High-tech equipment to guard forests

Manila: The government is looking at unmanned aircraft as well as software such as Google Earth to protect the country’s forests from illegal activities.

Joselin Marcus Fragada, Davao region executive director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), said the government is eyeing the use of modern equipment such as remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, as well as hand-held X-ray devices, to safeguard the country’s forest cover which is under siege by illegal loggers.

Fragada said in an article by the Philippine Information Agency that they are planning to acquire a device that can see through solid objects such as metal shipping containers where smuggled logs and cut lumber as usually hidden.

The DENR official said the department is planning to buy units of Walleye X-ray imaging system for use by field units in Davao.

Davao City is considered the city in the country with thousands of hectares of forestland, most of which are in remote areas where illegal logging can take place without the knowledge of authorities.

President Benigno Aquino, early this year, issued an executive order imposing an indefinite ban on logging until 2016 in an effort to preserve the country’s remaining forest cover.

Illegal harvest of timber had often been blamed for causing massive flooding in several areas of the country that cost the lives of hundreds of Filipinos every year.

The country’s forest cover has also been cited as one of the most critically endangered in the world.

Illegal logging has also been blamed for disrupting the balance of the country’s ecosystem with the loss of so many trees that sustain life for so many species of plants and animals.

Aside from plans to use X-ray technology, the DENR said it plans to acquire drones to monitor the forest and detect illegal logging activities.

Other than drones and X-ray equipment, authorities said they will also use readily available software, such as satellite images provided by Google Earth, to zero in on local illegal logging sites.

Another plan by the DENR, calls for placing radio frequency tags on young trees to alert authorities if they are prematurely cut.

Authorities have increasingly find it difficult to enforce the ban on logging as well-financed syndicates, some with connection with authorities, continue to flaunt the country’s law on the illegal harvest of timber.