Total log ban to lead to faster forest depletion - expert

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna, Philippines – A Filipino forestry professor said a total ban on logging in the country will lead to a faster deforestation rate instead of the intended preservation of the forest cover.

Dr. Rex Victor Cruz, dean of the UP College of Forestry and Natural Resources here and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awardee as a member of the UN Working Group on Climate Change, said illegal loggers and subsistence farmers will come in to indiscriminately cut forests down the minute the concessionaires that once protected the areas leave as a result of the logging ban.

“What we are concerned about is the state of degradation with which forests will be subjected to once the legitimate concessions cease to operate and illegal loggers start to abuse whatever is left of our forests,” he said.

The government is not capable of implementing a total logging ban, he added.

Studies conducted by UP Los Baños on the status of cancelled and expired Timber License Agreements (TLAs) revealed negative results for log ban areas.

Instead of keeping forests in such areas intact because of the stop in logging and timber operations, forest destruction became worse and was enhanced all the more as these areas were rendered open access, unmanaged and unguarded forests.

Cruz was reacting to Executive Order 23 issued by President Aquino declaring a logging ban. Aquino issued the ban after visiting provinces hit recently by floods and landslides.

Cruz said a total logging ban is not the solution to flooding and landslides. Forests do not necessarily prevent floods and landslides, he said.

Forests, he said, have only a limited influence on flooding. Instead, the main factors that influence flooding are the geomorphology of the area and the amount of rainfall.

“During a major rainfall event like those that resulted in major flooding, the forest soil becomes saturated and water no longer filters into the soil but instead runs off along the soil surface,” he said.

Floods and landslides, Cruz said, are caused by excessive rain and not by lack of forests.

The Society of Filipino Foresters Inc. (SFFI) a non-government organization promoting sustainable forest management, shared Cruz’s opinion.

In a statement, SFFI said a logging ban “will not necessarily stop nor even minimize flooding, mudflows and landslides altogether. The case of floods in Albay, Camarines Sur, Samar, Agusan, Zamboanga and the Davao provinces... are the consequences of climate change manifested in prolonged and excessive rain rather than logging per se.”

The recent floods in Australia and Brazil, which are countries more thickly forested than the Philippines, illustrate the fact that forests cannot prevent floods in the face of excessive and prolonged rainfall, the SFFI said.

Instead of a log ban, both Cruz and the SFF suggested that a sustainable forest management program be put in place to assure sustainable harvest from natural forests, more investments in plantations and tree industries, and protection of watershed and protected areas while assuring the continuity of forest products and environmental services from all types of forests.