LUCENA CITY –– Anti-illegal logging operatives seized P53,000 worth of illegally cut lumber in Infanta town in Quezon province late Monday afternoon.
A report from the Quezon police said combined police and Department of Environment and Natural Resources operatives confiscated 80 pieces of “falcata” lumber at the Magallanes beach resort in Barangay Dinahocan around 5 p.m.
The seized illegal products were worth P27,370 in the underground market.
On Sunday, authorities also confiscated P26,500 worth of hot lumber of the same tree species in the same place.
The lumber were found aboard a motorboat anchored at the same resort.
The reported boat owner Raymart de Leon, a resident of General Nakar town, was not around during the operation.
The boat and seized lumber were placed under DENR custody in Real town for proper disposition.
The environmentalist group Save Sierra Madre Network Alliance said illegal logging had returned in the longest mountain range in the country.
Sierra Madre hosts the largest remaining tract of old-growth tropical rainforest in the Philippines.
It spans Luzon’s northeastern coast from Cagayan province in the north to Quezon province in the south.