The Palawan Report

It will be tricky to do a full report on the illegal mangrove bark trade for two reasons. One is the difficulty of getting around the farthest ends of Southern Palawan, in Rizal and Bataraza, where road conditions and hostile physical environment (e.g. high incidence of malaria) are a main factor in planning a trip. The other is the politics of the illegal tanbarking trade. I’m looking of doing a coverage before summer ends.

Last week, a seven-old boy from Ransang, Rizal was killed in a crocodile attack, prompting renewed debates on the continued proliferation of tanbarking. Southern Palawan is the only place in the country where one can find the large species of mangroves, ceriops tangal, in a forestal state. This species seems to be particularly suited to tanbarking because of its characteristic thick bark.

The common knowledge is that local politicians are themselves involved in the illegal bark trade, which perhaps explains why it has been so difficult to stop. Atty. Winston Gonzales, Congressman Mitra’s chief of staff, explained to me last week that they had tried to institutionalize the policy of burning apprehended tanbark when Mitra was chair of the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development. This policy, however, seems to have waned and the practice of bidding out these apprehended contraband has lately become the norm. In these bidding processes conducted by the DENR, Gonzales observed that usually the illegal loggers themselves win the bidding.