EXPLAINERS: What is the proposed Sierra Madre Mountain Range Authority?

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The House Panel on Government Enterprises and Privatization tackled the substitute bill for 14 separate measures that propose the creation of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range Authority (SMMRA), with one of the measures being filed by House Speaker Bojie Dy.

Dy had named the Sierra Madre measure a priority legislation by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC).

According to Bukidnon First District Representative Jose Manuel Alba’s presentation, 130,000 hectares of Sierra Madre’s forest cover was reduced by logging from 2003 to 2020, while approved mining claims and applications cover 800,000 hectares across the mountain range corridor.

Alba, who serves as the chair of the bill’s technical working group, said the SMMRA is a “Unified Framework for Protection, Conservation, Resilience, and Sustainable Development.”

Spanning 540 kilometers across Cagayan to Quezon, Alba said there needed to be a new approach.

“Our current approach to protecting this mountain range is fundamentally broken because it is broken. We rely on isolated municipal zoning and project-by-project management. This bill drives a core policy shift towards landscape scale, science-based governance,” Alba said.

The new substitute bill proposes the creation of the SMMRA as a government-owned or -controlled corporation (GOCC) with its own charter, which will be attached to the Office of the President.

The SMMRA would be tasked with policy, planning and coordinating.

Alba explained the SMMRA will not replace any existing agency, but it will complement them instead. The Authority will not issue documents such as environmental compliance certificates, local permits and more.

At the head of the Authority will be a 17-member board of representatives from different sectors of government, specialists and private sector representatives.

The SMMRA will be tasked with creating a 25-year Sierra Madre Master plan, integrating land use planning, watershed protection and disaster risk reduction. It will be updated once every three years.

Alba said that extractive activities in the mountains must also be addressed.

“Upon the effectivity of this act, no new commercial mining application or agreement shall be authorized, anywhere within the geographical restriction of the Sierra Madre. Furthermore, existing commercial operations will face a mandatory, gradual phaseout,” Alba said.

Operators are mandated to submit a phaseout and restoration plan.

Since the proposed SMRRA is a GOCC, it is expected to become financially self-sustaining, so there will be a Sierra Madre fund.

Under the proposed measure, 10% of environmental fees charged by local government units will go to the SMMRA. It also has a share of penalty and forfeiture recoveries. The planned GOCC is also allowed to receive grants, and have other lawful sources of income.

These would help support scientific research, ecosystem accounting and more.

There will also be a “Sierra Madre Nature Credit System” where medium and big businesses who rely on the mountains will have an annual “nature credit purchase obligation.”

It is a regulatory debt that can be resolved by regularly purchasing nature credits.

“This market mechanism directly funnels corporate cash straight into the hands of local communities and forest stewards who do the actual protection network,” Alba said.

Compliance with this system is outcome based, not financial. They can pay these credits back by joining resilience investments or by banking on early warning systems.

The panel approved the bill and its accompanying committee report. — LA, GMA News