Press Release
Environmental activist group Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) today renewed calls to investigate the attacks on forest rangers of the Masungi Georeserve after they were mobbed by about 30 people allegedly affiliated with land grabbing groups last Saturday, February 19.
“We condemn in the highest terms possible the latest attack against Masungi Georeserve’s forest rangers. Our leaders have truly failed us when the country’s most prolific conservation area continues to be met with violent impunity. We need a new leadership that will prioritize defending Masungi’s defenders and other environmental heroes across the country,” said Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan PNE.
Unidentified perpetrators shot two Masungi rangers in the head and the neck last July 2021. While the rangers have recovered, the suspected perpetrators backed by illegal businesses around the watershed are still at large.
“The longer these land grabbers encroaching Masungi are not prosecuted, the more we will see bolder acts of violence against its defenders. The risks these land and environmental defenders face intensify especially during the chaos of the election season,” added Dulce.
Election-related violence has worsened with the culture of impunity under the Duterte administration, with land and environmental defenders as frontliners. Last week, state elements arrested Dr. Naty Castro, a community medicine practitioner and environmental defender from the Caraga region, The Philippines currently has the most killings of land and environmental defenders in Asia while holding the third topmost spot in the world.
“The recent attacks against land and environmental defenders are piling up at an alarming rate this campaign season. We once again call on all candidates for public office to speak and use their platforms to address the situation and defend the defenders of our environment,” Dulce ended. #
