FORESTRY IN THE PHILIPPINES: DEFORESTATION, CAUSES, LOGGING, IMPACTS, REFORESTATION

DEFORESTATION IN THE PHILIPPINES

Philippine Institute for Development Studies

The Philippines is one of the most heavily deforested countries in the world. The World Wildlife Fund has designated the Philippines a crisis deforestation country along with Madagascar and some islands in the Pacific, because the ecosystems in the forest are small, unique and vanishing quickly. The loss of habitat in some regions has reduced the number of species to perhaps one tenth of the number that were once there.

According Mongabay wrote: “The once spectacular primary forests of the Philippines are now a relic of a bygone era. What little primary forest does remain exists on the island of Palawan, the last sanctuary for the Palawan eagle. Between 1990 and 2005 the Philippines lost a third of its forest cover, according to FAO estimates, but the country's deforestation is down since its peak in the 1980s and 1990s. [Source: Rhett Butler, Mongabay, July 14, 2014]

In the 1950s, three-fourths of the Philippines was covered with forest, according to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). By 1972, the figure had shrunk to half, and by 1988 only quarter was wooded and just one tiny fraction of this was virgin forest. [Source: Henrylito Tacio, Philippine EnviroNews, June 27, 2013]

According to data from Global Forest Watch, the Philippines lost more than 600,000 hectares of forest from 2001 to 2013, representing two percent of its total land area. In 2010 alone, the country lost more than 100,000 hectares. In addition, FORMA alerts, which indicate the likely presence of recent forest damage through satellite data, are ramping up, with a nearly three-fold increase from October 2013 to April 2014.[Source:, Shaira Panela, Mongabay.com, July 31, 2014]

Historical estimates indicate that forest area fell from about 169,000 square kilometers (65,300 square miles) in 1934 to about 80,400 square kilometers (31,000 square miles) in 2015. Earlier estimates recorded even greater losses during the 20th century as forests were cleared for agriculture, logging and other land uses. Forest cover has subsequently increased in some assessments, but the country continues to experience pressure from agricultural expansion, infrastructure development, logging and other forms of land conversion. Forest protection and restoration therefore remain important environmental priorities.

Impacts of Deforestation in the Philippines

Deforested hill in Brgy. San Rafael, Rodriguez, Rizal

The loss and degradation of forests have affected biodiversity, watersheds, soil conservation and communities dependent on forest resources. Forests provide habitat for thousands of plant and animal species and help regulate water supplies and reduce erosion and flooding. Government agencies have implemented reforestation, forest protection and restoration programs to increase forest cover and rehabilitate degraded areas. However, newly planted forests do not immediately provide the ecological functions of mature natural forests. The Philippines has therefore increased its forest area from some historical lows, but deforestation and forest degradation remain continuing concerns.

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported: In the Philippines, a large number of trees were felled in the 1970s and ’80s to export mahogany wood to Japan. During that period, 200,000 hectares of forest–the same size as that of greater Tokyo–disappeared every year. As a result, naked and brown deforested mountain surfaces can be seen near villages in the upstream zone of the 520-kilometer-long Cagayan River. A CI member said, “Soil on deforested mountains is easily washed away by rain.” [Source: Yomiuri Shimbun, July 7, 2008]

Deforestation exacerbates flooding and landslides. In places where it has occurred cogon grass springs up. This course grass muscles out many kinds of plants and creates vast expanses of course grassland. Deforestation is particularly damaging on islands with thin soil. Once the trees are gone the soil easily washes away, leaving behind rocks or soil in which very little grows. The soil run off also clouds up ocean water and damages reefs and fisheries.

One environmental activist told National Geographic, “Look at Cebu, an island that’s 99 percent denuded. It’s mainly forest over limestone...Now only a tiny layer of soil s left clinging to the deforested areas. You can plant some corn if you are lucky. Once you’ve lost the forest, there’s no way of regenerating them. They’re collapsed ecosystems that can’t support people.”

"If you abuse nature, nature will get back at us," Benito Ramos, executive director of National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), told Mongabay. "This is due to decades of mining and logging. Our forests are already deluded and there are tunnels left by small-time miners."

