By Hazel F. Gloria
CEBU CITY, Feb. 12 (PIA) -- A
sawmill processing plant with a proposed P1 million budget will soon rise in
Bindoy, Negrs Oriental.
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR-7) Dr. Isabelo R. Montejo
and Bindoy Mayor Valente Yap recently led the ground breaking rites for the
proposed sawmill project which is considered the first to be installed in the
first district of Negros Oriental.
In a message during the ceremony, Montejo said the project aims to empower the
local government unit (LGU) of Bindoy in managing their forest and mangrove
areas to promote sustainable development while getting into an enterprise to
advance livelihood opportunities on their communities.
“Once the sawmill becomes fully functional and operational, it is expected to
serve processing orders not only in Bindoy but also from other cities and
municipalities in the province while achieving a zero-waste generation,” he
added.
Sawmill facility is a wood processing plant used for the conversion of logs or
timber into lumber, or the re-sizing or ripping of lumber, slabs and other wood
wastes into desired dimensions and forms.
The soon to rise sawmill processing facility convert logs into lumber and other
knocked down products which could be marketed within and outside the
municipality.
Supported under the DENR’s infrastructure and livelihood component of the
Community based Forest and Mangrove Management project (CBFMMP), this is in
partnership with the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) and funded by the KfW,
a German-government owned bank.
Meanwhile, Yap said the facility is a realization of what he had started 22
years ago when he was a contractor and signed up a Community Based Contract
Reforestation (CBCR) project with DENR.
The municipality of Bindoy was recently awarded by the DENR for its strong
commitment to the national greening program (NGP) as the only municipality in
the country to plant, grow and maintain more than 1,000 hectare plantations
within a forest land.(mbcn/HFG/PIA-7/DENR-7)