Compostela Valley DENR seizes P2.4M in forest products

The Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR) on Thursday said its agents have seized around P2.4 million worth of lauan logs and other wood products from a sawmill in Monkayo, Compostela Valley. The department had earlier closed sawmill after its permit expired last July. However, DENR officials and local executives in Monkayo discovered that the Royal Wood Enterprises continued to operate, said Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon Paje. Found inside the sawmill compound were 332.71 cubic meters of lauan logs that local officials noted were newly harvested from the natural forest and debunk the papers that Royal Wood presented to them indicating the logs were cut in 2009. Pacoy Que of the DENR Public Affairs Office told GMA News Online in a telephone interview that Royal Wood Enterprise is now undergoing adjudication for submitting papers that supposedly contained false information. Also found were 7,998 board feet of filches and lumber as well as 20 crates of veneer sheets that were placed under the custody of the DENR office in Monkayo. DENR records showed that the sawmill filed tried to renew its permit last March a head of the expiration of its permit on July 31, 2011. But according to DENR-Monkayo Community Environment and Natural Resources Officer Victor Billones, the company did not have a wood supply contract to qualify it for the requirements of EO 23. Billiones noted the sawmill also did not have a business permit from the local government which should have been attached to its renewal application. EO 23 requires sawmills and other wood-processing plants to prove that they have a sustainable source of legally-cut wood for at least five years in order to secure operation permits. — VS, GMA News