Section 16May 19, 1975, Sec./Art. 16

Areas needed for forest purposes. The following lands, even if they are below eighteen per cent (18%) in slope, are needed for forest purposes, and may not, therefore, be classified as alienable and disposable land, to wit:

1. Areas less than 250 hectares which are far from, or are not contiguous with, any certified alienable and disposable land;

2. Isolated patches of forest of at least five (5) hectares with rocky terrain, or which protect a spring for communal use;

3. Areas which have already been reforested;

4. Areas within forest concessions which are timbered or have good residual stocking to support an existing, or approved to be established, wood processing plant;

5. Ridge tops and plateaus regardless of size found within, or surrounded wholly or partly by, forest lands where headwaters emanate;

6. Appropriately located road-rights-or-way;

7. Twenty-meter strips of land along the edge of the normal high waterline of rivers and streams with channels of at least five (5) meters wide;

8. Strips of mangrove or swamplands at least twenty (20) meters wide, along shorelines facing oceans, lakes, and other bodies of water, and strips of land at least twenty (20) meters wide facing lakes;

9. Areas needed for other purposes, such as national parks, national historical sites, game refuges and wildlife sanctuaries, forest station sites, and others of public interest; and

10. Areas previously proclaimed by the President as forest reserves, national parks, game refuge, bird sanctuaries, national shrines, national historic sites:

Provided, That in case an area falling under any of the foregoing categories shall have been titled in favor of any person, steps shall be taken, if public interest so requires, to have said title cancelled or amended, or the titled area expropriated.