DUMAGUETE CITY?Thousands of hectares of trees in Negros Oriental worth billions of pesos have been due for harvest but the prospect of earning the money by those who were given the right to farm the trees remained uncertain because of lack of market.

Worse, the trees, mostly of Acacia mangium specie, might be afflicted with diseases.

Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer Oscar Magallones said more than 16,000 hectares of trees covered by reforestation projects in the province have been ready for harvest since two years ago but nobody is willing to buy lumber in bulk.

Magallones said every hectare of reforested area has an average of 1,000 grown trees, mostly of mangium specie, with an average height of 20 meters and 20 to 30 centimeters in diameter.

Mangium, which is widely cultivated for firewood and furniture making, was the principal specie planted during the massive reforestation projects in Negros Oriental from the late 1980s to 2000s, because it has a higher percentage of survival and is easier to grow.

Charlie Fabre, then provincial coordinator of the reforestation projects in the province, said each tree could produce an average of 80 board feet of lumber, or 80,000 bd ft per hectare. If the lumber is sold at P5 a board foot, which is about 50 percent lower than the market price of mangium, each hectare could earn some P400,000 or P6.4 billion for 16,000 hectares, he said.

But Magallones said prospective buyers offered to buy lumber at P2 per board foot only. He said P5 a board foot is reasonable. ?Maybe because of the financial crisis nobody is interested to buy lumber in bulk,? he said.

Growers of the trees, with the help of his office even tried to tap the foreign market but to no avail, he said.

Fabre said based on study, the capacity of mangium tree to absorb carbon dioxide dwindles as its gets older. It is also possible for borers or fungus to attack them, ?so the trees must be cut,? Fabre said.

Many of these trees are already more than 20 years old, he said.

Mangium must be harvested upon reaching the age of 15 to 20 years, he said.

These trees, he said, were grown under the Community-Based Forest Management Agreement
(CBFMA) and the Industrial Forest Management Agreement (Ifma).

Under the CBFMA, reforested areas were turned over to nongovernment organizations or people?s organizations in the area where the project is located for them to manage and maintain the trees. Under the agreement, 75 percent of the proceeds of the trees harvested goes to the community, while the 25 percent is the share of the national government.

In Ifma, he said, the government allows a private individual to plant trees in government land paying P10,000 application fee and P100 per hectare for 25 years. In return, such individual will earn all the proceeds from the trees harvested.

Fabre said the CBFMA and Ifma were adopted by the government in order to ensure that the trees planted will grow and survive.