MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/06 October) – The Bukidnon Forests Inc. (BFI) is now seeking an environmental compliance certificate for the cutting of industrial trees it planted in Bukidnon, the Central Mindanao Newswatch reported this week.

But the bulk or 58 percent of the trees would be cut in Malitbog, which hosts 22,082 hectares of BFI’s plantation, the report said.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources last week held a consultation at the Bukidnon State University here on BFI's application for ECC.
In May, Bukidnon Governor Jose Ma. R. Zubiri Jr. had recommended to BFI’s board of directors to stop its operations for alleged lack of viability.

BFI, formerly Bukidnon Industrial Plantation Project, was a partnership of the Philippine and New Zealand governments. It is managed by the Natural Resources Development Corp., the investment arm of DENR.
Zubiri told MindaNews the provincial government of Bukidnon and the people "have not gained a single centavo" from the firm’s almost 20 years of operations.
His announcement came two months after he said he preferred to convert parts of BFI’s area that still needs reforestation into jatropha plantations.
He said many ancestral domain claims cover BFI's 39,000 hectares which the firm allegedly has failed to fully reforest.
BFI has planned to start in 2009 the cutting of the commercial trees it planted since 1989.
The plan requires an ECC separate from the one issued in the late 1990s for the cutting of Benguet pines.
BFI has planted Caribbean pine, eucalyptus, acacia mangium and others under an Industrial Forest Plantation Management Agreement (IFMA).
Edwin Okit, BFI operations officer, assured there would be no soil disturbance during the operations that would cover at least 500 hectares every year.

BFI officials said they would use carabaos and cable instead of bulldozers in dragging the logs, the same method they reportedly used in cutting down the pine trees.
In March, Zubiri questioned BFI's disposal of logs without a bidding process. He underscored the firm’s financial problems in his comments. (Walter I. Balane/MindaNews)

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