Species Diversity: The Philippines' Unique Species

Blogger's Note: I hope we could take care all of our species. This story is heartwarming because of the selfless efforts of some groups to preserve our unique species. Fight On!

This story was taken from www.inq7.net
http://news.inq7.net/nation/index.php?index=1&story_id=42518

3 RP-based conservation groups win int'l awards
First posted 04:03am (Mla time) July 06, 2005 By Christine Gaylican, Inquirer News Service

THREE Philippine-based conservation groups whose efforts include saving the endangered Philippine crocodile, the Polillo Island monitor lizard and the Calayan rail, are among the 28 winners in the recently held 2005 BP Conservation Programme (BPCP).

The highest grant level of $75,000 or the Consolidation Award was awarded to each of three teams: The CROC Project in the Philippines for its work with the critically endangered Philippine crocodile, the Marsh Deer Project in Argentina, and the Vision 2005 Project which is working to promote sustainable management and harvesting of the Kikuyu escarpment forests in Kenya.

The BPCP also gave $28,000 funding to a local environmentalist group led by Dan Bennett for the preservation of Polilio Island's monitor lizard.

Carmela Española and her group received $12,500 from the BPCP so it can protect the habitat of the Calayan rail, a rare bird species discovered in the Babuyan Group of Islands in May last year.A total of $600,000 or grants ranging between $7,500 and $75,000 were given to 28 different conservation teams chosen from over 400 applicants.

The awards were given on June 23 at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. Renowned environmentalist and Harvard professor Edward O. Wilson was the guest of honor.

The BP Conservation Programme is a partnership initiative between British Petroleum, the Wildlife Conservation Society, BirdLife International, Fauna and Flora International and Conservation International. The program aims to develop and support the skills and networks of future generations of conservation professionals who are working to address global biodiversity conservation priorities at a local level.

Severely endangered
The Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis) is the most severely endangered crocodile in the world. The species was rediscovered in 1999 in Luzon, which led to the establishment of the Crocodile Rehabilitation, Observance and Conservation (CROC) Project, funded by the BP Conservation Programme in 2002 and 2003.

The $75,000 award will enable CROC Project, a community-based research, observance and conservation project, to continue to work with the critically endangered Philippine crocodile, a freshwater species of which, there are approximately only 50 left, in Northern Luzon.

The CROC Project is the first group to implement conservation activities for the species. The once-rampant hunting of the crocodiles has ceased and there has been a two-fold increase in the non-hatchling population size.

A local conservation organization, the Mabuwaya Foundation Inc., was also established to spearhead the Philippine crocodile conservation activities in Luzon.

With continued support from the BPCP, the foundation is confident it will become a full-fledged independent and effective organization focused on Philippine crocodile and wetland conservation by the end of 2007.

Monitoring the lizard
The preservation of Polilio Island's monitorlizard received $28,000 in funding to further study and preserve the endemic amphibians known locally as bayawak.

The environmentalist group led by Dan Bennett will use non-intrusive methodologies developed on Polilio Island, Quezon Province, to investigate the distribution and status of the monitor lizard in the remaining forest fragments of Luzon and its adjacent islands, and to identify key conservation resources.

For rare Calayan rail
After accidentally discovering an endemic flightless bird now called the Calayan rail (Gallirallus calayanensis), in the Babuyan Islands in May last year, Carmela Española sought funding from the BPCP to preserve the bird species that can only be found in the Philippines.

The rail is the size of a small crow with dark brown plumage and bright orange red legs and beak. Calayan residents said they used to catch the rail, locally known as piding, for food, unaware it was a rare species.

BPCP gave $12,500 to Española's group to determine the species' actual conservation threat status and to define the boundaries of a planned protected area in the Babuyan Islands.

"We will conduct baseline research on the rail's population and distribution. The proposed project will produce a thorough threat assessment for the rail and its habitat and formulate workable conservation measures in collaboration with local government units, non-government organizations and other institutions," Española said in an interview.

She added that the playback census technique will be used in assessing the rail's population and distribution.

"Our study will include notes on the habitat requirements, threats and ecology of the Calayan rail based on field observations and from interviews with local people," Española said.

"We want to launch an environmental education campaign in schools and forest communities. We want to conduct workshops with stakeholders so we can draw a conservation action plan for the Calayan rail," she said.

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