Marlo Mendoza is the architect of one of the most ambitious regional programs in the world. His office at the University of Philippines in Laguna is filled with books about trees and nature conservation.
Hump at his desk, he flies with a 1.8 billion seedlings of more than 2 million hectares (about 4.9 million acres) in the Philippines, praising the successes of his project through a bright government brochure.
Millions of indigenous trees have repeated and are now growing in the forests, doing carbon sequence and supporting wildlife.
Swadeshi and agricultural communities give yield between forests and former wood cutters now manage tree fields.
Communities were sidelined in redistribution attempt
This is what Mendoza dreamed – however, he believes that it is far from reality on the ground.
“We raised the whole citizen to plant, but where are all trees planted?” Mendoza told DW. “I made manual; Many commissions were not followed.”
The Philippines National Greening Program (NGP) was launched in 2011 as an ambitious response for decades of deforestation, which became a major issue during the 1970s and 1980s.
But the NGP struggled with natural resource looting, which reduced the Philippines’ forest cover and replaced the community and indigenous forests with plantation of aggressive foreign species.
Analysis of millions of satellites suggests that many of the NGP land experience the harvesting of a major forests as one of each 25 hectares of land: that is, barren sites are the opposite, instead of rejuvenating – the opposite – the forests are closed before or during it.
Not more often, the sites are managed by communities that are only with short -term access to the land. They are requesting to develop single cash crops attached to unstable global commodity markets, which do not provide a stable income.
A group of environmental investigators carried out analysis, stating that the results highlight a new pattern of “greenwashing” – a marketing strategy used to create a product or service seems better to the environment.
Among the most common objects grown on sites, including wood and fruits, is a green stamp of approval, which is eligible for exports worldwide.
This includes the European Union, despite the European Union deforestation regulation (EUDR), which requires traders to prove that the products do not come from deforestation after 2020.
Most of EUD’s attention has focused on the challenges of small farmers that their land is not associated with the harvesting of the previous forests.
Investigators stated that image analysis shows that objects on these sites have been grown under permanent permanent banner.
Country trees cleaned to grow cash crops
Additionally, the analysis suggested that forest loss on NGP sites can be more wider than earlier.
Communities trying to take advantage of NGP funds in the clearing of the forests were involved.
Palavan was again included in the Greening Program Sites in an area of Eduardo Corona, the Philippines, stating that one of the most disappointing parts of his job was seizing the NGP, which was used to clean the native forests and was powerless to stop despite trying the alarm.
Korona was to receive one of the complaints filed with its superiors, which belongs to the UNESCO-recognized Mount Mantlinghan protected landscape.
The Denr Forest Management Bureau (FMB) told investigators that some forest clearing site was part of the preparation, especially in the area dominated by aggressive species. He claimed that clearing was an essential step under technical supervision that allows native species to flourish.
The bureau explains that the monitoring of the program beyond the three -year planting contracts is limited to the scale of the program and the scale of the budget, with a site inspection performed by sampling instead of complete verification.
In cases where the sites failed to meet the survival rates, they attracted the minimum amount for non-transportation of community partners rather than flaws in the design of the program.
Investigations stated that independent audit and field reports suggest that deep issue-poor site selection, limited community support, and weak long-term stability scheme-reministed-andressed.
A community regreing program for communities to secure tenure for ‘very complex’ communities
A major sales point of the re-grating program is that local communities will be given unused land to grow crops, so they will not need to cut forests to survive.
But the process of applying is such a complex that most communities quit demanding long -term tenure and gain access to land for only three years.
Mendoza recalled cases where community groups were accessible to land, but not crop rights. Many were overwell with the application process and finally left in an attempt to get long -term access.
This led to disappointment and sometimes illegal logging activities. , [community group] Can be disappointed then [they] Enter illegal sales transactions and [are] Forced to cut trees illegally, “he said.
Monoculture reduces permanent livelihood
The regular program that is designed so that the community can develop local products for their own consumption. Instead, most are forced to increase risky cash crops for exports, including exports to the European Union.
According to Mendoza, communities will need both and options to work to the NGP, so that a permanent mix of crops can be detected to guarantee income for their families. He neither got it.
For those who had done it for a safe term, which guarantees 25 years of reach in the country, the general mandate of the government for the government’s community groups increased any hope for successfully living from the country to develop a single cash crop.
Single crop sites-often growing rapidly, inexpensive wooden trees and markets are unsafe for accidents, disease and all other problems that bring monoculture with it, including loss of biodiversity.
More than half of the specified production sites have been tanned by more than 1 million hectares. Six of the 10 hectares are monoculture – sites that are growing just a commodity crop – which are widely uncertain for local communities.
One -third of the land under the NGP is below the UD and a single commodity crop is growing, the lowest durable combination of all.
Forgotten native forests
What is the intention of re -organizing and protecting the native rainforests.
Among the 130,000 sites covering more than 2 million hectares in the Philippines, some sites have been designated as security areas – where indigenous rainforest and biodiversity that the theme is with the theme was to flourish – no tree cover.
According to the latest satellite imagery, there is no tree covering more than one third of those sites.
Journalism Europe and Environment Data Reporting by Journalism Academy, Internet ‘Earth’ A program of Journalism Network and Thib.
This article is part of the forest female investment, which uses remote sensing technology, global supply chain tracking and ground reporting to highlight the drivers of deforestation in the protected area in Southeast Asia.
Edited by: Keith Walker
