The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is lobbying Congress for the quick passage of 17 bills covering protected areas (PAs) in the country.

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje stressed the lobby is crucial in preserving what remains of the protected areas (PAs), which harbor the country’s dwindling wildlife.

He said he appreciates the effort of Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri in pushing for the approval by the Senate of the pieces of legislation designed to strengthen programs and provide ample funds for the defense of protected areas.

Zubiri made the promise during the First National Zoological Park Conference held recently at the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Nature Center in Quezon City.

“I will exert all efforts to have the PA bills passed in Congress,” he said.

Zubiri is chairman of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources and also the author of Republic Act 9147, or the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act.

The senator from Bukidnon said his panel will be working with DENR regarding sustainable forest management and with the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) regarding logging within ancestral lands.

Paje said his agency is working for the certification of the 17 PA bills as priority bills by President Benigno S. Aquino III.

“The DENR has done the legwork and submitted all the necessary requirements in re-filing the bills because we have seen the necessity to proclaim these areas as protected,” he said.

The 17 protected area bills include the Siargao Islands Protected Land and Seascape (Surigao del Norte); Mt. Hilong-Hilong Range (Agusan del Sur); Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary; Samar Island Natural Park; Apo Reef Natural Park (Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro); Malampaya Sound Protected Land and Seascape (Palawan); El Nido-Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area (Palawan); Turtle Island Wildlife Sanctuary (Tawi-Tawi); Bataan National Park; Casecnan Protected Landscape (Nueva Ecija); Aurora Integrated Protected Area; Mt. Guiting-Guiting Natural Park (Romblon); Tagub-Kampalili Range Protected Landscape (Davao Oriental-Compostela Valley); Mt. Balatukan Range (Misamis Oriental); Buug Natural Biotic Area (Zamboanga Sibugay); Northwest Panay Peninsula National Park, and; Northern Negros Natural Park (NNNP).

A dozen PAs have been declared by laws, the last of which was the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, which is covered by Republic Act 10067 issued in April 2010.