Reforestation drive of ARMM government gaining headway

COTABATO CITY --- The government has reportedly reforested via cross-section initiatives 23,104 hectares of denuded hinterlands in five southern provinces in the past six years.Hadji Kahal Kedtag, regional secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said Tuesday the feat is offshoot of the total ban on logging operations in the ARMM that Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman declared in early 2012. We have an array of video footage and photos to show what we have achieved in enforcing that ban and in reforesting logged over areas, mostly around protected watersheds, Kedtag said in a message during Tuesday’s regional Gawad Kalikasan 2018 awards rite in the ARMM capitol in Cotabato City.Kedtag, lawyer Laisa Masuhud Alamia, who is ARMM's executive secretary, and Brig. Gen. Juvymax Uy of the Army's 6th Infantry Division jointly presided over the ceremony, capped off with the grant of special citations to 10 entities, including an Army brigade, for helping preserve the region’s rain forest and shorelines with mangrove vegetation.The Army’s 603rdBrigade, the Foundation for the Philippine Environment, the Hineleban Foundation, Inc., the local government units ofWao in Lanao del Sur, North Upi, Datu Abdullah Sangki, Ampatuan, Parang and Datu Odin Sinsuat, all in Maguindanao, and lawyer Randolph Parcasio each received citation plaques from the DENR-ARMM.The Notre Dame Broadcasting Corporation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate congregation and its sister-outfit, the Mindanao Cross weekly Catholic newspaper, station dxMY of the Radio Mindanao Network and the Philippine Star also received plaques recognizing their roles in promoting DENR-ARMM’s environment-protection thrust by helping educate the public on the importance of the region’s rainforests and eco-systems.Hataman, now in his second term as ARMM’s regional governor, outlawed poaching of forest trees in Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur in mainland Mindanao and in the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi after typhoons hit and devastated parts of the region in late 2011.Kedtag, who handed out a matrix of their accomplishments after the awarding ceremony at the 400-seater Shariff Kabunsuan Cultural Complex inside the ARMM compound, said it was for the support of the media, local officials, the police and the military that they succeeded in enforcing the logging ban. Credit also has to go to the leadership of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front for supporting our initiatives towards that goal, he said.The government and the MILF, which has a current peace process, are bound by a 1997 interim security pact enjoining both sides to mutually cooperate in addressing peace and security issues in conflict flashpoint areas in southern provinces.Tuesday’s event was partly in commemoration of the 29thanniversary of Malacañang’s devolution to ARMM of the functions and powers of the DENR based on the region’s first charter, the Republic Act 6734, that only covered Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi then.The RA 6734 got amended and became the RA 9054 that expanded the powers of ARMM and included in its area of coverage Basilan and Marawi City via a plebiscite in year 2001.