Impose total log ban now

Impose total log ban now
By Neal Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:27:00 02/04/2011

In the Philippines, areas that were not flooded before are now being flooded. The Visayas and Mindanao are right now being drenched with heavy rains. Pagasa said we will have a very wet summer and that more and stronger typhoons will slam into the country during the year. The Philippines is in the midst of a “climate-related creeping disaster,” Pagasa warned.

With the rains come the floods and landslides, and they are occurring so often that they are no longer big news. Among the causes are the bald mountainsides. Thick forests on the mountainsides were able to soak up the heavy rains before. Now, with the mountains bald, the waters rush down to the plains below and take with them soil and rocks in landslides that bury whole villages in their paths.

President Aquino has said he is planning a total log ban, but until now he has not followed that up. Meanwhile, time is running out.

Consumers of wood, such as the makers of furniture and woodcraft, have voiced their opposition to a total log ban. That is to be expected. But the safety and well-being of millions of Filipinos take precedence over the livelihood of wood users.

Wood users can go into tree farming. They can harvest what they plant after five years. In-between, they can import what they need.

The construction industry is also expected to protest a total log ban. The construction industry is the biggest user of wood. The sad part is that most of the wood is wasted. Most of the wood do not become part of a house. They are used as scaffolding and form lumber and end up as firewood after the house is finished.

This is very wasteful of a rapidly depleting natural resource. Modern contractors now use steel as scaffolding. These can be used again and again. And most parts of houses and buildings are no longer wood but steel, concrete and recycled plastic. In the United States, houses are made mostly of plastic. The walls look like wood, with grains and all, or like bricks, stucco, and other building materials. But they are all made of plastic or nylon. Bathrooms come in molded plastic. Toilet bowls, sinks, bathtubs, shower stalls come together in one package, ready for installation.

The beauty of synthetic materials is that they are water-proof, termite proof, and don’t rot and decay like wood. They are also easier and faster to install and much lighter than concrete and wood. Our construction industry should catch up with the times.

Stopping logging does not mean stopping only the big-time loggers with the logging concessions. The biggest destroyers of forest are the illegal loggers, the so-called “carabao loggers.” They enter forests and cut trees undetected. They cut the logs into lumber and then haul them to the lowlands by carabao. Others roll the logs down steep mountainsides to rivers and float them to where they can be hauled over land. Still others leave the logs on the mountainsides and wait for heavy rains and floods to wash them down to the rivers. That is why after a big flood, many rivers are choked with floating logs.

But a big destroyer of forests whom we have overlooked are the charcoal-makers. They cut down even small trees left by the loggers and burn them into charcoal. Charcoal-makers are decimating the trees at the Marikina Watershed Reservation. They have invaded the reforested area planted with Benguet pines in the Tanay area by the Seedling Bank Foundation.

Watersheds are like termite-eaten wood. The loggers and charcoal-makers do not cut the trees surrounding a forest. They cut the trees deep inside. So from the outside, the forests look undisturbed. Inside, however, there are no more trees, as if giant termites have ravished them.

Go into the watershed of Angat Dam or the watersheds of the other dams. You will find the sorry spectacle of the handiwork of the carabao loggers and charcoal-makers.

But where will the thousands of sidewalk barbecue stalls, ihaw-ihaw restaurants, and lechon manok stands get their charcoal? you ask. From farm wastes such as coconut coir and shells, palay husks, hay, sugarcane fronds, wood chips, leaves, cogon and talahib grass—any organic thing can be compressed into charcoal.

What do we do with the palay husks after milling? They are burned at roadsides. What do we do with the rice stalks left standing after a harvest. They are burned. Sugarcane fields are first burned before harvesting the cane. Cogon and talahib stands are routinely burned every summer. Millions of tons of coconut husks are left under the coconut groves after the copra have been extracted. Leaves are swept up and burned in backyards every day.

These are all a waste of energy and contributes to global warming. Carbon dioxide produced by burning rises to the ozone layer that traps sunlight that warms the globe and melts the ice sheets. The melted water raise the ocean levels and submerges low-lying islands and coastal areas. In time, the Philippines will no longer be a country of 7,000 islands. Many of the islands would disappear. So would the beach resorts in the bigger islands, including Boracay.

But the agricultural wastes don’t have to be burned. They can be turned into charcoal. That would provide the ihaw-ihaw stands their charcoal but at the same time save our remaining forests and the villages below them. The technology already exists to do that.

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