BUTUAN CITY – In an effort to promote environment preservation and forest protection and in line with the government’s global warming and climate change mitigation program, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Northeastern Mindanao has finished training a batch of 50 Deputy Environment and Natural Resources Officers (DENROs) at the regional office here.

The two-day training of the new DENROs was also meant to support the DENR’s anti-illegal logging campaign in the Caraga region. The training was held at the DENR Regional Training Center in Barangay Ambago, Butuan City last Tuesday and Wednesday.

The candidates were selected through the recommendation of provincial and community environment and natural resources officers (PENROs and CENROs) from the five provinces of the region after undergoing and passing the rigid selection process and cross-references of characters made by the DENR over the past weeks.

DENR Regional Technical Director for Forest Management Services Ali M. Bari said the recruitment of DENROs should complement the aging regular forest rangers of the DENR in an all-out effort to eliminate timber poachers and mineral thieves in the vast timberlands of the Caraga region.

One of the duties and functions of a DENRO is to arrest, even without warrant, any person who has committed or is committing in his/her presence any of the offenses provided in environmental and natural resources laws, rules and regulations.

Bari cited the ratio of one government forest ranger for every 11,000 hectares of forest lands, which he said is too large an area for the rangers to handle.

The Deputy DENR officers, he said, would assist the DENR in carrying out its mission.