AFTER more than a decade of intense work, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on Monday said it has finally completed the delineation of forest boundaries in the Zamboanga Peninsula.

Arleigh Adorable, executive director of DENR-Region 9, said that the Regional Assessment and Delineation Teams of the Land Evaluation Party (LEP) has accomplished to delineate of some 5, 590.18 kilometers of forestland boundary in five provinces.

This includes Zamboanga del Norte (1,662.37 kms); Zamboanga del Sur (1,493.28 kms); Zamboanga City (679.78 kms); Zamboanga Sibugay (1,471.32 kms); and Isabela City, Basilan (83.43 kms).

Adorable said that the team’s total output include new lines covering areas that are either proposed for conversion to alienable and disposable lands, proposed for reversion to timberlands and “hotspot areas”.

Hotspot areas refer to those areas located in the hinterlands and coastal areas which are considered impenetrable due to adverse peace and order situation.

In 2000, the government has started with country’s forestland boundary delineation in line with Sec. 4, Article XII of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, which mandates the Congress “to determine by law the specific limits of the public domain.”

In 2008, the DENR through an administrative order included in its delineation program the boundaries of coastal and mangrove areas of the country to enable the RADTs to propose new blocks or parcels within forest zone areas to non-conforming land uses/agricultural areas or vice versa based on secondary and primary data as well as the actual field survey.