Illegal logging threatens Lake Sebu in South Cotabato

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Philippines—Illegal cutting of trees threatens the scenic town of Lake Sebu, dubbed as the Summer Capital of South Cotabato.

Police and local environment officials netted on Saturday 1,316 board feet of Gemelina lumber manufactured out of illegally cut trees.

The lumber was abandoned in remote Talisay village in Lake Sebu town by unidentified men who scampered in different directions upon seeing the law enforcers coming.

Last week, environment officials from the regional office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources seized more than 3,000 board feet of illegally cut hardwood species from the same town.

Also last week, regional and provincial environment workers confiscated about 13,000 board feet of illegal lumber from another remote Tasiman village in Lake Sebu.

This prompted the provincial government to closely monitor illegal logging activities not only in Lake Sebu but in other parts of the province.

Sanguniang Panlalawigan member Ernesto Catedral, chairman of the committee on environment, urged concerned law enforcement agencies to strictly implement environmental laws to protect the remaining forest resources of the province and stop illegal logging.

The provincial government, he said, has been trying to craft a program that would address the problem of illegal logging in the long term.

The provincial government has passed a landmark ordinance banning open pit mining as a method of extracting mineral deposits anywhere in the province.

The passage came despite strong lobbying by the foreign-backed Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI), main proponent of the multibillion-dollar copper and gold exploration project in the mountains of Tampakan town, South Cotabato.