Philippines' SM Malls Halts Construction After Court Issues Environmental Protection Order

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Philippine court has halted extension work on a mall amid a public outcry over plans to cut down nearly 200 trees in a popular urban forest.

The court in northern Baguio on Tuesday issued a temporary environmental protection order stopping SM malls, one of the country's biggest chains, from uprooting the trees in downtown Baguio, known as the city of pines and the Philippines' summer capital.

SM Prime Holdings Inc. had previously secured permission to expand the existing mall and promised to replant the towering Alnus trees in another location to make room for a new multilevel development.

Environmentalists objected and took to the site at midnight when workers began clearing the land. They have also started online petitions against the tree cutting.

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Comments

[artleads]

10:55 AM on 04/12/2012

This is good news as far as it goes. But just imagine the pressure "development" puts on trees every day in every country in the world! But, as they say, a journey of a thousand miles begins...

It's hard to do anything to even slow the rate of development's destruction, much less stop or reverse it, but I have great (unreasonable) faith in the good it does to merely THINK differently.

In our thinking, it's no longer necessary to BELIEVE that we need to displace nature, already so drastically under attack, in order to build for our human needs. While developers want pristine land to build on, since it is usually less expensive, they must be steered toward redevelopment of already built areas. Under the current system, it might cost more and be more trouble for them, but just allowing them to continue cutting down trees and ruining ecosystems is more costly for the general society. So, even if we can't stop development as is, we have no need to believe that it should continue for one more day.

[treehugger07]

08:41 PM on 04/11/2012

Ever since SM was built, Baguio has become polluted and BORING. Why? People, instead of going to Session, or John Hay or the City Market, they stay congested in that one building. But good thing that today, people have grown and realized how useless SM really is. Now people go back to the original places. So srsly SM, there's no need for you to expand.. Contract pa if you want!

[Son of Liberty 1765]

10:21 AM on 04/11/2012

THey should have scorched the place before they started digging so there was nothing left for the tree huggers to latch onto.

[greengrl]

10:05 AM on 04/11/2012

"Only when the last tree has been cut down; Only when the last river has been poisoned; Only when the last fish has been caught; Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."
~ American Indian Proverb

[Christie Anne Guinid]

06:30 AM on 04/11/2012

im a local from the said city. ever since an SM mall stood here, the city has become hotter, more congested and polluted. they sell us overpriced "eco-bags" so that we can help save the environment. during a rally against SM, the mall invited filipino pop-stars for a concert inside SM to attract people in despite the outcry. i aint saying that having a mall here is bad. but they have to listen to the locals since it is us who pay for their commodities to keep the mall running. there were plans among the youth to boycott SM, but that is quite impossible since a lot of people here are less than concerned about the issue or are not informed or they really need to shop there once in a while - i myself need some things to buy from SM.

if only more people were informed about this and they would unite for a common cause, it would probably do some damage on the mall's economy so that SM would realize the power of what their consumers can do.

[heytangerine]

04:18 AM on 04/11/2012

As of last night, despite the Temporary Environmental protection order the digging continues and one earthballed tree has reportedly died. True story. SM never stopped despite DENR's call to put a halt on the cutting!

[Linus521]

02:52 AM on 04/11/2012

Science considers the appearance of plants and trees on the land, the most vital evolutionary event in the history of Earth. While most of the Earth is covered in marine ecosystem, our terrestrial ecosystems create and support the vast majority of all life, and terrestrial ecosystems are the most endangered of extinction. Going, going, for cities, agriculture, cattle fields, shopping malls, parking lots, office complexes and the new green alternatives or dead fields of solar and planet gobbling windmills, for deforestation of the planet!

Science predicts in merely 50 years, Earth will be a forestless planet. Trees and plants release oxygen, balance the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, exhale water vapor that cools the leaves, the soil and the surrounding area that cools the immediate climate, which cools the regional climate. Terrestrial ecosystems also sequester the climate warming, heat trapping gases that will be re-leased back into the atmosphere when man deforests for houses, freeways and fields of dead solar panels and windmills. And shopping malls! We are going to kill the Earth and all the reasons man breathes for climate change and one more shopping mall!

If science maintains, trees and plants on the surface of Earth, the most vital evolutionary event in all of history, how is it ever green to perform deforestation and the killing of terrestrial ecosystems?

[Genders]

10:40 PM on 04/11/2012

You are a fraud. An apparent super ecologist, who really works for the nuclear power industry.

Nukes are carbon positive, and destroy huge swaths of land, and degrade the entire planet with cancerous radioactive waste.

[Linus521]

01:04 AM on 04/12/2012

I am sorry you are unconscious as to the science of ecology, which clearly states, mankind exists only, because of Earth's natural, wild ecosystems or the real, natural Earth that seeded all life and governs it today.

Can a solar panel mined from a rare earth mineral [mining does kill Earth] release oxygen, balance the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, naturally regulate and moderate the climate, naturally sequester the climate warming, heat trapping gases, provide the nitrogen cycle [without, all life on Earth would grind to a swift halt]; the hydrological storage and flux, the creation and renewal of a life giving soil and the purification of the air and water and the provisions of...

decomposition, pollination, seed dispersal, 99% of all pest control and the regulation and checking of human disease pathogens that cause global, disease pandemics. As yet, science is light years from truly comprehending all that ecosystems perform for Earth and mankind. Unlike dead solar panes, I've just stated ecosystems' life giving and saving services.

And, I am an elderly lady who witnessed the environmental movement roar like a wolf in the 60s, and it was all about the conservation and preservation of Earth's ecosystems, the big green, the deep green, the green that matters above all other considerations and issues or life itself, including yours and mine.

"In Wildness is the salvation of the Earth and the preservation of all life, long known among mountains and wolves but seldom perceived by man."

[Xavier Daniel]

12:17 AM on 04/11/2012

Baguio City, Pine Trees, and what lies ahead of us http://itsabrightday.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/baguio-city-trees-and-what-lies-ahead-of-us/

[earthotter]

10:00 PM on 04/10/2012

Surely Huffpost can pay someone for a photo of the actual trees.

[Kenz300]

06:02 PM on 04/10/2012

Developers will not be satisfied until they cut down the last tree.

Environmental regulation is a good thing.

[snewell]

06:33 PM on 04/10/2012

DEVELOPERS WILL NEVER BE SATISFIED NO MATTER WHAT BECAUSE THEY ARE EMOTIONALLY INSANE AND ETHICALLY DERANGED

[Conspiracy2Riot]

10:48 PM on 04/10/2012

i agree. there is a psychosis that prevails among those who view the world as a commodity.

[AF3IRM]

02:52 PM on 04/10/2012

A very small country, the Philippines host 4 of the largest shopping malls in the world -- all designed to siphon off money remitted by men and women deployed to work in 200 countries under some of the most intolerable work conditions in the world. Spent on consumer items manufactured elsewhere and/or under foreign franchise, the money thus flows out of the country nearly as fast as it flows in, keeping poverty and underdevelopment at a static state.

[Conspiracy2Riot]

10:49 PM on 04/10/2012

Fanned.