Tragic Flooding Exacerbated by Deforestation in the Philippines

Without tree roots to stabilize hillsides and hold water in the soil, landslides and flooding become more commonplace. This has been tragically demonstrated during the many environmental disasters faced by the Philippines in recent years. [Source:, Shaira Panela, mongabay.com, July 31, 2014]

Philippine Institute for Development Studies

According to Philippine EnviroNews: In 2011, Typhoon Sendong brought 12 hours of continuous rain to Mindanao Island. Tragedy took place after that. The rivers flooded and people were crushed by logs or drowned. The government declared it “a national disaster” with the storm affecting 338,000 people in 13 provinces.[Source: Henrylito Tacio, Philippine EnviroNews, June 27, 2013]

Sean McDonagh, a priest who worked in the area, said that decades of deforestation Cagayan de Oro City and nearby provinces was to blame for the scale of the disaster. Much of the region was converted from rainforest into pineapple plantations.

“The deforestation was literally criminal,” he told The Universe Catholic Weekly. “If the rainforest in the area had been left intact, even 12 hours of continuous rain would not cause this devastation. The rainforest canopy would stop the torrential rain from hitting the ground directly. Trees would also absorb the water.”

Causes of Deforestation in the Philippines

Deforestation is the result of logging, slash-and burn agriculture, mining and simply presence of lots of people. People live in and around national parks and use resources in the park. The notion that resources in the parks can't be touched is unenforceable.

According to a paper published in 1993 by D.S. Liu at the University of Illinois; The Philippines lost a total of 9.8 million hectares of forests from 1934 to 1988. The presence of major roads was a very important factor affecting deforestation. The closer a forest was to roads, the higher the rate of deforestation. Nearly 78 percent of the 2.1 million hectares of forests within 1.5 kilometers of roads in 1934 was removed by 1988. By contrast, only 39.5 percent of forest was lost between 15.0 and 16.5 kilometers from roads. The density of roads per unit area did not predict deforestation as well as the distance of forest patches to roads. [Source: D.S. Liu, Department of Forestry, University of Illinois, W-503 Turner Hall, 1102 South Goodwin, Urbana, IL 61801, USA., 1993, Elsevier B.V.]

Illegal logging is a problem in some places. DENR, the primary agency responsible for forestry, resources and the environment in the Philippines, says it virtually powerless in stopping rampant illegal logging. Rangers generally are not armed and lack equipment and support while the illegal loggers are backed by armed gangs or rebels. [Source: Henrylito Tacio, Philippine EnviroNews, June 27, 2013]

Another culprit of the rapid disappearance of forests in the country: mining operations. This is the reason why some B’laan tribe in Kiblawan, Davao del Sur are fighting the entry of Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI) into what tribe leaders said was the tribe’s ancestral domain.

Philippine Institute for Development Studies

“Deforestation is a symptom of a bigger problem,” says Nicolo del Castillo, who teaches at the University of the Philippines. “I probably sound baduy (tacky and outdated) but I see the problem in the prevailing system of values, that is, the greed, the need to be the biggest, the wealthiest, and sometimes you feel hopeless. I am an optimist, but possibly there will be more tragedies and maybe then more people will wake up.”

The Philippines is also beginning to get into the palm oil business. In 2014, the government prposed converting 8 million hectares (20 million acres) of 'idle, denuded and unproductive lands' for oil palm plantations, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported. According to the newspaper, the Philippines Environment Secretary said the country could make $50 billion or more from the crop. According to Mongabay: Environmentalists expressed concern over the idea, suggesting that idle lands should instead be reforested to reduce the incidence of disasters like landslides and floods or used for food crops to better enable the Philippines to feed its population. The Philippines is presently a very minor producer of palm oil, which is primarily an export-oriented cash crop. Palm oil production represents one of the most profitable forms of agricultural land use in the tropics, but it has been linked to large-scale environmental damage where natural forests have been converted for plantations. [Source: mongabay.com, June 04, 2014]

Logging — the Primary Cause of Deforestation in the Philippines

Logging is a primary contributor to forest loss in the Philippines. From 2008 to 2013, data from the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) shows that timber harvesting increased its output volume by nearly 30 percent from 2008 to 2013, and the country’s production of veneer doubled during that time.

Timber was extracted at a far higher rate than could sustained. Between 45 to 74 percent of the trees left after logging are damaged or destroyed. Log and sawnwood exports were banned in the Philippines in the 1980s as much of the country was already deforested then. Timber today mostly comes tree plantation. Some illegal logging occurs.

