Total ban declared on logging in Mindanao region

Manila: Authorities in the resource-rich Muslim autonomous region have declared a total ban on harvesting timber in a bid to preserve the area's remaining forests.

Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Solicitor General Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi said in a report reaching Manila that ARMM Governor Datu Zaldy Ampatuan had declared a total logging ban in the region's five provinces, namely Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and the island-provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

"All shipments of logs from any part of the ARMM to any destination, whether in other parts of Mindanao, in the Visayas and Luzon are now prohibited. Violators will be dealt with accordingly," Guiani-Sayadi said.

Some of the few remaining forests in the Philippines can be found in the ARMM and Guiani-Sayadi said the logging ban would be a major step in preserving the country's forests.

Similarly, Guiani-Sayadi said the governor, in a separate directive, ordered ARMM Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Kabuntalan Emblawa to revoke all logging permits he had issued in order for the total log ban to take off.

Concern over the preservation of the forests and the environment in general, have come to the fore in the wake of recent disasters that have been blamed on the country's depleting woodland areas.

Soil erosion incidents, including the recent landslide tragedy in Guisaugon town in Central Philippines? Leyte, had been attributed to unabated cutting of timber.

Although environmental groups had called for a total logging ban, the national government had found it difficult to enforce the restrictions for some reasons.

In 1996, experts commissioned by then-ARMM Governor Lininding Pangandaman found that loggers were ravaging a hectare of the region's 200,000 hectares of forest lands every month.