CITY OF MALOLOS, Bulacan — The provincial anti-illegal logging task force of Bulacan seized and destroyed 202 assorted pieces of illegally cut lumber and flitches in an operation conducted Thursday inside the Angat Watershed.
Bro. Martin Francisco, chairperson of the Sagip Sierra Madre Environmental Society Inc.(SSMESI) and a member of the task force, told the Philippine News Agency (PNA) that the anti-illegal logging operation was conducted in Mount Balikiran which is situated in Barangays Camachile and Kabayunan in Dona Remedios Trinidad town.
Francisco said that a 15-member team of the task force composed of personnel from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources –Community Environment and Natural Resources Office in Baliwag, SSMESI Bantay Gubat and Bulacan Environment and Natural Resources secretly planned the raid after receiving information of the illegal logging operations being conducted in the said area.
He said that some 202 assorted pieces of chain-saw lumber and flitches composed of giho, red and white lawaan trees measuring approximately 4,237 board feet and worth more or less PHP212,815 were found in an abandoned lumberyard in the said place.
“Since the confiscated lumbers were too heavy to bring down to the impounding area of the provincial government of Bulacan, it was decided that it be documented, burned and destroyed,“ Francisco added.
The abandoned lumber and flitches are believed being stockpiled in the said place by illegal loggers who are selectively cutting and sawing the trees into commercial products inside the Angat Watershed.
Meanwhile, members of a mountaineering group also confided to PNA that last January 14, they encountered illegal loggers using horses transporting lumber flitches in Mount Siam Bundoc.
The western half of the mountain belongs to the Ipo Watershed while the eastern half is part of Angat Watershed.
The mountaineers noted that the unhampered illegal logging operations in the area have been observed for the last two decades. (Manny Balbin/PNA)
