Over the last couple of years, the Philippines has been experiencing an alarming decrease in forest area. Due to rampant illegal logging and the lack of funds to better secure protected areas, the countries forests are going nude.
Each year, based on data from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), around 47,000 hectares of forest cover is lost, which is equivalent to approximately 1.2 million hectares of deforested land in a hundred years. This translates to about 24 percent in deforestation rate, one of the fastest in the world.
These figures may sound too statistical, but they are a constant and stark reminder for Filipinos of the state of Philippine forests. This is also a wakeup call for everyone that while the government pursues efforts to create a greener country, a great amount of work is still up ahead, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
