Picop may shut paper mill sans DENR permit
MANILA, Philippines -- Publicly listed Picop Resources Inc. said it might shut down its pulp and paper plant if regulators continued to withhold issuance of forestry permits that would allow it to cut trees in its reserve for use as raw materials.
In a statement to the stock exchange, Picop said the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) had yet to issue a new harvesting permit that would allow resumption of its forestry operations, which have been suspended since May 2007 on the expiry of its last integrated annual operations plan.
The company said it had submitted a new harvesting plan to the DENR, which it said had not acted on it. It said that under the law such a plan should be “automatically approved” after three months if the regulator fails to act on it.
“The DENR has not been respecting these [legal] provisions since 2001,” it said.
Picop told the exchange that the situation was, in effect, a stoppage order, which it said was illegal because the operator of a tree farm is allowed by law to do what it pleases with trees on its property.
“Thus, Picop cannot be deprived of its rights as owner of the planted trees and worse, without due process at all,” the company said.
It added that it was contemplating whether to comply with the “illegal stoppage order.”
“The long suspension of our forestry operations, vital component in supplying the needed quantity of raw materials for our pulp and paper mill, had severely constrained the plant’s operation,” it said.
It added that it would review the viability of operating significantly below capacity “if only to keep thousands of workers continuously employed,” while the DENR “continues to withhold Picop’s harvesting permit from the natural forest that it had protected and sustainably managed for over 50 years.”
