Secretary Roy A. Cimatu of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has designated Undersecretary Jonas Leones to head the seven-member Performance Evaluation Committee (PEC) tasked to provide instructions and directions on the conduct of performance audit of all existing Integrated Forest Management Agreements (Ifmas) all over the country.
Leones, who was earlier designated by the DENR chief as his spokesman, is currently the DENR’s undersecretary for policy, planning and international affairs.
With his new assignment, Leones will lead in the planning of the assessment activities and harmonize the conduct of the assessment in the different regions to ensure that the integrity of forests in providing goods and services are maintained.
The DENR chief has earlier ordered the conduct of performance evaluation of firms with large forest-management concessions following President Duterte’s order to cancel two Ifmas in the Zamboanga Peninsula because of the massive flashfloods and landslides that killed more than two dozen people in December last year.
Subsequently, Cimatu ordered the creation of 14 performance evaluation teams (PET), clustered in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao island groups. Six teams will be created in Luzon, three in Visayas and five in Mindanao.
The PEC has to “consolidate and analyze the findings and recommendations of the PETs, including the penalties and sanctions, if warranted.”
Cimatu specifically directed the PETs to scrutinize the 25-year comprehensive development and management plan (CDMP) approved by the DENR for each of the Ifma holder.
Operating on the principle of sustainable forest management, the CDMP details every facet and stage of forest management that an Ifma holder should implement, as it establishes tree plantations while protecting and enhancing the remaining forest cover within the concession area.
The audit will cover five aspects in relation to the operations of Ifma contractors: technical, legal, environmental, economic and impact on agricultural areas.
To ensure that all the five aspects will be covered by the review, Cimatu directed DENR regional directors to ensure that each of the14 PETs will have, as members, the experts from the Environmental Management Bureau and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau.
A secretariat, consisting of experts from the Forest Management Bureau (FMB), will also be created to provide technical and administrative support to PEC and PETs, especially in the gathering of documents vital to the undertaking.
The PEC, through the secretariat, shall ensure the immediate implementation of activities and monitor day-to-day activities of the PETs and document all activities of the performance evaluation.
Based on FMB records, the country has an existing 102 Ifmas, with a combined area of 727,982 hectares.
Of these, however, only 89 Ifmas will be covered by the review of the DENR, as 13 are within the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes