As in other Southeast Asian countries, deforestation in the Philippines is a major environmental issue. Over the course of the 20th century, the forest cover of the country dropped from 70 percent down to 20 percent. Based on an analysis of land use pattern maps and a road map an estimated 9.8 million hectares of forests were lost in the Philippines from 1934 to 1988.

A 2010 land cover mapping by the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA) revealed that the total forest cover of the Philippines is  or 23% of the country's total area of .

Deforestation affects biodiversity in the Philippines and has long-term negative impacts on the country's food production. Deforestation in the Philippines has also been associated with floods, soil erosion, deaths, and damage to property.

History

Colonial era deforestation
It is unknown the percentage of forest the Spaniards found in the Philippines in 1521, before and during the Spanish colonial period, 380 years, some land was cleared for agriculture, roads and cities, and in 1900, more than 70% of the country was still covered by jungles. But after 46 years of American and Japanese occupation, more than 20% of forest was destroyed, and by the end of the 20th century, only 20% of the country was covered by forest.

Forest clearing was notable in the Visayas, particularly in the islands of Negros, Bohol and Cebu, where much of the forest cover had already been lost. Agricultural expansion continued throughout the 20th century.

Indigenous peoples, such as the such as the Yapayao and Isneg peoples who used to live in the Ilocos Region, were slowly pushed into living in the sparsely populated but resource-rich mountains, which would expose them to conflicts with developers in later eras, particularly during Martial Law under Ferdinand Marcos.

Deforestation during the martial law era
The 1960s and 1970s saw a boom in the logging industry, with the industry reaching its peak during the era of President Ferdinand Marcos.

Under Marcos, logging took on an increasingly central role in the Philippine economy. Following the declaration of martial law in 1972, Marcos handed out concessions to large tracts of land to his senior military officials, cronies, and relatives. The government encouraged log exportation to Japan resulting from soaring wood demand during Japan's period of rapid economic growth, and pressure to pay foreign debt. Forests resources were exploited by set-up companies and reforestation was rarely undertaken. Japanese log traders purchased massive quantities of cheap logs from unsustainable sources, accelerating deforestation. Log production increased from  in 1960 to an average of  between 1968 and 1975, peaking at over  in 1975, before declining to about  in 1987. The 1970s and 1980s saw an average of 2.5% of Philippine forests disappearing every year, which was thrice the worldwide deforestation rate.

Deforestation after 1986
Deforestation remained very high during the Corazon Aquino and Fidel V. Ramos administrations despite tree planting efforts due to corruption and inefficiency in the government agencies involved.

According to Global Forest Watch, from 2001 to 2020, most of the loss of forest cover in the Philippines took place in Palawan. Other provinces that have lost significant forest cover are Agusan del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Davao Oriental, and Quezon Province.

Causes

Government policies
According to scholar Jessica Mathews, short-sighted policies by the Filipino government have contributed to the high rate of deforestation:
The government regularly granted logging concessions of less than ten years. Since it takes 30–35 years for a second-growth forest to mature, loggers had no incentive to replant. Compounding the error, flat royalties encouraged the loggers to remove only the most valuable species. A horrendous 40 percent of the harvestable lumber  never left the forests but, having been damaged in the logging, rotted or was burned in place. The unsurprising result of these and related policies is that out of 17 million hectares of closed forests that flourished early in the century only 1.2 million  remain today.Attribution of deforestation to population pressure or agricultural expansion was found not to be backed by existing evidence in a 1992 study. Subsequent research has shown that intensification of existing farmers and improved off-farm income reduced forest pressure. However, in some parts of the country forest encroachment still happens due to high demand for vegetables.

Mining and logging

Mining and logging are major causes of deforestation in the Philippines. Mining operations have cleared large areas of forest land and has led to water contamination, ecological destruction, loss of livelihood, and loss of biodiversity. The Philippine Mining Act allows mining operations to clear trees and relocate Indigenous and local communities.

Illegal logging occurs in the Philippines and intensifies flood damage in some areas.

Natural disasters

Destructive typhoons in the Philippines, such as Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in 2013, also cause deforestation and defoliation.

Conservation
The Philippine national REDD+ Strategy, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, was drafted and submitted to the United Nations in 2010. An update to the strategy published by the Forest and Management Bureau of the Philippines showed that as of 2017, the county was still in the early phase of preparing to implement its REDD+ Strategy.

