Davao City conservation areas tagged

With the city reeling from flooding, drought and other extreme weather conditions, city officials are now bent on enforcing an ordinance protecting critical watershed areas and cushioning the effects of climate change.

The officials and concerned barangay (village) leaders pledged support to fully implement the Watershed Code and set up a monitoring body before the yearend in a forum here on Friday.

“We recognize the urgency of protecting, conserving and managing the city’s watersheds to ensure balance of ecology and ensure sufficient water source for Davao, present and future,” a pledge of commitment signed by 37 local leaders read.

The landmark watershed ordinance had once caught the attention of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization after it was approved in 2007. It classified 34,254 hectares, or 14 percent of the city’s total land size, as conservation areas where land conversion, commercial tree planting, water drilling and even hunting, destroying or mere possession of any plant are strictly banned.

It also identified lands as agroforestry nontillage areas, where single cropping is prohibited. Single-crop plantations would be given only three years to phase out and transfer elsewhere.

After the city council passed its implementing rules in 2008, the ordinance, however, hardly took off.