Illegal logging takes toll on Palaui

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

TUGUEGARAO CITY—Illegal logging is taking its toll on the protected Palaui island in Santa Ana town in Cagayan province, environment officials confirmed on Saturday, following the discovery of about 10,000 board feet of felled hardwood trees deep in the island’s forests.

Benjamin Tumaliuan, chair of the Protected Area Management Board in Cagayan Valley, said a multisectoral task force has been formed to retrieve the illegally cut trees from the island.

Tumaliuan, who is also Cagayan Valley regional director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), said a task force composed of representatives of the DENR, the Philippine Navy, the Philippine National Police, the Philippine Coast Guard and the Santa Ana government has started an investigation of the logging operations.

The probe, however, hit a snag after officials allegedly bickered over the handling of the seized logs, he said.

“The problem is that there is a squabble among local officials,” Tumaliuan said.

He said these officials, whom he did not name, began blaming each other for the logging activities on Palaui, a 2,439-hectare island, which was declared a terrestrial and marine protected area under Proclamation No. 447 issued on Aug. 16, 1994.

Tumaliuan said Navy men found in late July a still undetermined volume of felled narra (Pterocarpus indicus) and kamagong (Diospyros blancoi) trees in a part of the forest in the sub-village of Aguab.

“We cannot yet measure the volume because we have not finished retrieving these from the forest. They will have to be taken to the lowland first,” Tumaliuan said.

Sources, however, said the investigating team found 30 cut narra and kamagong trees, with an estimated volume of 10,000 board feet, or a haul big enough to fill two 18-wheel trucks.

Local politicians also blamed Santa Ana Mayor Darwin Tobias and DENR officials for tolerating illegal logging and maneuvering the sale of the confiscated forest products to a favored local trader of construction materials.

Tobias, however, denied the allegations.

In a telephone interview on Saturday, he said: “People on the island know who are behind these illegal logging activities, but they are afraid to speak up because they know the perpetrators have strong backing.”

Tobias did not identify the alleged loggers.

He also dismissed insinuations that he was manipulating the sale of the illegally cut logs.

“I never meddled in decisions [as to] how the logs would be disposed,” Tobias said.

A portion of the total volume of felled trees, Tobias said, were supposed to have been sold to recoup expenses for cutting, retrieval, hauling and transporting the logs from the island to the DENR office in mainland Santa Ana.