According to Mongabay: Large timber companies have harvested from large swathes of rain fores. Clearing by the rural poor and plantation owners is also severe. To give you some idea of how quickly the Philippines was deforested by timber companies owned by Marcos's cronies, in the 1970s and 80s Korea and Japan got much of their timber from the Philippines, but today they get hardly any because most of the hardwood trees there are gone. Logging was banned in the Philippines in 2011. However, illegal logging still continues at a high level, especially in the southern part of the country on the island of Mindanao. Philippines has lost more than half a million hectares of forest since 2001. [Source: Rhett Butler, Mongabay, July 14, 2014 ^+^]

“Widespread logging was responsible for much of the historical forest loss in the Philippines. Despite government bans on timber harvesting following severe flooding in the late 1980s and early 1990s, illegal logging continues today. After temporarily lifting the log export ban in the late 1990s, the government has increasingly tried to crack down on timber smuggling and forest degradation. Additional threats to Philippine forests come from legal and illegal mining operations — which also cause pollution and have been linked to violent conflict — agricultural fires, collection of fuelwood, and rural population expansion. In recent years, deforestation has been increasingly blamed for soil erosion, river siltation, flooding, and drought; environmental awareness is now rising in the country. Environmentalists in the Philippines now fear that plantation agriculture, especially oil palm, could emerge as the newest threat to remaining forests. ^+^

Forest Loss and Forest Gain in the Philippines

The rate of forest loss was greater during the 1990s than during the first half of the 2000s. Between 1990 and 2000, forest area declined by an average of about 262,000 hectares (2,620 square kilometers or 1,010 square miles) a year, equivalent to an annual rate of 2.8 percent. Between 2000 and 2005, the annual decline slowed to about 157,000 hectares (1,570 square kilometers or 606 square miles), or 2.1 percent a year. Over the same period, other wooded land increased from 2.23 million hectares (22,300 square kilometers or 8,610 square miles) in 1990 to 3.61 million hectares (36,110 square kilometers or 13,940 square miles) in 2005. The increase in other wooded land did not compensate for the loss of forest because these areas generally have lower tree cover and different ecological characteristics. [Source: Mongabay]

Later FAO figures presented a different trend, reflecting changes in forest estimates and methodology. FAO data for 2010 placed Philippine forest cover at about 7.665 million hectares (76,650 square kilometers or 29,590 square miles), equivalent to about 26 percent of the country's land area. The same figures recorded about 861,000 hectares (8,610 square kilometers or 3,320 square miles) of primary forest, representing about 11 percent of total forest cover. About 6.45 million hectares (64,520 square kilometers or 24,910 square miles) were classified as other naturally regenerated forest, while planted forests covered about 352,000 hectares (3,520 square kilometers or 1,360 square miles).

FAO's 1990-2010 series showed total forest cover increasing from about 6.57 million hectares (65,700 square kilometers or 25,370 square miles) in 1990 to 7.665 million hectares (76,650 square kilometers or 29,590 square miles) in 2010. The figures indicate an average annual increase of about 55,000 hectares (550 square kilometers or 212 square miles) during each of the three periods measured: 1990-2000, 2000-2005 and 2005-2010. Natural forest cover excluding plantations also increased, from 6.268 million hectares (62,680 square kilometers or 24,200 square miles) in 1990 to 7.313 million hectares (73,130 square kilometers or 28,240 square miles) in 2010. These figures differ markedly from the 1990-2005 Mongabay series, illustrating the importance of noting the source, forest definition and methodology when comparing Philippine forest statistics.

Forestry and Forest Use in the Philippines

The primary designated function of Philippine forests in the cited FAO data was production, which accounted for 76 percent of forest area. About 8 percent was designated primarily for soil and water protection, while 16 percent was assigned to biodiversity conservation. No significant shares were recorded for social services or multiple-use categories in the dataset. This classification indicates that forests were managed for a combination of timber production and environmental functions, but that production remained the dominant designated use. About 5.1 percent of the country's land was reported as protected under IUCN categories I-V in the data.

Forest ownership was predominantly public. In 2005, about 85 percent of Philippine forests were classified as publicly owned and 15 percent as privately owned. Management rights over public forests were divided among several groups, with public administration holding about 32 percent, business entities and institutions about 20 percent, and communities about 47 percent. The figures did not provide a separate quantified breakdown for individuals or other private holders. These arrangements reflected the complex system of government ownership, community management and private interests involved in Philippine forests.

