Planting The Seed

Adam Templar personally funded the beginning stages of the project including the planting of over 25,000 trees and still has involvement to this day.

By using Custom Signage Brisbane for your signage project, we are able to utilise portions of our profits to further these efforts into the future.

The Philippines contains two thirds of the earths biodiversity which equates to 70% – 80% of the worlds plant and animal species. The Philippines is one of the the most biologically diverse countries in the world and species endemism is very high here. It is for want of a better word a biodiversity hotspot.

On Negros Island, the vegetation is extremely diverse. From lowland tropical rainforests, grasslands, mangroves, beach vegetation and montane forests. Many plant and animal species are endemic to this Island. However the Key Biodiversity Areas remain unprotected and over the years these areas have been extremely vulnerable to logging, mining, agriculture and the general expansion of human settlements. Several endemic species found on Negros are now susceptible to extinction.

Once an extremely lush and diverse Island, decades of human extraction have taken it’s toll. Most notable perhaps is the impact of the American owned Insular Lumber Company (ILCO)

In 1907, whilst the Philippines was under American colonisation, the Insular Lumber Company (said to be the biggest hardwood lumber mill in the world) established itself in the North of Negros Island. Rail roads were built from the mountains down to the fabrica so that large trees could be transported by steam train to the mills.  This prized timber was then exported all over the world.

The company obtained an exclusive license agreement which meant it had the permission to remove “unlimited” timber from its logging concessions. The forestry department of the time believed that if the companies followed their expert advice then no amount of cutting was likely to damage the forests! By 1939, logging was one of the major industries in the Philippines.

In 1975 when the timber resources had been exhausted in the North of the Island, the company relocated to the south of Negros Island. By 1985 operations ceased.

In 1983, commercial logging was no longer viable and Negros introduced a total logging ban. Where the forests had been cleared monoculture sugar plantations ensued and the Islands economy became heavily dependant on the exportation of sugar. By the mid 1980’s a major famine occurred on the Island of Negros, the over cultivation and reliance of a single crop and the destruction of the Islands biodiversity led to escalating social tensions.

During the time of extensive logging many planned reforestation programs failed, sometimes due to financing and political indifferences other times due to mismanagement and even the complexity/challenges of the program. During this period there had been times when government insisted that the public be responsible for reforestation through voluntary service or that 5.3 million hectares of land needed to be planted to forests.

However efforts to claim and protect the forests have thus far been in vain. For example in 1946 the North Negros Rainforest Reserve was legislated to protect more than 100,000ha of virgin rainforest. The reserve was later reduced and then ignored, by 1996 only 9,900ha of the “protected” forest remained, mainly because it has no perceived commercial value.

Illegal logging continues to this day, along with the poaching of wildlife.