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BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA
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Saturdsy, August 19, 2017
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ILOILO City – Some 1,000 houses and tourism-related facilities illegally occupying Boracay Island’s timberland face eviction.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Region 6 uncovered this number of illegal occupants through more than a month of inventory.
According to Regional Director Jim Sampulna, Boracay has some 400 hectares of timberland.
“If they won’t leave the timberland, charges would be filed against them,” said Sampulna.
On May 22, 2006 then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued Proclamation No. 1064 classifying Boracay Island into 400 hectares of reserved forest land (for protection purposes) and 628.96 hectares of agricultural land (alienable and disposable).
The Proclamation likewise provided for a 15-meter buffer zone on each side of the centerline of roads and trails, reserved for right-of-way and which shall form part of the area reserved for forest land protection purposes.
Sampulna said his office had not received any assurances from these illegal occupants to leave the timberland.
“They have to leave the area or they will rot in jail. They are occupying government-owned property,” said Sampulna.
The DENR intends to reforest Boracay’s timberland.
Secretary Roy Cimatu ordered the inventory of forest occupants in Boracay in a bid to stop the encroachment that he deemed harmful to the island’s fragile ecology./PN
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