FAO data show Philippine old-growth forest was 3.3% of land by 1998
Short record: the main facts, with sources. A full case file has not been prepared.
- The record does not name which of my species, waters, soils or forests were harmed.
FAO's 1998 assessment put old-growth dipterocarp forest at 984,100 hectares, 3.3% of the country's land area, and found that 57% of industrial log supply came from illegal logging and other substitutes. The sources reviewed do not verify the dates or scope of the 1992 ban or the 2011 executive order.
What happened
The FAO's 1998 Philippines assessment put old-growth dipterocarp forest at 984,100 hectares, 3.3% of the country's land area.
It recorded forest area falling from 15 million hectares in 1989 to 6.7 million in 1998.
FAO said 57% of industrial log supply in 1998, about 2.85 million cubic metres, came from illegal logging and other substitutes.
Sawn-timber imports, almost none before 1992, passed 0.5 million cubic metres in 1996, FAO reported.
In court and with insurers
Lawsuits and rulings
Insurers
What we don't know
Nature
- Not measured Harm to nature: The record holds no measurement of harm to nature.
Record
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: old-growth logging was banned from January 1992.
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: President Aquino's 2011 Executive Order 23 imposed a nationwide logging moratorium on natural and residual forests; the source link is an opinion column.
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: about 70% of the country was old-growth forest in the early 1900s.
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: Marcos-era logging licences rose from 58 in 1969 to 471 in 1976.
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: the official old-growth figure in the 1990s was 800,000 hectares (2.7%).
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: critics said the executive order hit legal licence holders while illegal logging rose.
- None on record Not stated in the sources reviewed: the effect of the ban on deforestation, and who gained or lost from the changes.
Did the harm stop?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
Who paid?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
Sources
Press and investigations
- Philippines country chapter (R.B. Aguda)FAO · 1998
Connected cases
- Kenya's two official figures: 8.83% forest cover and 12.13% tree cover Kenya · 2001–2026
- Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (International organisation) — here: source of the forest and trade figures; there: global forest definition and assessment
- Mongolia index livestock insurance Mongolia · 2024
- Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (International organisation) — here: source of the forest and trade figures; there: Source of the GIEWS dzud update
- Vietnam's forest recovery and logging displaced abroad Vietnam · 1987–2006
- Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (International organisation) — here: source of the forest and trade figures; there: Author of the 2001 review of logging bans