Charges will be filed against persons who insist on residing and farming within Kanlaon Volcano’s 4-kilometer permanent danger zone (PDZ), a Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) official said on Thursday, Dec. 4.
DENR Negros Island Region Director Charlie Fabre said 132 families have been identified to be living and farming within the PDZ and are being asked to vacate the area.
If they refuse to vacate the area we will have no option but to file a case for illegal occupation of a protected area, Fabre said.
The DENR wants farmlands in the area to be reverted back into forest land, he added.
“We will write to them to ask them to prove the legality of their occupying the area,” Fabre said.
They will not expand the danger zone to 6 kilometers because it will affect 12,000 families that will be a huge displacement, he added.
The Office of the Civil Defense said families who were residing in the PDZ were 47 in Canlaon City and 85 in La Castellana town.
Many have evacuated.*
[sibwp_form id=1]