By Peter Walpole

In November 2004 a major flood in Eastern Luzon, Philippines turned into a disaster with over 1,500 deaths and destruction of agriculture, fisheries, property and infrastructure worth over PhP 6 billion.

The public debate focused on the notion that logging was the main cause of these losses of lives and livelihoods. Local governments and politicians, riding the media blitz, believed that the disaster was due to upland farmers logging for subsistence needs and to influential traders who had ways to move logs along the Pacific coast. The debate revisited the issues raised after the Ormoc disaster on Leyte ( Visayas , Philippines ) 15 years ago.

In Asia , many disasters resulting from landslides and flashfloods are similarly blamed on logging. Urban society increasingly identifies illegal logging as the main culprit. Many environmental advocates use these disasters to leverage greater government action to curb logging. The Thai government responded to the widespread flooding in 1989 with a total log ban, increased area for conservation forests, and tightened control over upland community resource use. While action must be taken against the high loss of forest cover in Asia , this will not prevent such disasters. What should be addressed is the social vulnerability of people living in (potential) flood plains and preparedness for "rare" but realistic flooding events (e.g. once-in-50-year rainfall episodes). These reoccurring "natural" events will be devastating if there is no focused action.

A recent study in the Philippines showed that 50% of the rainfall events are more intense than the current infiltration capacity of the soil. Overland flow of water causes erosion of bare soil. Flood waters carry away material from landslides and everything along channel sides and in flood plains - trees, debris, logs, soil, rocks and settlements. Major events clean up the river beds and sweep away the residue of fifty years of small events, depositing it in flood zones as alluvial fans, sand banks and in river mouths creating deltas. Logging generally exposes forest areas, even when there is no bare soil, as canopy gaps and logging residues make remaining vegetation more vulnerable, creating potential flood debris and increasing the potential for landslides, there being less hold on the soil. But with once-in-50-year rainfall events, there are major landslides even in primary forest.

The biggest problem with blaming illegal logging for disasters is that it diverts attention from addressing the security of people in high-risk areas. These people have to be relocated to lands not threatened, which requires money and a level of social redistribution of land. Governments tend to avoid such action and would rather blame poor people who will not be arrested for logging than responsibly tackle relocation.

National programs addressing illegal logging will not prevent climatic or geological events from becoming disasters. Focussing on logging keeps the society away from taking appropriate action, such as reviewing or strengthening policies on land reallocation and development of major flood infrastructure. As a result local communities return to live in high risk areas, infrastructure that overrestricts river flows is not altered, and plantations are still being developed in flood plains. Furthermore, ‘unnatural rains' are still being viewed as an act of God and not accepted as a normal returning event and political will and effective policies are still lacking for land identification for relocation. Fifteen years after the Ormoc disaster, these lessons have yet to be internalized by Philippine society.

In the region, the impact of the climate needs to be understood at three different levels to formulate an appropriate response.

Global Climate Change
Although deforestation does add to atmospheric carbon and increase in soil temperature, it does not affect significantly local rainfall amounts in an archipelago like the Philippines where the surrounding ocean determines the climate. Global climate change, however, may influence rainfall dynamics, as the world has observed with a high frequency and intensity of Niño events in the ‘90's. Sequestering carbon as an immediate action, plantations and reforestation are the primary responses in creating new ‘forest'. Any forestry activity that locks up carbon and improves processing and recycling of wood preventing its return to the environment as carbon would contribute to carbon sequestration.

Late or Early Rains
In the Philippines during El Niño and the Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the wet season is delayed if not lost, followed by an extended rainy season in the next year. ENSO increases stress on ecological services, livelihoods & biodiversity. Less water is available in the form needed, when needed. Deforestation exacerbates these effects by increasing surface water flow (as against subsurface flow), decreasing aquifer infiltration, and increasing microclimate temperature. In this context, logging natural forests has the greatest negative impact on water management. The automatic policy response in the Philippines appears to be reforestation with alien fast-growing species, sometimes including the planting of fruit trees to augment local livelihood and to reduce cutting reforested areas. The best response, however, would be assisting natural regeneration of forests, but this has been insufficiently explored. Social programs must focus on developing livelihood options addressing the economic needs of the poor.

Exceptional Rainfall Event
A climate event is an "exceptional rainfall event", usually where two or more typhoons occur in an area within one week, bringing 30% to 60% of the annual rainfall. Such rainfall can liquefy and destabilize soil deeper than 10 meters (maximum forest root depth) - especially where a good soil structure allows for easy infiltration of water. The Philippines needs to recognize that these events reshape the fluvial landscape and therefore they should calculate when and where these events may occur. The government needs to recognize that flood zones are nutrient-rich and very tempting for farming communities to claim, and for squatters to settle on.

Actions needed
Simply put, different problems need different responses. While many are deeply committed to saving Philippine forests, the response to each geological and climatic event should focus on the primary problem.

Changes have to be made firmly and strategically with a whole new generation of programs that seal the past constitutional and policy changes with a greater understanding of social vulnerability. It will be difficult to rectify decades of marginalizing landless either in the uplands with no connectivity to markets or basic services, or those concentrated in disaster-prone urban flood zones and hillsides.