I. VAST FOREST COVER

Samar is the third largest island of the Philippines with a total land area of about 1.34 million hectares and comprises the provinces of Eastern, Northern and (Western) Samar in Eastern Visayas or Region VIII.  It is in this island that the Philippine Eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi), the country’s national bird, was first discovered in 1896. The island is known for its vast lowland forest type that originally covered almost its entire land area.

At the middle of this century, the forest of Samar Island was still intact.  Agricultural development and human settlement were only then confined along the coastal fringes of the island.  The American Military Mapping Service conducted the first detailed mapping of Samar in 1952 and the result showed that the island has a forest cover of about 86% of its total land area.

II. DEFORESTATION STARTED

The lowland feature of the Samar Island’s forest and the abundance of commercially viable dipterocarp species provided opportunities for extensive commercial logging operations in the past.  Some of the forests were also cleared for mineral exploitation because Samar is known for its rich mineral resources. Presidential Proclamation  (PP) No. 1651 issued in February 1977 declared about 208,979 hectares of the island’s forestland as the Bauxite Mineral Reservation (BMR) of the Philippines.

Logging and mining were then major export industries of the country and accounted for considerable shares of the Gross National Product (GNP). In the 70s, logging contributed about 10% of the country’s total export earnings.  In spite of commercial resource exploitations in Samar Island, however, the local economy did not improve very well as there are more than 45% of Samar residents still living below the poverty level.  Some of the land areas of Samar Island were also released as Alienable and Disposable (A & D), which have been subjected to private land titles and ownerships.

The degradation of the island’s forest continued with only about 45% of its land area remained forested in 1978 based on a satellite map.  The forest cover was further reduced to about 33% in 1987 because commercial logging operations have encroached deeper into the core forested areas of the island.  In 1989, there were 15 Timber License Agreements (TLAs) operating in the three provinces of the island covering almost 600,000 hectares of forested lands.

The logging operation in the island provided opening and access even in remote forested areas for human settlement, agricultural development and other land uses.  Logged over areas were further converted into kaingin (slash and burn) farms while human settlement moved into the core areas of the island. Several communities became political units and are now enjoying permanent occupancy in the classified forestland of Samar Island.

III. LOGGING MORATORIUM AND FOREST RESERVE DECLARED

Massive floods inundated a large part of Samar Island resulting to deaths of 79 people, displaced hundreds of families and destroyed more than PhP 100 Million worth of crops and properties in 1989. Concerted and persistent actions of Samarnons to protect the forest prompted the national government through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to impose a commercial logging moratorium for the whole island in the same year.

In 1993, the remaining forest connecting the municipality of Basey in (Western) Samar and the municipality of Borongan in Eastern Samar was threatened by a government road project. Civil society organizations led a campaign against the proposed road project and urged the national government to protect the remaining forest of the island.  Then President Fidel Ramos declared the Samar Island Forest Reserve (SIFR) covering an aggregate area of 360,000 hectares through Presidential Proclamation No. 744 in February 1996.

The declaration of SIFR, however, did not take into account the procedures and requirements of the National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) Act of 1992 or Republic Act (RA) No. 7586, which is the governing policy on the establishment and management of Protected Areas (PAs) of the country.  Although PP 744 responded to the petition of Samar residents for the protection of the remaining forest of the island, the proclamation did not even mention the inclusion of the reserve to the NIPAS.   Several requirements of the NIPAS Act for the establishment of a PA were not complied for the declaration of SIFR.

While SIFR was already established and logging ban was effected in the island, anthropogenic pressures to the biological diversity continued because of varying factors such as unclear institutional arrangement for the management of the forest reserve, weak management capacity to protect the remaining forest, absence of funding support, conflicting resource uses and local stakeholders were not fully involved in forest management, among others.  Dependency of local communities to forest resources for subsistence was very high especially those that have been displaced by the logging industry.  Many of these displaced workers were migrants that have been brought along by logging companies and have permanently settled in certain areas covered by TLAs.

The timberland of Samar Island was under the direct management of the DENR.  With the presence of settlers at the forestland, the DENR has issued several land tenure instruments covering the Integrated Social Forestry (ISF) Program, Community Based Forest Management (CBFM) Program and Industrial Forest Management Agreement (IFMA) Program, among others.  Some projects were also implemented such as the contract reforestation program while Resource Use Permits (RUPs) for rattan cutting and tapping of almaciga resin were issued by the DENR.

IV. BIODIVERSITY PROJECT CONCEPTUALIZED AND IMPLEMENTED

In an attempt to further advance the protection of the remaining forest of the island, the Western Samar Agricultural and Resources (WESAMAR) Programme together with several Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) prepared the Samar Island Biodiversity Project (SIBP) in December 1995.  The project concept was submitted to the DENR for endorsement to the Global Environment Facility- United Nations Development Programme (GEF-UNDP).

The project was formally designed during the preparatory phase from 1997 to 2000 through the Project Development Facility (PDF) fund of the GEF-UNDP.  SIBP was officially launched in 2001 with major funding support from the GEF-UNDP and the DENR is the lead implementing agency. A representative from the Samar Island Biodiversity Foundation (SIBF), a coalition of local NGOs in Samar acts as the co-project manager of the DENR designated project manager. The main goal of the project is to protect the biodiversity of Samar Island as “a representative sample of the forest biodiversity of the Philippine archipelago”.

The project is divided into two phases of implementation: the phase one covers a four-year period focusing on the establishment of the Samar Island Natural Park (SINP) following the procedures and requirements of the NIPAS Act and the phase two would concentrate in developing protected area management systems and operations in the next four years. The phase one is currently on its extended period and will end in December 2006 while the phase two will cover from January 2007 to December 2011.

SIBP became instrumental for the declaration of SINP as a component of the NIPAS by virtue of Presidential Proclamation No. 442 issued by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on August 13, 2003.  It has a total land area of 333,300 hectares and a buffer zone of 125,400 hectares or a total of 455,700 hectares, which is about 34% of the Samar Island’s total land area.

Before PP 442 was issued in 2003, there were already four existing PAs in areas currently covered by SINP, namely, the (a) Sohoton Natural Bridge National Park; (b) Calbiga Caves Protected Landscape; (c) Jicontol Natural Park; and (d) Taft Forest Philippine Eagle Wildlife Sanctuary. The management of these protected areas are now integrated into the SINP.