Appropriation of Funds for Conservation of Forests, Reforestation and Afforestation of Denuded Areas

February 10, 1927

ACT NO. 3283

AN ACT TO APPROPRIATE FIFTY THOUSAND PESOS FOR THE CONSERVATION OF FORESTS, FOR REFORESTATION AND AFFORESTATION OF DENUDED AREAS, COGON LANDS, AND SUCH OTHER LANDS CERTIFIED AS FOREST LAND WHICH UPON INVESTIGATION SHOULD BE PLACED UNDER FOREST COVER AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

SECTION 1. The sum of fifty thousand pesos is hereby appropriated out of any funds in the Insular Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for expenditure by the Bureau of Forestry, with the approval of the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, in the wise conservation of the public forest, and in the reforestation and afforestation of denuded areas, cogon lands, and such other lands already certified as forest land which, upon investigation, should be under forest cover for the public good. aScITE

SECTION 2. This sum shall be expended for conservation purposes and for the location, investigation, and reforestation or afforestation, protection, administration, and improvement of areas chiefly valuable as watersheds or for production of timber, rubber, quinine, and camphor, and other forest products, in order to control floods and soil erosion.

SECTION 3. No timber or forest concession of any kind within public forests or timber lands reforested or afforested, nor for the use of such timber planted in accordance with this Act, shall be granted without previous authorization by the Philippine Legislature, except to those persons, associations, or corporations which, in accordance with Act Numbered Twenty-eight hundred and seventy-four, may lease public lands nor in areas greater than one thousand and twenty-four hectares to any person, association, or corporation.

SECTION 4. The Director of Forestry shall submit to the Legislature, through the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, during the first ten days of each session, a special annual report on the result of the reforestation and afforestation authorized by this Act, specifying the expenses incurred, the location and area of the sections reforested and afforested, the timber or forest concessions granted on the same, and such other data as may in his judgment be necessary for the information of the Legislature.

SECTION 5. Upon the express or implicit approval of this Act by the President of the United States, as provided in the Act of Congress approved on August twenty-ninth, nineteen hundred and sixteen, entitled "An Act to declare the purpose of the People of the United States as to the future political status of the People of the Philippine Islands, and to provide a more autonomous government for those islands," the Governor-General shall so announce forthwith, by means of a proclamation, and this Act shall take effect on the date of such proclamation.

Approved, February 10, 1927.