Anti-illegal logging TF targets furniture shops

ILOILO – Forest products con signed to furniture establishments in Western Visayas must be regulated, according to the Regional Anti- Illegal Logging Task Force.

The task force was monitoring timber poaching and illegal transport of forest products to furniture stores.

Jim Sampulna, regional director of the Environment department, one of the agencies composing the task force, said there was an “increasing demand for raw materials” because of the “proliferation of furniture shops.”

“Illegally transported forest products go directly to these furniture shops and produced as market commodities,” Sampulna said.

Forest products consigned to furniture establishments must come from legitimate sources, the task force said.

The task force plans to collaborate with local government units, which issue permits for the operation of furniture shops, in checking the origin and monitoring the transport of timber products.

“There is [ also] a need to coordinate with local law enforcers,” Regional Anti-Illegal Logging Task Force members said in a recent meeting.

Aside from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the task force also comprises the Department of the Interior and Local Government, Armed Forces of the Philippines, and Philippine National Police.

Around 87,540.9 board feet of forest products with estimated value of P1,401,956.54 were apprehended in 2016, an Environment department annual report showed.

They were subject to further evaluation until a confiscation order was approved and issued, the department said.

Sampulna urged the public to report poachers and other environmental law violators to the authorities. “This will warn the public that we are serious in our task of running after those who destroy the environment,” he said.

The Anti- Illegal Logging Task Force was created via Executive Order No. 23, series of 2011 to enforce the suspension of the cutting and harvesting of timber in natural and residual forests, and lead the anti-illegal logging campaign. (

DENR REGION 6 Former rebels in Aklan province stack illegally transported timber that Environment department enforcers have apprehended, in this photo the agency released in October 2016. Some P1,401,956.54 worth of illegally transported forest products were...