Forestry also provided employment and generated government revenue. The number of full-time forestry employees increased from about 18,000 in 1990 to 19,000 in 2000 and 24,000 in 2005, while employment in primary forestry production rose from 18,000 to 23,000 over the same period. Employment in protected-area management and conservation remained about 1,000. In 2005, the value of industrial roundwood removals was about US$119 million, compared with US$2 million for woodfuel and US$2 million for non-wood forest products, for a total of about US$123 million. Public expenditure on forestry was about US$36.0 million that year, compared with domestic forest revenue of about US$2.48 million.

Reforestation in the Philippines

In 1977, Marcos decreed that every Filipino over the age of 10 much plant and maintain one tree for five years. This was at a time when his cronies were busy deforesting thousands of hectares of forest.

In 2011, DENR started the National Greening Program (NGP), which intends to help the forests regrow by planting 1.5 billion trees on 1.5 million hectares of land across the country in five years. The government invested $25 million over four years, with $13 million invested in 2013 alone. The planting areas include active and inactive mining sites, urban areas under local government’s greening program, mangrove forests, and upland forests. According to the NGP accomplishment report, they have finished about 46 percent of the entire project.[Source:, Shaira Panela, mongabay.com, July 31, 2014]

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported: In the mountain town of Penablanca on the Philippines’ northeast Luzon Island, 500 kilometers north of Manila, young mango and Indian rosewood trees were planted a few meters apart on stony slopes. Ernest Simon, a 74-year-old town elder, said with a smile, “We should see large forests here in 10 years.” The reforestation project started last autumn. It aims to turn 1,772 hectares of land–an area 15 times the size of Tokyo’s Imperial Palace grounds–into greenery in three years. Conservation International (CI), a U.S.-based nongovernmental environmental protection organization, has provided technical assistance for the project. Toyota Motor Corp. is financing it with a 170 million yen donation. [Source: Yomiuri Shimbun, July 7, 2008]

In the Philippines, many government- and private sector-led reforestation projects failed.A Philippine government reforestation site next to CI’s was not maintained regularly, with trees still thin 15 years after being planted. There were many cases of arson across the region committed by locals who were displaced from their homes by the reforestation projects.

Good Forestry Programs in the Philippines

The Food and Agriculture Organization's regional office in Bangkok published In Search of Excellence: Exemplary Forest Management in Asia and the Pacific to document successful approaches to forest management in the region. The 404-page book presented 22 case studies, including 4 from the Philippines. The projects demonstrated how communities, government institutions and local organizations could protect forests while supporting livelihoods, cultural traditions and biodiversity. FAO regional representative David Kaimowitz described the cases as evidence that "there are good people out there doing good things in the forests." [Source: Henrylito Tacio, Philippine EnviroNews, June 27, 2013]

Three of the Philippine examples were located on Luzon. The Kalahan Forest Reserve, located between Santa Fe in Nueva Vizcaya and San Nicolas in Pangasinan, was recognized for the way an Indigenous community used forest management to protect natural resources while maintaining its cultural identity. The community's approach incorporated traditional knowledge and local forestry practices rather than treating the forest solely as a source of timber. The case demonstrated how Indigenous management could contribute to both conservation and cultural continuity.

Another example was the muyong system practiced by the Ifugao people, whose agricultural landscape includes the famous Ifugao rice terraces. A muyong is an untilled forested slope containing timber and fruit trees as well as rattan, bamboo, palms and other natural vegetation. These forested areas can provide fuelwood, construction materials, food and other resources while helping protect watersheds above agricultural areas. The system links forest management with the maintenance of the broader agricultural landscape and the livelihoods of the communities that depend on it.

The Mount Makiling Forest Reserve near Los Baños, Laguna, covers about 4,224 hectares (10,440 acres) and was identified in the FAO publication as an important remaining forest near the Manila metropolitan area. When the reserve was established in the early 20th century, its primary objective was "to promote scientific and technical knowledge related to conservation and ecosystems." The fourth Philippine case study was the 70-hectare (173-acre) Buswang Mangrove Plantations in Kalibo, Aklan. There, a community-based organization helped protect the mangrove area and later the developing forest from encroachment, including attempts by powerful individuals to appropriate parts of the site for private use.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: CIA World Factbook, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Philippines Department of Tourism, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Encyclopedia.com, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated August 2026