An international environmental group has stepped up calls for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to suspend its guidelines on the earth-balling or relocation of mangroves, given that their protection is mandated by law.
Amid questions on the legal basis of that activity, the agency is conducting a review, which it said it would complete by early next year.
Oceana Philippines criticized the continued implementation of ‘Interim Operational Guidelines and Conditions on the Earth-balling and Relocation of Mangroves in Exceptional Circumstances’-a DENR memorandum issued in October last year, which the group said allowed the earth-balling or relocation of mature trees to give way to infrastructure projects.
The group warned further that this activity stripped coastal communities of their first line of defense against the catastrophic impact of flooding and typhoons.
‘By allowing earth-balling, the DENR is sacrificing proven nature-based solutions for short-term economic gain,’ Oceana vice president Von Hernandez said in a statement on Aug. 28, after Environment Secretary Juan Miguel Cuna appeared at a hearing by the House appropriations committee on Aug. 26.
Cuna explained at the hearing that the DENR, through its research arm Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau (ERDB), has undertaken a review of the earth-balling of mangroves.
He said the study-which is now on its second phase as of August-focuses on the survival rate of mangroves after that procedure.
The DENR will issue a policy report based on the ERDB study by early 2027, he said.
Last month, Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima filed a resolution calling for an inquiry into how the DENR’s interim guidelines would affect the country’s mangroves.
‘Legal validity’
De Lima also sought to establish the ‘legal validity’ of the guidelines, since there are laws mandating the protection of mangroves, as she pointed out-Republic Act No. 8550 (the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998) as amended by RA 10654 and RA 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act.
Hernandez, in his group’s statement, had asked: ‘Shouldn’t the DENR be held accountable for reneging on its mandate to protect mangroves and uphold nature-based safeguards, especially at a time when every coastal community in the country is under siege from flooding and storm surges?’