DENR seeks to extend Banahaw closure

Mt. Banahaw. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) planned to extend for eight more years the public closure of Mt. Banahaw to protect its gains from its being off limits to trekkers for almost a decade.

Salud Pangan, DENR park superintendent for Banahaw, on Monday said the mountain’ 8-year closure would end on Jan. 29, but Banahaw would need five to eight more years of closure to complete its healing process.

Pangan, in a phone interview, said she would recommend the mountain’s continued closure to the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB), the multisectoral body tasked by the government to monitor state-declared protected areas.

Religious pilgrims trek to Banahaw, known as a “sacred mountain,” to experience something divine particularly during the Lenten season, as they believe it is inhabited by heavenly spirits.

Before its closure, about half a million people regularly visited the mountain during Holy Week.

Pangan said her office lacked the manpower that would safeguard Banahaw from the influx of mountaineers and pilgrims should it be declared open by January 29.

She said at least 12 personnel are needed to assist visitors and effectively guard the mountain but her office has only six people guarding Banahaw (4 in the Quezon side and 2 in the Laguna side).

The influx of outsiders would also “jeopardize” the newly planted trees that need at least three years to survive, she said.

Last year, Governor David Suarez launched a reforestation project dubbed “Plant and Grow One Million Trees Securing Quezon’s Future” and  allocated P1 million a year for the next 15 years to rehabilitate Mt. Banahaw.

Pangan also noted that the towns in Quezon and Laguna surrounding Banahaw have no concrete plans to cope with the reopening of the mountain.

Mt. Banahaw covers 11,133.30 hectares straddling the municipalities of Lucban, Tayabas, Sariaya, Candelaria and Dolores in Quezon and parts of the towns of Rizal, Nagcarlan, Liliw and Majayjay and San Pablo City in Laguna.

Lawyer Sheila de Leon, head of environmentalist group Tanggol Kalikasan-Southern Luzon, supported Pangan’s plan, saying the PAMB was not yet prepared to handle the sudden influx of people who would want to enter the mountain after its long closure.

Joel Suministrado, a mountaineer and environmentalist, also welcomed an extension of the closure, recalling the huge amounts of garbage they had to remove from Banahaw during their annual cleanups when it was still open to the public.

He advised DENR to start formulating guidelines and structures on how the mountain climbing activities at Banahaw could be regulated once it reopens.

In 2004, the PAMB started a five-year program to rehabilitate the mountain damaged by slash-and-burn farming and by trekkers who littered the place with trash.