NCIP bewails illegal logging in tribal areas in Cagayan Valley

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya — The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) has bewailed the seemingly unabated illegal cutting of trees in forested areas inhabited by tribal communities, which are covered by certificates of ancestral domain claim (CADCs).

Ruben Bastero, NCIP director for Cagayan Valley, said even CADC-covered forestlands are not spared from illegal logging, and worse, illegal loggers encroach into supposedly highly protected areas reserved for indigenous groups.

Under the Indigenous People’s Reform Act, lands covered or classified as within a CADC area are supposed to be preserved, conserved and protected from any intrusion.

These CADC areas, according to the NCIP, are reserved for indigenous communities, which have been there since time immemorial.

"But still we continue to receive complaints from the residents themselves about illegal cutting of trees inside their CADC areas. Based on reports we have been receiving from our field personnel, this has been going on unabated," Bastero said.

For instance, he cited illegal logging in areas inhabited by the Agtas in neighboring Quirino, particularly at the mountain boundary of Maddela and Nagtipunan towns.

He said government personnel recently seized more than 10,000 board feet of sawn lumber near the Nagtipunan-Maddela boundary, indicating massive illegal cutting of trees in the Agta-dominated forest area.  

Bastero said thousands of illegally sawn lumber have been confiscated within the CADC-covered forested area here in the past.

He said his office has also received similar complaints about illegal logging in CADC areas in Isabela, especially in the coastal towns of Maconacon and Dinapigue.

Worse, Bastero said the illegal loggers have been exploiting the tribal folk by employing them in their illicit activities for monetary rewards.

"They are taking advantage of the poor economic conditions of our tribal communities there. They are being used to cut trees just for them to have livelihood," he said.

Last month, the Philippine Environmental Governance (EcoGov) in Luzon disclosed in a report that the forest covers of Quirino and Nueva Vizcaya, the region’s major watersheds, were being denuded by at least 11 hectares daily.

EcoGov blamed this on massive illegal cutting of trees, excessive migration, unabated slash-and-burn farming or kaingin, and timber poaching.

Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya and Isabela, along with Quezon, Aurora, Bulacan, Rizal, Nueva Ecija and Cagayan, share part of the vast Sierra Madre mountain range, which still accounts for vast virgin forests in the country.

Greenpeace, an international environmental group, also disclosed that illegal cutting of trees is still rampant in the Cagayan Valley portion of Sierra Madre.