The issues covered will be similar – resource management, land-use issues, governance or lack of it, numerous laws but no implementation, and the precarious situation of an endangered species: the urban Filipino.

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The Last Great Forest is available at all Filipino Bookstores and Bookmark outlets. Feedback is welcome. Please send e-mail to citysensephilstar@hotmail.com.