Duterte wants total log ban

Environment officials inspect logs and forest products seized during raids in a Lanao del Sur town. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the creation of a tripartite committee that would study the implementation of a total log ban in the country.

“The President has ordered that a tripartite convergence committee be formed, composed of DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources), DA (Department of Agriculture), and DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government) to discuss details of a total log ban in order to protect our watersheds,” presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a statement.

Duterte gave the instruction during the Climate Change Commission and Advisory Board en banc meeting at Malacañang on Tuesday night.

In a Facebook post, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol said Duterte ordered the DENR “to implement the ban on logging in the country without any exemptions.”

Piñol said he brought up the massive flooding in Mindanao caused by “denuded mountains and heavily-silted rivers.”

Hindi ba total log ban na tayo (Don’t we have a total log ban)? Stop all logging operations with no exemptions,” Piñol quoted Duterte as saying, directing the order to Environment Secretary Regina Paz “Gina” Lopez.

The agriculture chief said Duterte gave Lopez “the full authority to implement the total log ban.”

He said the tripartite convergence committee “was formed to formulate the guidelines in the implementation of a tougher government action against illegal logging.”

The Tri-Partite Committee, he said, would meet on February 6, to formulate the guidelines on the total logging ban.