DENR calls on communities to help prevent and control forest fires

PRESS RELEASE                                                            FOR REFERENCE
March 4, 2010                                                                  ALFREDO S. ARAYA
                                                                                         Chief, Regional Public Affairs Office
                                                                                         Telefax: 4820857
                                                                                         Email: araya_rpao5denr@yahoo.com

DENR calls on communities to help prevent and control forest fires

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Horacio C. Ramos has ordered his field officials to step up efforts to prevent forest fires by strengthening their coordination with concerned local government executives and communities to ensure the safety of people and forest vegetation.

"Involving local communities is crucial to prevent and control destructive forest fires. These communities occupy the frontlines in preventing forest fires," said Ramos in an urgent circular, reiterating that the risk of fire had increased as the long dry spell and high temperatures had left large amounts of flammable debris in forest areas.

On top of this, Ramos also ordered all the Regional Executive Directors (REDs) to fully optimize the manpower pool of Department's 3,000 regular forest rangers, who will be augmented by emergency laborers hired by the DENR last year under the Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program (CLEEP) of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo."

Data from DENR's Forest Management Bureau (FMB) shows that each forest ranger is assigned to patrol around 2,133 hectares.

"Even with an augmented workforce, the effort should be very localized because the people who live in the locality know the local conditions best, making it as the most viable alternative to minimize the damage due to fire losses," said Ramos, noting that the strategy hinges mainly on its policy of granting forest stakeholders tenurial instruments over public forest lands that need rehabilitation and protection under the community-based forestry management (CBFM) program.

Nevertheless, he notes that the threats posed by climate change should go beyond the traditional risk season, which generally runs from March to June. "We need to find new ways of approaching the forest fire issue which necessitates rectifying the agency's organizational arrangement for effective progress in forest fire management in the Philippines," Ramos noted, reffering to the present set-up which which gives responsibility for suppressing forest fires to the Bureau of Fire Protection within the Department of Industry and Local Government (DILG) as a result of the implementation of the 1991 Local Government Code.

A 2004-study commissioned by the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) recommended that the DENR should reassume full responsibility to combat forest fire noting that the transfer of such function has reduced the effectiveness of fire management in the country citing that "forest fire management must be seen as a wider social problem, not a narrow technical problem."