Irony of total log ban exemption

EDITORIAL

Green groups have expressed alarm over the pronouncement of Department of Environment and Natural Resources Mines and Geosciences Bureau Leo Jasareno that President Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III will exempt the mining industry from Executive Order No. 23 or the total log ban in all natural and residual forests in exchange for support in its National Greening Program.

Less than two weeks ago President Aquino instructed four cabinet secretaries to craft a new mining policy and consult the people and stakeholders in finalizing it.

JaybeeGarganera, AlyansaTigil Mina national coordinator said the “pronouncement is irresponsible, questionable and suspicious.”

AnabellePlantilla, executive director of Haribon Foundation said the MGB-DENR pronouncement ignoredthe country’s commitment to the Aichi Targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity one of which is to reduce the rate of loss of all natural habitats including forests.

According to green groups, one of the most important ecosystems, this country’s remaining forests, provide ecological services such as a steady supply of water and clean air, the value of which is even more than all the mines combined. With this exemption, the groups said, the forests would be gone in mining areas.

The intent of EO 23, the groups said, was to preserve and protect the forest, and in the process, protect biodiversity, increase the water retention of forests, prevent erosion and floods, enhance the capacity of carbon-capture of our forests and to ensure water supply. “By giving a special privilege to the mining industry, this selective exemption of the log ban, in effect, makes the government unable to comply or implement the Climate Change Act and the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act.”

Rowena Bolinas, National Coordinator of AksyonKlimaPilipinassaid, “It is entirely senseless for a government to mandate, fund and execute a National Greening Program when the same drivers of climate change are allowed to operate unhampered in areas where carbon sinks are located.”

Another group of environmental advocates, Green Convergence said the National Greening Program would be contradictory and ironic when industries such as mining and logging are excempted.

Dr. Nina Galang, lead convenor of Green Convergence said, “The National Greening Program and mining are contradictory. How can the government claim to be concerned about our watersheds, our soil, our biodiversity by reforestation while destroying it with mining? A large mine destroys thousands of hectares in a span of a few weeks while it takes at least 15 years for a tree to grow and hundreds of years for a forest to reach its mature stage and perform all the functions we expect from it.”

Garganera concluded, “It is such an irony when you have a government agency like DENR who will privilege a destructive industry such as mining, at the expense of the rural poor, because the agency failed to implement its mandate, that of protecting and preserving the environment and natural resources, for the future generations.”

“The National Greening Program is an enviable conservation initiative by the Aquino administration. However, when national programs and policies are sullied by corporate greed and ignorant bureaucrats, people’s money go to waste”, Bolinas further added.

Meanwhile, these groups like the AlyansaTigilMunaawait the release of results of the Nov 15 presentation of studies and draft policy on the mining bills, saying they were expecting highly from DENR Sec. Ramon Paje, Climate Change Commission Usec. Lucille Sering, Presidential Advisers for the Environment, Neric Acosta and for Climate Change Bebeth Gozun.