PCSD sounds the alarm

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‘The alarm that PCSD is sounding should have been sounded throughout the rest of the country long ago.’

THE state of the region is dire.”

So intoned Atty. Teodoro Jose “TJ” S. Matta, executive director of the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, in a video presentation that PCSD showed during the Palawan Planning Summit held from August 17-19 in Puerto Princesa City.

ED Matta was principally referring to forest cover, long a major asset and attaching of Palawan, dubbed by many as “the last frontier” in the Philippines. It is also a major ecosystem center, whether above ground, beneath the ground, and even beneath the water’s edge.

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In the video, ED Matta cited the damage done by Typhoon Odette, saying it destroyed some 60% of the forest cover in the northern part of the island province. A shocking number given that Palawan is very rarely visited by typhoons, and the island forest cover consists of numerous hardwood species, with mahogany being my favorite.

But just one wayward typhoon, and what nature has nursed through decades, centuries even, is flattened to the ground or wiped out.

Just as interesting is the damage to forest cover done in the southern part of Palawan, where mining activity is going on. But contrary to common belief, Matta cites not mining but agricultural expansion, human settlements and urbanization and even kaingin as the main reasons for the major (Matta used the word “devastating”) loss of forest cover in the south.

Of these, agricultural expansion was the biggest reason for the devastating degradation or loss of forest cover from 2005-2015.

To address these problems, Matta is urging provincial officials to consider incorporating reforestation in their development plans. He is asking each LGU (I think there are about 22 or so municipalities, plus Puerto Princesa) to allocate 10,000 hectares – at the minimum – for this campaign. Am hoping the LGU leaders will listen.

The alarm that PCSD is sounding should have been sounded throughout the rest of the country long ago. It is population growth that fuels human settlements and urbanization and agricultural expansion that has primarily left this country naked, its hardwood trees chopped down to satisfy the market here (and abroad) of a growing population. If you google “Philippine forest cover,” you are bound to come across a set of images showing the Philippines and how it has changed over the decades from a green set of islands to one that is almost totally brown. Almost, that is, except in a few pockets of the country like northeastern Mindanao, southern Palawan, part of the Sierra Madre and even the Mountain Province. Interestingly, these are mostly the mining areas of the country!

As a frequent visitor to Palawan — and one who has planted over 50 trees in the mining area of Nickel Asia Corporation in Rio Tuba in Bataraza town as part of our corporate mission to turn a mine that God gave us into a forest to give back, I pray that the political leadership of Palawan led by Gov Dennis M. Socrates will pay heed to the alarm call of the PCSD.

Let’s do what we can to restore the forests and the biodiversity habitats in that beautiful island!

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