Wood producers: Log ban to cut exports, uproot workers

The total log ban that the Palace proposed will slash tens of billions of pesos worth of investments and exports, and uproot more than half a million workers from their jobs, the head of a wood producers’ group said Thursday. Antonio Olizon, president of the Philippine Wood Producers Association, said the proposed log ban will imperil as much as P30 billion in revolving investments and about $1 billion worth of exports of value-added wood products. He added it will leave about 650,000 wood workers jobless, as well as 1.5 million people indirectly employed in wood-using industries. In his visit to flood-ravaged Albay on Friday, President Benigno Simeon Aquino III commented, “I’m thinking of a total log ban everywhere in the country." Olizon called on the government not to make “sweeping actions." He said a log ban will shut down legitimate wood production and timber-dependent industries such as lumber supplies, furniture production, and carpentry. It may also pull up the prices of imported wood, Olizon added. “The wood supply gap will hurt consumers, particularly the lower-income class who might not be able to cope with the inflating cost of wood for housing, and will all the more encourage illegal logging," said the group’s spokesperson Evaristo Narvaez Jr. Narvaez added a log ban may block exports for high-value and high-end wood products estimated to add at least $1 billion to the national treasury. Ban logging in protected, endangered forests The wood producers’ group suggested that government continue imposing a total log ban in all protected and endangered forests while allowing sustainable forestry operations in production forests. The environment group Kalikasan, meanwhile, hit all commercial loggers and not only illegal operators — who they said are criminals all the same whether a log ban exists or not. “If PNoy wants to stop the massive destruction of our forests he should cancel all the permits of all commercial logging concessions and impose a ban on commercial logging," the group said in a statement. The group cited data from the Forest Management Bureau in 2008 that said a million hectares of Philippine forests are under logging concessions. “The Philippines has only 7,168,400 hectares of remaining forest as of 2003," Kalikasan said. “The massive floods and landslides are the result of the historical large scale loggings in the past that continue to operate until today in areas like Southern Leyte, Western Samar, Aurora, Isabela, Quezon, Davao del Norte, and Caraga provinces," the group added. In its statement on Friday, the Palace said a total log ban in all primary forests will “not only abate the effect of climate change but also prevent flooding because trees prevent sediment runoff, and forests hold and use more water than farms on grasslands." — With Paterno Esmaquel II/VS, GMANews.TV