Executive Order 23 was signed in February 2011 banning logging throughout the country.

New mining agreements were banned in 2012 to protect the environment, though existing mines were allowed to continue operations.

A nationwide ban on open-pit mining was put in place in 2017. Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Gina Lopez suspended permits for 26 mining operations that violated environmental rules. The ban on open-pit and other mining operations was lifted in 2021.

Reforestation

Government policies
In June 1977, President Ferdinand Marcos signed a law requiring the planting of one tree every month for five consecutive years by every citizen of the Philippines. The law was repealed by President Corazon Aquino in July 1987, through Executive Order 287, which states that the planting of trees "can be achieved without the compulsion and the penalties for non-compliance therewith as set forth in the Decree".

President Benigno Aquino III established the National Greening Program (NGP) with the signing of Executive Order No. 26 on February 24, 2011. The program aims to increase the country's forest cover in  of land with 1.5 billion trees from 2011 to 2016. In 2015, the program was expanded to cover all remaining unproductive, denuded and degraded forestlands and its period of implementation extended from 2016 to 2028.

In September 2012, President Benigno Aquino III signed a law requiring all able-bodied citizens of the Philippines, who are at least 12 years of age, to plant one tree every year. There is no provision in the law to enforce and monitor compliance to this requirement.

In June 2020, the DENR started allowing a "family approach" under the National Greening Program, permitting families to establish forest plantations composed of timber and non-timber species which include bamboo and rattan.

Tree planting activities

There are tree-planting initiatives conducted in various parts of the country. On March 8, 2012, 1,009,029 mangrove trees were planted within one hour by a team achieved by the joint efforts of Governor Lray Villafuerte of the El Verde Movement and the people of San Rafael of Ragay, Camarines Sur.

On September 26, 2014, the Philippines broke the Guinness World Record for the "Most trees planted simultaneously (multiple locations)", wherein 2,294,629 trees were planted in 29 locations throughout the country by 122,168 participants in an event organized by TreeVolution: Greening MindaNOW (Philippines). Trees planted during the event included rubber, cacao, coffee, timber, mahogany trees, as well as various fruit trees and other species native to the country.

Proposed legislation

In May 2019, the House of Representatives of the Philippines has approved House Bill 8728, or the "Graduation Legacy for the Environment Act," principally authored by Magdalo Party-List Representative Gary Alejano and Cavite 2nd District Representative Strike Revilla, requiring all graduating elementary, high school, and college students to plant at least 10 trees each before they can graduate. A similar Senate bill was filed but not passed.

House Bill 5240, or the National Land Use Act, and House Bill 9088, or the Sustainable Forest Management Act, were approved in the House of Representatives to address deforestation, land use conversion, and other environmental issues. The counterpart bills in the Senate stalled in the committee on the environment.

Activism
Local governments, Indigenous communities, and nongovernmental organizations conduct campaigns against destructive practices such as logging and mining. Organizations include Alyansa Tigil Mina and Kalikasan People's Network for the Environment.

See also
 Environmental issues in the Philippines
 Luzon rainforest
 Oposa v. Factoran

References

Further reading

External links
 Philippines Forests at Mongabay
 Illegal logging in the Phililpines
 The Lost Forest at Fieldmuseum.org

Environmental issues in the Philippines
Philippines
Forestry in the Philippines

Deforestation in the Philippines


The Sid blood group system is a human blood group defined by the presence or absence of the Sd(a) antigen (also known as Sid antigen) on a person's red blood cells. About 96% of people are positive for the Sd(a) antigen, which is inherited as a dominant trait. Among Sd(a) positive individuals, the expression of the antigen ranges from extremely weak to extremely strong. Very strong expression of the antigen is referred to as a Sd(a++) phenotype. In addition to being expressed on red blood cells, Sd(a) is secreted in bodily fluids such as saliva and breast milk, and is found in the highest concentrations in urine. Urine testing is considered the most reliable method for determining a person's Sid blood type.

Antibodies against the Sd(a) antigen are naturally occurring, meaning people produce them without having been exposed to Sd(a) positive blood through transfusion or pregnancy. These antibodies are not usually considered to be clinically significant, but there have been two cases of transfusion reactions associated with transfusion of Sd(a++) blood to people with anti-Sd(a) antibodies. Sid was officially designated a blood group in 2019 after its genetic basis was discovered.

