Volunteers with MGF honorary park ranger celebrity actress Nadine Lustre. (Photo from Instagram)
An environmental conservation group has disclosed toat the “pressure” to preserve what is left of the country’s forests is intensifying with threats of deforestation continuing to change.
The Masungi Georeserve Foundation (MGF) in Rizal raised this concern as it reiterated data from the World Resources Institute (WRI) which showed “a troubling shift in the drivers of intact forest landscape loss.”
Since 2000, the MGF has conserved and rehabilitated the 300-hectare landscape in the Sierra Madre mountain range in Rizal province and currently, it is expressing concern on how difficult it is to restore a forest—and how quickly years of patient work can be undone.
“(We realize that) every surviving tree represents years of care, protection and vigilance,” it pointed out.
Masungi’s statement came on the heels of a recent WRI finding that globally, fires accounted for nearly 40 percent of the reduction in intact forest landscapes from 2020 to 2025, up from 21.2 percent from 2000 to 2013.
It added that mining and exploration has also triggered an increase in their share from 12.1 to 18.8 percent while roads and linear infrastructure rose from 2 to 7.5 percent.
“These figures remind us that forests face multiple, often overlapping threats. And as climate change intensifies droughts and fire risks, protecting what remains becomes even more urgent,” the foundation noted.
It stressed that although restoration matters, “preventing destruction in the first place matters just as much.”
“Protecting our remaining forests means confronting the activities that threaten them, strengthening environmental safeguards, and standing behind the people who defend these landscapes every day,” it asserted.
