TRENDS (18 January 2010)

Back-to-back wins for LNorte

NEITHER rain nor heat was able to stop the tired but inspired Lanao del Norte contingent as they put on a stunning performance that dazzled the mammoth crowd in Cebu City Sports Center for the Sinulog grand showdown.

The near-perfect performance was enough to give the contingent their second consecutive 4th placed finish in the Free Interpretation Category that had 22 contingents competing. The Land of Beauty and Bounty also won 3rd place in the street dancing competition which was participated in by all contestants in the Sinulog.

The showdown performance capped the 5.1 kilometer route of the Street Dancing Competition which tested the dancers’ endurance as they performed their street dancing routine in seven (7) judging checkpoints along the route.

“The main reason why we’re joining the Sinulog is to be able to show to the entire country and those watching this festival around the world that Lanao del Norte is a peaceful province. And I believe that we have been able to do that here. This win is already a big bonus for us,” Governor Khalid Dimaporo said.

Tribu Himag-ulaw of Placer, Masbate took the 1st place in the Free Interpretation Category while the Sinanduloy Cultural Troupe of Tangub City is starting another winning streak in the Sinulog-based category after failing to grab their 4th straight grand prize in 2008.

This year’s contingent is composed of students from the Kapatagan National High School, the champion in the municipal festivals contest during the golden anniversary of the province.

The consistent high-level performance of ‘The Land of Beauty and Bounty’ contingent is fast making Lanao del Norte a crowd favorite in the annual spectacle.

“The weather really tested the endurance of the students, but I’m sure the prayers of the parents and our supporters here in Cebu and back in the province had a lot to do with our continued success in the Sinulog,” Information Officer Lyndon Calica said.

The winners in the Free Interpretation category were: 1st place – Tribu Himag-ulaw, Placer, Masbate; 2nd place – Lumad Basakanon; 3rd place – Pinta Flores, San Carlos City; 4th place – The Land of Beauty and Bounty / Province of Lanao de Norte; 5th place – Mabolo Elementary School.

Lota Correos, Sinulog Queen of Lanao del Norte, also won 3rd runner up in the Festival Queen competition. (VNL/PIO-Lanao del Norte)


Independent experts team to probe Mis.Or. timber firm

A logging firm allegedly committing technical illegal logging within their concession area in Misamis Oriental will be the maiden case for a scheme hatched last December by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to rid its list of errant holders of forest lease contracts.

This, as Acting DENR Secretary Eleazar Quinto recently ordered the review of the Integrated Forest Management Agreement (IFMA) of Southwood Timber Corp. (STC) by forestry and environmental science experts outside of D ENR to ensure impartiality and transparence in the resolution of the STC case.

“The assessment of the STC case should get underway within this month as efforts to form a panel of experts for the purpose are already in the works,” said Quinto.

Quinto’s move is in response to calls from residents and local officials of Gingoog City and Brgy. Minalwang in the town of Claveria in Misamis Oriental to cancel STC’s IFMA for alleged violations of its lease contract, such as harvesting of old-growth trees from identified protection forest inside the firm’s concession area of 11,475.8 hectares in Gingoog City and a portion of Brgy. Claveria.

As a DENR policy, trees in areas at 1,000 meters above sea level are automatically part of protection forests and should not be cut. Cutting of trees in watershed areas are also prohibited.

Last December, then DENR Secretary Lito Atienza approved the allocation of some PhP8 million to fund the audit of all forest lease contracts to be undertaken by an independent body made up of experts in environmental studies and forestry matters outside of the DENR.

Under STC’s 25-year lease contract, the company shall adopt the selective logging system in the harvesting of the mature and over-mature naturally growing trees within IFMA’s production residual natural forests. The company has also committed to establish tree plantations in open and denuded areas which they can harvest upon maturity.

Development activities in an IFMA are allowed in areas that are open with degraded residual forests, as programmed in the Integrated Operations Plan duly approved by the DENR. Trees that may be incidentally cut in the course of these developmental activities, such as road widening and rehabilitation and tree plantation development, may be allowed provided that the corresponding forest charges are paid to the government. Local government units, from provincial unit down to barangay level, get a share from these forest charges.

