By Jocelyn P. Alvarez
PAGADIAN CITY, Oct. 30 (PIA) - - The Department of
Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will be designating forest-pest- watch
officers per DENR Administrative
Order (DAO) 2012-05 issued by Environment Secretary Ramon J.P Paje.
DENR 9 Regional Public Affairs office Chief Roservirico Tan
said DAO 2012-06 stipulates the designation of a Forest Surveillance and
Monitoring Officer (FPSMO) in every Community Environment and Natural Resources
Office (CENRO) with forests under its jurisdiction.
Noting in order, Tan said the FPSMO is task to perform
regular forest inspection activities in his/ her area of jurisdiction and coordinate
with the forest tenure holders, private plantation owners, protected area
supervisors, or indigenous peoples (IP) groups, and local communities.
The active information chief said this preparation is in
consonance with the department’s implementation of a Forest Pest
Surveillance System, a system that will monitor/detect malevolent signs of forest fungi and insect, or collectively
known as forest pests that can damage forests.
In the process of
implementation, the department will need more forest guards to carry out the said
system, so hiring of more forest guards is included in the plan, Tan said.
Tan however clarified that the forest-pest-watch duties of
the forest guards forms part of the CENRO’s regular forest protection
activities “with or without infestation.”
Tan said the administrative order likewise provides for a set
of guidelines to carry out a forest pest response mechanism that will include the preparation of a blueprint of action
“to totally eliminate the pest and prevent similar incidence” in case of an outbreak of forest pest infestation.
“Also covered in the order is the pest surveillance of forest
within ancestral domains where indigenous people’s leaders are to be
coordinated closely with by the concerned CENRO,” Tan was quoted as saying.
Tan recalled “in 1985,
a forest pest called “jumping
lice” (Leucaena psyllids), wrought
havoc in ipil-ipil tree (Leucaena Leucocephala) plantations
in the uplands covered by the DENR’s Community-Based Forestry Program (CBFM) to
the point that a moratorium in the planting of the species was
recommended, except for research, until
seeds of resistant varieties became available.”
Tan
enumerated that the beehole borer that attack the acacia, yemane and gmelina
arborea; the six-spined engraver beetle or ipis beetle which feed on the Benguet pine; shoot Borer on Mahogany;
varicose borer on bagras; and teak defoliator and teak skeletonizer on teak are other forest pests that have been recorded to have infected trees thriving
in the Philippine forests. (JPA/PIA9)
