Foreign colonizers raped Philippine forests
If you witness how deplorable the situation of the Philippines forest resources today, blame it on the the foreign colonizers, whose underlying motives then were to take advantage on the ignorance of the Filipinos. Environmental studies showed that foreign colonizers have abused the rich Philippine forest resources and reaped whatever by-products they could take away in the guise of putting the country's forest resources under the control, ownership and administration of the state. Between 1866 to 1887, the Spanish government, under its Regalian Doctrine, strictly regulated forest use and prohibited unauthorized encroachment into forestlands and illegal cutting of timber, says David Gould in his paper "The Evolution of Land Tenure in Forestry Management in the Philippines" in 2002. Invoking the issuance of Royal Decrees from the Spanish crown, "kaingin" making or shifting cultivation, which was the main source of livelihood of most indigenous people, was prohibi...