Benguet environmental group hits DENR for allowing mining tenements inside watersheds

By: Arthur L. Allad-iw, Northern Dispatch Weekly (special to InterAksyon.com)
September 10, 2015 10:24 PM

InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

BAGUIO CITY – While the regional office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) eyes seven sites as protected areas, an environment group in Benguet scores the said office for allowing mining tenements on watersheds which are protected areas.

In an interview, Pastor Vergel Aniceto, chairman of KAIABANG, said that the situation showed the double-bladed policy of the state which declared watershed and protected areas but allowed mining in the said areas. KAIABANG is a provincial alliance of community and sectoral organizations in Benguet where it (KAIABANG) is also the provincial chapter of the Cordillera People’s Alliance.

Based on DENR-CAR documents, the mining tenements within the watershed or protected areas total to 817,380.0186 hectares or 44.68 percent from the region’s total area of 1,829,370 hectares.

The tenements are as follows: Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) is 13,167.12 hectares or 1.6 percent of 817,380.0186 hectares tenement; Application for Financial and Technical Agreement Areas is 729,996.3086 or 89.30 percent of the total tenement; Exploration Permit Areas is 10,522.02 hectares or 1.287 percent of the tenement; and Application for Mineral Production Sharing Agreement Areas is 63,694.57 hectares or 7.79 percent of the tenement.

Earlier, DENR-CAR Director Ralph Pablo shared to media that they are eyeing seven sites to be added to the proclaimed and initial protected areas. He claimed that the declaration is part of their biodiversity conservation programs.

Pablo said the region is endowed with beautiful areas that need to be protected, adding that biodiversity conservation plays an important role in the protection of forestland and watersheds.  

The seven sites have a total land area of 188,693.866 hectares, which are as follows:
• Aran Cave in Twin Peaks, Tuba, Benguet with 107 hectares;
• Marag Valley in Luna, Apayao with 10,786 hectares;
• Agora Wildlife Sanctuary in Pudtol, Apayao with 2,816 hectares;
• Nagan-Maton River in Barangay Lydia, Pudtol, Apayao with 3,533 hectares;
• Quilling Cave with 50.866 hectares;
• Mt. Kalawitan in Sabangan, Mountain Province with 12,143 hectares; and,
• Mt. Poswey in Tubo, Abra with 3,168 hectares.

Those proclaimed earlier as protected area is the Upper Agno River Basin Resource Center with 77,698 hectares. The initial automatic protected areas, based on the National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) Act, are the following:
• Mount Pulag National Park with 11,550 hectares;
• Cassamata Hill National Park in Abra with 57 hectares;
• Balbalasang-Balbalan National Park in Kalinga with 20,864 hectares;
• Mt. Data National Park in Benguet and Mountain Province with 5,512 hectares;
• Marcos Highway Watershed Forest Reservation with 6,105 hectares; and
• Lower Agno Watershed Forest Reserve with 34,304 hectares.

Aniceto criticized the DENR program as superficial as they claimed to protect the biodiversity areas on one hand but allow mining in the protected areas.

He cited documents that showed that present mining applications are done inside and outside the protected areas which totals to almost 70 percent of the total land area of the region.

He urged the government agency to instead seriously adopt the indigenous systems in the management of forests and other resources in the region which have been proven effective for sustainable environment.

“The participation of indigenous communities is important as they are the real stewards of the environment,” pointed Aniceto, who is an Ibaloi from Itogon, Benguet. interaksyon.com