Molecular biology
The Sd(a) negative blood type is caused by missense mutations in B4GALNT2, a gene located on chromosome 17q21.32 which encodes a glycosyltransferase that catalyzes the final step in the synthesis of the Sd(a) antigen. The Sd(a) antigen exhibits autosomal dominant inheritance. The antigen is not only expressed on the surface of red blood cells but is found in soluble form in human plasma, breast milk, saliva and meconium, and is present in very high quantities in the urine, where it is carried on Tamm-Horsfall glycoprotein. It is also expressed in the stomach, colon, kidneys, and lymph nodes. Newborns do not express Sd(a) on their red cells until about 10 weeks after birth (although they do express the antigen in their bodily fluids), and expression of Sd(a) antigen on red blood cells often decreases during pregnancy.

Clinical significance
The expression of Sd(a) antigen in positive individuals is highly variable, and ranges from expression so weak that it is barely detectable, to expression so strong that the cells are agglutinated by plasma from most human donors (polyagglutination). Extremely strong expression of Sd(a) is denoted as Sd(a++).

The Sd(a++) phenotype is sometimes referred to as the Cad phenotype, after a 1968 paper that identified a novel antigen in members of the Cad family from Mauritius. The Cad positive cells showed polyagglutination and reacted with Dolichos biflorus lectin, a reagent used to identify type A1 red blood cells, even though the cells were type B or O. Later research showed that strong examples of Sd(a) also exhibited polyagglutination and reaction with Dolichos biflorus, and that Cad was likely an exceptionally strong Sd(a) positive phenotype. It is believed that Sd(a) and Cad share the same antigenic determinant and are likely synthesized by the same enzyme, but there may be structural and quantitative differences in the expression of the two substances. The Cad/Sd(a++) phenotype, like the Sd(a) positive phenotype, shows autosomal dominant inheritance.

Anti-Sd(a) is a naturally occurring antibody, meaning Sd(a) negative individuals produce it without having been exposed to Sd(a) positive blood through transfusion or pregnancy. Anti-Sd(a) is not typically considered to pose a hazard in blood transfusion, but as of 2018, two cases of transfusion reactions following the transfusion of Sd(a++) blood have been documented. It is suggested that people with anti-Sd(a) are transfused with "least incompatible" blood (the blood unit that gives the weakest reactions during crossmatching) to avoid potential exposure to Sd(a++) units. Anti-Sd(a) is not known to cause hemolytic disease of the newborn.

Epidemiology
Approximately 91% of people test positive for Sd(a) through blood typing, and 96% test positive through urine testing. The Sd(a++) phenotype is rare, especially in Europe, but may be more common in East Asian populations.

Laboratory testing
Urine is considered the optimal specimen for Sd(a) phenotyping. The Sd(a) antigen can be detected in urine using hemagglutination inhibition testing: anti-Sd(a) is added to the urine, followed by Sd(a) positive blood cells. If Sd(a) is present in the urine, it will bind the antibody and prevent the red blood cells from agglutinating.

Anti-Sd(a) is usually composed of immunoglobulin M and is reactive at room temperature, but it also displays reactivity in the indirect antiglobulin test. The antibody displays a characteristic pattern of mixed-field agglutination during testing. Under the microscope, small, shiny clumps of red blood cells are visible, surrounded by unagglutinated cells. The reactivity of anti-Sd(a) is enhanced by enzyme treatment with ficin, papain, and trypsin, and the antibody is resistant to treatment with dithiothreitol. Guinea pig urine contains very high concentrations of Sd(a) antigen and is sometimes used to identify anti-Sd(a) antibodies by inhibition testing.

History
The antigen was named for Sid,  an employee at the Lister Institute whose red blood cells were used for antibody screening. They were found to react strongly with samples containing an unidentified antibody, which was later characterized as anti-Sd(a). Although the Sd(a) antigen was named in 1967, and had been studied since at least 10 years earlier, it was only connected to B4GALNT2 in 2003 and assigned to a blood group in 2019 following the discovery of the molecular basis of the Sd(a) negative phenotype. It had previously been classified as part of the ISBT 901 series of high-incidence antigens.

References

Blood antigen systems

Sid blood group system