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A Nationwide Ban or Moratorium on Logging: Its Impact on Wood-based Industries and the Country
Position Paper of the Philippine Wood Producers Association
Submitted to the Office of the President
January 20, 2011

Wood, as an industrial commodity and as a fuel for cooking and common material for shelter, is indeed a basic necessity in the life of the Filipino and the society he belongs to.

Wood-based and wood-using industries serve the needs of the country for wood products used in housing, infrastructure and furniture and fixtures as well as exports of wood-based value added products.

A ban or moratorium on logging will directly penalize the legitimate companies in the wood industries who have been zealously protecting and conducting sustainable practices in managing the country’s remaining forest areas for decades, with severe consequences on the wood-using downstream industries.

Specifically, a nationwide ban or moratorium on logging will result in:

1. The cessation of operations of the companies who are in the manufacture of lumber, veneer and plywood, poles, pulp and paper as well as furniture and fixtures and other wood manufactured products such as doors, windows, joineries and carpentry works resulting in:
a. massive lay-off of about 650,000 direct workers in the wood processing and furniture industries alone, particularly in the countryside, and which might, in turn, cause serious social restiveness;
b. the loss of at least PhP30 billion in investments which have been invested by firms engaged in the wood industry;
c. the dislocation of about 1.5 million people who are indirectly employed by the wood-using industries will impact on the livelihood of countless people in communities dependent on the operations of these establishments.
2. Export commitments would be in jeopardy with the Philippines losing its export market for high value-added and high-end finished wood products estimated at US$ 1 billion a year.
3. Prices of wood products that have to be imported would skyrocket due to the wood supply gap that would hurt consumers, particularly the lower income class, who might not be able to cope up with inflating costs of wood for housing.
4. Investors in the wood sector will be discouraged to enter the industry.
5. The resulting tight wood supply would trigger high prices, thus further encouraging illegal logging.
6. Wood importation may not even be a viable option as the log-surplus countries have imposed log export quotas and bans.
7. Existing tenured areas which are adequately managed by the IFMA holders will become open-access areas, and become vulnerable to illegal logging and degradation by informal settlers and environmentally-damaging upland cultivation.

8. Studies and past experience have shown that the imposition of total log bans have failed to stop illegal logging in the areas where they have been imposed.

9. A nationwide log ban or moratorium would not be in accord with the Principles of Sustainable Forest Management adopted during the Rio de Janeiro Summit in 1992 and, subsequently affirmed during the Johannesburg Summit in 2002, of which the Philippines is a signatory.

Illegal Logging is the bane to sustainable management of the Philippine forest.

The wood-based and wood–using industries submit the following recommendations to effectively curb illegal logging operations, on one hand, and to manage forests on a sustainable basis, on the other:

1. Continue imposing the policy of a total log ban in all protection and endangered forests, while allowing sustainable forestry operations in production forests that have already been identified by the government.
2. Dismantle all wood-processing plants dubiously located near untenured forestlands and revoke all wood-processing permits without verifiable log supply contracts from legitimate local or foreign sources.
3. Encourage the massive development of tree plantations in private and public lands through a combination of incentives, and low-interest loans especially to small-holder tree farmers.
4. Immediately pass the Sustainable Forest Management Bill which will provide a stable policy framework that will assure the long-term sustainability of the Philippine forestry sector.