SOLANO, Nueva Vizcaya—Echoing massive calls for action against flooding in Cagayan Valley, Regional Executive Director Gwendolyn C. Bambalan of DENR Region 02 pointed out that soil erosion needs to be checked.
“Refrain from using glyphosates, it kills all weeds, but it has destructive affect to the soil and vegetation,” Bambalan warned upland farmers.
While acknowledging that upland communities need support to sustainably manage their occupancy inside watershed areas, Bambalan cited the 8-year-old Forestland Management Project (FMP) as a direct action to address the problem.
“I saw newly opened clearings in the mountainsides along the way here. Please look at the activities of kaingineros. File charges [for forestry law violations] if necessary,” Bambalan asked PENRO Edgar Martin of Nueva Vizcaya.
As a leading support component to community-based forest management, FMP is DENR’s strategy that is supported by official development assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency through a loan package.
“We only have one Earth to live. As all of us saw during Typhoon Ulysses, population in Cagayan and Isabela were heavily affected floods came.
Before you cut trees, please think of the people affected in the lowlands,” the DENR executive told members of people’s organizations and LGUs attending a workshop for the operation and maintenance of completed Agro-Forestry Support Project. Abe Almirol
The DENR executive gave emphasis to the inter-connectedness of activities in the uplands to lowlands from “ridge to reef.”