As a condition to the approval of STC’s IFMA application, which was approved in May 2008, the firm secured a Certificate of Free Prior and Informed Consent ( FPIC ) from affected indigenous cultural communities living inside STC’s concession area. The FPIC was issued to STC in November, 2007 by the Minalwang Higaonon Tribal Council (MIHITCO) through their chieftain Datu Salagaa a.k.a Allan M. Mandokita. The firm was likewise issued a Certificate of Precondition for its IFMA application by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) under NCIP en banc Resolution No. 221, dated April 3, 2008.

The Minalwang Higaonon Tribal Council was granted a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) over 8,000 hectares of area on November 19, 2009, which is inside STC’s IFMA area.

However, the Higaonon people in the area are now opposing STC’s operation. Environmentalists and church-based groups in the province such as the Ecological Care (EcoCare), the Ecology Desk of the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro, environmentalists have thrown their support to MIHITRICO’S stance against STC. (DENR Press Release)


DENR to enrich the country’s biodiversity awareness this 2010

IN a bid to put a stop to the continuing loss of species throughout the world and increase public awareness on the importance of biodiversity for life on Earth, the United Nations General Assembly declared this year as International Year of Biodiversity (IYB), with the theme, “Biodiversity is Life, Biodiversity is our Life.”

“The loss of biological diversity is essentially the bottom line of what people are doing to this planet and we are losing species at a rate which experts put at a rate that is 1,000 times their natural progression,” Acting Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Eleazar Quinto said.

Quinto cited some of the major threats facing biodiversity which include habitat destruction due to massive deforestation, chemical pollution, biological pollution or introduction of alien invasive species and over-exploitation of biological resources.

"We at the DENR are taking advantage of the celebration to call on our citizenry to actively engage in various efforts to protect our wildlife resources. The Philippines is home to one of the planet’s richest sanctuaries of terrestrial and marine biodiversity but we need stronger cooperation and coordination not only among government agencies but also with other non-government organizations as well as the private sector in the effort to conserve, develop and ensure the perpetuity of our natural wealth for future generations,” Quinto said.

The DENR chief said that the country has long taken pride in its wealth of flora and fauna and urged Filipinos to do their share in making the protection of these unique and endemic species “our top priority.”

The country is one of the top hotspots for biodiversity in the world. Out of our 9,000 species of flowering plants, 227 are included in the Red List of Threatened Species and that 592 out of the country’s 1,137 endemic species of amphibians, birds and mammals have been declared as threatened or endangered.

He stressed that even as government moves to conserve them, everyone must do their share to protect the country’s forests, rivers and other ecosystems, which is home to wildlife.

The DENR chief added that the Philippines, as the official host of the ASEAN Center for Biodiversity (ACB) headquarters, has been spearheading biodiversity conservation in the ASEAN region. ACB is an intergovernmental regional center tasked to facilitate cooperation and coordination among ASEAN member states and with relevant national governments, regional and international organizations on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, or biodiversity.

In addition to this is the DENR’s own information, education and communication (IEC) campaigns to spread awareness on the beauty and the need to protect the country’s varied flora and fauna.

While the celebration of the IYB has began in some parts of the world in November 2009, the official launch will take place in Berlin on January 11, 2010, to be followed by a high-profile meeting at the Paris headquarters of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is expected to bring together heads of states, royalty and their representatives on January 21 -22.

Other major events, to include meetings, symposia, multi-media exhibitions, are scheduled to follow throughout the year in venues around world, from Trondheim, Norway, to Delhi, India, from Doha, Qatar, to Cartagena, Colombia, and from Shanghai, China, to Nairobi, Kenya, culminating in a high-level meeting at UN headquarters in New York at the start of the General Assembly's 65th annual General Debate in September and an official closing in Kanazawa, Japan, in December. (DENR Press Release)