Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu said Thursday illegal loggers must be stopped before they cut trees.
He said he wanted the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to shift from reactive to preventive in its efforts to curb illegal logging by stopping criminals before they cut trees.
He said it was high time the agency moved away from the traditional model of forest protection operation, which had been “largely measured in terms of apprehended undocumented forest products, and not in terms of standing trees.”
“Ang trophy ay ‘yung nakatayong mga puno, hindi ‘yung mga putol na,” he said.
Cimatu said the massive flooding that submerged parts of Cagayan Valley, Rizal and Marikina during the onslaught of typhoon “Ulysses” should serve as a “wake-up call” for the DENR’s field offices to recognize their accomplishments in the confiscation of undocumented forest products “not as trophies” but as “manifestations of their failure” as enforcement officers.
“The illegally gathered forest products should actually be regarded as their [DENR field officers’] failure to prevent these trees from being illegally cut,” Cimatu said.
Illegal logging was tagged as one of the reasons behind the devastating “Ulysses” floods, he said.
Cimatu tasked Undersecretary for Special Concerns Bernardo Leonardo to create four special composite teams that would augment anti-illegal logging operations in Cagayan Valley, Bicol and the upper Marikina River basin as protected landscapes.
He says the creation of the augmentation teams in those areas is a strategic move on the part of the DENR to shift its orientation in forest protection operation more towards prevention by “going hard and swift” against the financiers and operators.
The order is pursuant to Executive Order 23 of 2011 calling for the creation of an anti-illegal logging task force from the national to the regional and provincial levels.
Cimatu said the key to curbing illegal logging was to identify and penalize the financiers and operators, noting that only transporters and buyers in possession of undocumented forest products were oftentimes collared in illegal logging operations.