DENR OKs cutting of 500 trees in Pangasinan

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan—Tree-cutting activities along the Manila North Road (MNR) in Pangasinan went full blast on Monday after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) issued a permit to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to cut more than 500 trees.

Emmanuel Diaz, head of the DPWH second engineering district based in Rosales town, said his office received the tree-cutting permit on Nov. 19.

“The trees should go. We have to finish the project by the end of this year,” Diaz said by telephone on Monday.

The condemned trees are what remained of the 1,829 trees marked for cutting in November 2013 along the 42-kilometer stretch of the MNR in the towns of Rosales, Villasis, Binalonan, Pozorrubio and Sison, and in Urdaneta City. They were spared when DPWH’s tree-cutting permit expired in February 2014.

Many of the trees were girdled. Girdling refers to the process of peeling off bark from a tree trunk to prevent nutrients from circulating inside the tree.

Nongovernment organizations have challenged the DPWH’s tree-cutting permit application in a court in Urdaneta City, urging it to issue a temporary environmental protection order to save the remaining trees.

But as the court heard the case, 181 trees were felled in September because these were either dead or dying from girdling.

Diaz said if the road widening project would not be completed by the end of the year, the fund would revert to the national coffers.

He could not say if the DPWH contractor would be able to finish cutting the remaining trees within the 45-day period given by the DENR.

Fernando Estrada, Community Environment and Natural Resources officer, said DENR personnel were supervising the tree cutting.

In a statement e-mailed to the Inquirer, environmental group Greenresearch condemned the DENR and its issuance of a new tree-cutting permit.

“Once more, [Environment Secretary] Ramon Paje and his leadership team have betrayed us and sided with former [Rep.] Mark Cojuangco and his minions in the DPWH and other traditional politicians, who lusted and plotted to kill all 1,800 plus trees along the MNR in Pangasinan,” said the statement, which was sent by Patria Gwen Borcena, Greenresearch environmental sociologist.

Cojuangco, the former representative of Pangasinan’s fifth district that included the towns and city traversed by the MNR, had openly supported the tree cutting, saying the trees encroached on the road’s right of way.

Greenresearch also said Paje and his leadership team had issued several tree-cutting permits in different parts of the country.

“Their controversial National Greening Program will not be enough to compensate for the massacre of thousands of trees in many provinces,” it said. Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon