Baguio City Council eyes 5-year moratorium on tree cutting

PROTECTION Baguio officials are turning to legislation to protect the remaining tree cover of the city. —EV ESPIRITU

BAGUIO CITY, Benguet, Philippines — A proposed measure seeking to suspend for five years the cutting of pine trees here was filed in the city council recently amid the outrage over more than 100 trees felled by developers and government contractors in June.

The proposal, filed by three councilors last week, would allow regulators to review and amend environmental laws and improve zoning ordinances to prevent more trees from being cut.

In the House of Representatives, Baguio Rep. Marquez Go also filed a bill seeking a 10-year moratorium on tree cutting in the city, whose forest cover has dwindled to 28.58 percent.

An inventory ordered by Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu last year pegged Baguio’s tree population at 2.5 million, including 500,000 pine trees. Trees thrive in 700 of 1,400 hectares of government reservations in the city as well as in 800 ha of the Baguio townsite.

Ban on exemptions

Developers have also penetrated residential communities with extensive tree cover, prompting the city planning office to ask the council to include a moratorium on the processing of zoning exemptions.

According to Rhenan Diwas, the city environment officer, the local government intends to identify and preserve private lands with a substantial number of trees should a moratorium take effect.

Under the city’s environment code, the local government may acquire properties it classifies as “safeguarded lands” through eminent domain to preserve the trees, Diwas said.

Petition

Last year, Mayor Benjamin Magalong asked Malacañang to impose a one-year moratorium on tree cutting and high-rise building construction in the city so he could rehabilitate public services like sewerage and waste management.

A 2019 study showed that Baguio has breached the carrying capacity of many of its resources, particularly its forest cover, that relate to its potable water supply and the increasing temperature.

But Ralph Pablo, Cordillera director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, urged the city council to exempt from the proposed moratorium some government projects as well as the cutting of trees that threaten life and property such as those along cliffs that may erode.

—Vincent Cabreza