ILLEGALLY cut logs from the Sierra Madre await transport on the shore of Infanta town, Quezon province, in 2012. Illegal logging on the mountain range continues. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
LUCENA CITY – Operatives of the Quezon Environment Enforcement Group (QEEG) intercepted on Wednesday some 3,000 board feet (7.08 cubic meters) of illegally cut narra logs while these were being towed in the seas off Panukulan, Quezon, a provincial environment official said.
Manny Calayag, community coordinator of Quezon Environment and Natural Resource Office (Quezon-ENRO), said members of the QEEG team were conducting anti-illegal logging operations when they spotted a motorized boat towing several logs fronting the island-town of Panukulan.
Calayag said the suspects escaped leaving behind the freshly cut narra believed to have been brought down from the Sierra Madre.
According to Calayag, the environmental team did not go after the suspects because they were armed. Illegal logging syndicates in the Sierra Madre employ armed men for protection, according to Agta tribesmen.
“The operation is still ongoing. The QEEG operatives are still searching for more floating logs,” Calayag said over the phone.
Last May 30, QEEG operatives also seized more than 4,000 board feet (9.44 cubic meters) of red lauan, another hard wood species, while being smuggled out of the Sierra Madre via the Umiray River.
Umiray River, which connects Aurora and Quezon provinces and ends at the mouth of Pacific Ocean in Infanta, Quezon, is often used to transport illegal logs from Sierra Madre.
“The logs were abandoned by illegal loggers when they sensed that the QEEG operatives were on their tracks,” Calayag said.
QEEG operatives have been monitoring the sea and the rivers in the Sierra Madre on the order of Quezon Gov. David Suarez, who formed the team to complement the provincial government’s reforestation program particularly in the denuded parts of the mountain range.
Suarez said authorities needed to be more daring in stopping environmental crimes in order to tell illegal loggers that the provincial government was serious in protecting Quezon’s environment.