The Upper Marikina River Basin Protected Landscape (UMRBPL) may require massive scale of rehabilitation and tree planting to restore it back to health, an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said.
This was according to Nonito Tamayo, DENR’s regional executive director for the Calabarzon, who rejected suggestions to allow cattle grazing in the UMRBPL.
The official said any activity within the UMRBPL must be approved by the DENR, or at least the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB).
The UMRBPL’s comprehensive management plan includes reforestation and stream-bank stabilization and rehabilitation, implementation of social, economics, livelihood and institutional arrangements; flooding and erosion control projects; water quality management and sanitation, public information, and awareness campaigns, and capacity building activities in partnership with various agencies of the government, the private sector, local governments, and other institutions.
“When you use the area for cattle grazing, what will you plant? Naturally grass. But what we want to do is plant more trees in the area,” he said, backing efforts to reforest denuded portions of the UMRBPL.
Tamayo, who sits as chairman of the UMRBPL’s PAMB, rejected earlier plan of Rublou Inc. to raise cattle within the Protected Landscape.
He also cautioned Rublou Inc.’s subsidiary, Green Atom, on its plan to put up a solar farm atop the mountain, saying like cattle grazing, such a project runs contrary to the objective of greening the open, degraded and denuded portions of the forest.
He said putting up solar panels in the area to harness the power of the sun may even trigger cutting of small trees in the area.
“As far as I know, only hydropower is the only renewable energy project allowed in a Protected Area,” said Tamayo, a forester and former director of the DENR’s Forest Management Bureau.
Officials of Rublou Inc. and Green Atom recently figured in a territorial dispute with conservation advocates running the award-winning Masungi Georeserve.
Image credits: Masungi Georeserve Foundation