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Friday, March 29, 2024

Review of 104 IFMAs ordered

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ENVIRONMENT Secretary Roy Cimatu on Wednesday ordered a review of all of the 104 companies granted integrated forest management agreements or IFMAs to prevent a repeat of any “environmental degradation” like the flash floods and mudslides in Zamboanga Peninsula owing to Typhoon “Vinta” last December.

Cimatu vowed to go after grant holders that violated their forest agreements with the government.

While several companies have already stopped operating, he said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources continued to receive reports of illegal poaching at IFMA sites.

“We will make them accountable if we find that there were violations in what are supposed to be their obligation to help manage the forest, and not to be the culprit behind such environmental degradation,” the former Armed Forces chief warned.

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Of the 104 IFMAs nationwide, 40 are found in Luzon, 13 in the Visayas and 51 in Mindanao.

According to Cimatu, 10 IFMAs were issued in Region 9, where the Zamboanga del Norte flash floods occurred.

He ordered the need for compliance and performance evaluation of the 104 IFMA sites, including Dacon Group of Companies, which was ordered to stop operations of its two subsidiaries, the South Davao Development C. Inc. and the Sirawai Plywood and Lumber Corp.

President Rodrigo Duterte blamed Dacon’s companies for the flash floods and mudslides that killed dozens of people in Zamboanga del Norte at the height of Typhoon “Vinta.” 

He ordered the Environment department to suspend the logging concessions in the aftermath of the landslides that swept away several seaside villages.

“This after [the President] was apprised of concerns of indigenous populations that they have been displaced by logging operations of some companies,” Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said Tuesday in a Palace news briefing.

In a Facebook post following the monthly Cabinet meeting on Monday night, Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol quoted the President as telling Cimatu to “implement a closure order” against the Sodaco Agricultural Corp., which holds a 60,000-hectare concession under the DENR’s Integrated Social Forestry program.

Under their  IFMA terms, Sirawai Plywood and Sodaco are allowed to establish industrial tree plantations from which they can harvest,  but are not allowed to cut residual trees unless authorized by Cimatu under very strict conditions, such as site development and plantation establishment.

A 12-member investigator team, composed of local DENR officers from the forestry, mines and environment bureaus, have been deployed so that “an exhaustive probe can be conducted to see if there have been violations in their permits,” Cimatu said.

“Roy, ipasara mo yan. Hindi naman maghihirap yan si Consunji kasi Oligarch na yan [Roy, order it closed. Consunji isn’t getting poorer because he’s an oligarch already],” the President told the Environment secretary, referring to the billionaire family that owns Sodaco.

Also in his recent talks with Cimatu, Piñol said the DENR chief has already ordered an immediate investigation into the reported logging operations by the company owned by the Consunji group.

“I have formed a team to investigate not only what Sodaco did in the Zamboanga but also in the Kalamansig-Lebak mountains,” Cimatu was quoted as telling Piñol.

Piñol, who recently conducted a helicopter fly-over on the portion of the mountains that have been deforested, said the logging operation “is blamed for the flash floods and mudslides which killed dozens of people and damaged agricultural lands in four towns of Zamboanga del Norte Dec. 22 at the height of Typhoon “Vinta.”

The President also promised to aid fisher folk families in Barangay Anubgan, Sibuco town, whose homes were swept to sea when flash floods brought down logs that rampaged through the isolated coastal community, Piñol said. 

Duterte watched a five-minute video of the deforested portion of the Zamboanga mountain range where the flash floods brought down the logs, Cimatu said. 

DENR had issued five IFMAs to the two firms with a combined area of 70,709 hectares covering 12 towns traversing the boundaries of Zamboanga del Norte and del Sur.

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