Board seeks to resolve ’ancestral domain’ issues

The Philippines’ National Biofuels Board (NBB) in early March asked the Department of Agriculture (DA) for help in clarifying issues in the use of land tagged as tribal “ancestral domains” for the planting of biofuel feedstock. Concerns have to be resolved, the board said, so investors will know whether they can construct facilities for ethanol production in the country. The lands, located in different areas in the Philippines, are being sought by companies including Philippine conglomerate San Miguel Corp. and independent oil firm Seaoil Philippines Inc. for use in their biofuel ventures, which are in line with the government’s plan to rely solely on local sources for ethanol by 2011. Media reports said that the government has identified more than 60,000 hectares of land that may be used for sugarcane plantations, on top of the country’s existing 388,000 hectares of sugarcane farms. (March 15, 2009)