Stop illegal loggers and charcoal-makers

Pictures don’t lie. Pictures of the flood-devastated areas in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan show many cut logs scattered on the wasteland. The logs were washed down the mountain by the torrents of water. Most likely, they crashed into the houses, causing the houses to collapse and get carried away by the floodwaters.

That can only mean that illegal logging was going on in the forests because legal logging has been phased out.

And this is what is happening to our forests everywhere. First, the logging concessionaires come in, build roads through the forests and start cutting the trees. After they leave, the illegal loggers come in, cutting the immature trees left standing. They leave the logs where they were cut to dry, then come back later to saw them into lumber. That is to escape detection. Up there in the forests, they cannot be seen cutting up the logs. Such were the logs washed down by the raging torrents, the logs that destroyed the houses.

After the illegal loggers come the charcoal-makers who cut even the saplings and burn them into charcoal. Thus, no tree roots are left to hold the soil together. When it rains, the cascading water carries the soil down the mountainsides. With each rain, more and more soil is carried away until only bare rock is left. Thus, the water rushes down more violently.

Meanwhile, the mud carried down by the water is deposited at the bottom of the waterways which become shallower and made to hold less water. Thus, the rivers overflow their banks faster and flood the surrounding areas.

Unless illegal logging and charcoal-making are stopped completely, there will be more and worse floods and landslides. The trouble, where will the construction industry get its lumber? There is a big demand for lumber and the illegal loggers supply some of it.

First, the construction industry must learn to use less wood and more recyclable steel. Philippine construction is very wasteful of wood, a throwback to the time when we still had plenty of wood in the forests.

Form lumber, or the scaffolding used in the construction of residential homes, is wasted after use. They are simply cut into firewood after the house is finished. Some contractors are already using reusable steel scaffoldings but the smaller ones still waste a lot of wood. Coco lumber from coconut trees are filling in some of the demand.

But at the rate we are cutting down coconut trees, all those coconut plantations would soon be gone, just like our forests. So builders should learn to use less wood.

Second, we should be allowed to import wood for the finishing touches like flooring, walls, doors, cabinet paneling and furniture. But that means the forests of wood-exporting countries would be depleted and that would hasten global warming and climate change.

The furniture and woodcraft industries are already running out of wood. Very soon, our furniture-making industry would become extinct—just like the rattan furniture industry after our forests ran out of rattan—unless we import wood. But that would only be transferring the problem to another country, a problem, by the way, that would later on have repercussions on the whole world.

Worse, our sculpture and woodcraft are also running out of wood. Ask the woodcarvers of Paete, Laguna, and they will tell you that it is also becoming more difficult to procure pieces of wood for use in their craft.

And then where will you get the charcoal to feed the voracious appetite of all the ihaw-ihaw restaurants and sidewalk barbecue stands? The big demand for charcoal is the reason many people in the countryside have turned to charcoal-making.

But we already have the technology to make charcoal out of agricultural wastes. Palay husks, coconut coir, coco shells, hay, cogon and talahib, sawdust, sugarcane stalks, corncobs, twigs and leaves, even grass and weeds can all be compressed and turned into charcoal bricks. A former congressman is already making and selling these charcoal bricks. The trouble is he owns the patent for the technology and machine.

So why does not the Department of Science and Technology buy the patent from him and propagate the making of charcoal? That will give more income to the farmers and other people in the countryside. At the same time, it will continue to supply all the ihaw-ihaw and barbecue stands with charcoal. It is also an export product. Do you know that Singapore imports plenty of charcoal?

Our agriculture is very wasteful. Many agricultural byproducts like palay husks and coconut coir are just thrown away or burned when they can earn more income for the farmers. One prime example is the coconut water from millions of nuts made into copra. This coconut water is just thrown away when it can be turned into vinegar and even wine.

When President Aquino came home from the United States sometime ago, he raved about the fad for coconut water there. Coco water is supposed to be a health drink. A local company is already producing and selling coconut water in plastic packs. It costs more than the ordinary soft drinks but is better tasting and more healthful. P-Noy raved about the billions of dollars we can earn if we export young coconuts or buko juice to the United States.

The trouble is when you pick the young buko for export, there would be no mature coconuts left to be made into copra. But the coconut water in the buko is the same as the water in the mature coconuts which we just throw away when making copra. Why not sell this coco water instead and make the coco farmers earn more?