Making biodiversity conservation a breeze

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

Published in the Business Mirror, April 4, 2016
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/making-biodiversity-conservation-a-breeze/

Every day a handful of forest-protection officers and about 100 volunteers take turnsw in manning their posts and conducting routine patrol in the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park (NSMNP), a vast forest reserve and wildlife sanctuary in Isabela province.
The Bantay Gubat personnel are always on the lookout for “unwelcomed guests” in the country’s largest natural park.
With just a handful of unarmed personnel fitted against illegal loggers and hunters, the task at hand is not a walk in the park.

Equally daunting is the task of Bantay Gubat to record sightings of rare species of flora and fauna as they pass by uncharteed terrains as part of the biodiversity-conservation effort in the NSMNP. “We only have a few forest-protection officers and about 100 volunteers, but with the help of the communities, we can manage,” said Mina Labuguen, the protected area superintendent of the NSMNP.

DENR Strategic Communication and Initiatives Service

Community, LGU support
Labuguen said, in an interview with the BusinessMirror,  that the protection of the NSMNP is getting the full support of the people in the province, including the local officials of towns who support their information, education and communication campaign in surrounding communities.
“Our local government units are active members of the Protected Area Management Board [PAMB], and they have committed to protecting the NSMNP,” she said. In fact, the provincial government of Isabela agreed to let the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to use their helicopter to conduct air surveillance over the protected area.
 
Logging hot spot no more
Isabela and other areas in the Cagayan Valley region are no longer considered illegal-logging hot spots.
“We are proud to say that the Regional Development Council [RDC] has declared us to be free of illegal logging,” Labuguen said.
Last year the DENR Cagayan Valley Office declared that the region is no longer an illegal-logging hot spot, because of the effort of various law-enforcement agencies to combat the illegal harvesting of trees in natural forest.
“The people have learned. They no longer see the trees as source of easy cash. They now see its long-term benefit, especially now that it is getting hotter in our province,” she added.
 
Agroforestry through NGP
She said the communities were tapped to implement the National Greening Program (NGP), making them co-owners of the gains of the massive reforestation project in Isabela. Agroforestry is becoming popular, not for timber, but for coffee, rambutan and other fruits, she said. “Some of our communities are now harvesting fruits from the trees they planted before. They are now selling fruits rather than timber,” she said.
 
Priority conservation area
Established through Republic Act (RA) 9125, which was signed by President Arroyo in April 2001, the NSMNP is the largest and most diverse protected area in the country.
It covers a total area of 359,486 hectares “from ridge to reef,” and its boundary partly transcends a total of eight towns of Isabela, namely, Maconacon, Divilacan, Palanan, Dinapigue, San Mariano, Tumauini, Cabagan and San Pablo, and the city of Ilagan.
According to the DENR, the NSMNP is one of 10 priority sites of National Integrated Protected Areas System (Nipas). The NSMNP is home to numerous species of flora and fauna, many of which are rare and endangered, including the monkey-eating Philippine Eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi), the Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis) and saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus). “It is also home to the rare fruit-eating forest monitor lizard [Varanus bitatawa] locally called bitatawa or baritatawa,” said DENR Biodiversity Management Bureau Director Theresa Mundita Lim, who underscored the need to strengthen biodiversity-conservation effort in the area.
According to a biological profile prepared by the DENR-BMB, the NSMNP is high in endemism. More than half of the species of mammals, birds, amphibians, trees and plants found in the forest are endemic, or can only be found in the Philippines.
There are 18 species of frogs living within the NSMNP, 13 of which are endemic and five belong to the list of threatened and near-threatened species. There are also 39 species of reptiles, 16 of which are endemic; five on the list of threatened or near-threatened species.
The NSMNP is also an important bird sanctuary, being a host to a total of 291 species of birds, 83 species of which are endemic, while 51 are on the list of threatened or near threatened. There are a total of 44 species of mammals, 21 of which are endemic, while 12 are on the list of threatened or near-threatened species. An estimated 10,000 species of plants can also be found within the park, with about 5,000 species having been identified as endemic to the Philippines.
“The fact that Philippine Eagle population in the park is growing means the forest is in excellent condition and wildlife is thriving,” Lim said.
The DENR-BMB recorded sightings of the Philippine Eagle from 2000 to 2015. At least seven Philippine Eagles, including juveniles, are believed to have lived or continue to live within the park. At the foot of the mountains of Northern Sierra Madre, wild crocodiles, perhaps the few remaining crocodiles in Luzon, can also be found.
“We have a crocodile sanctuary in the park. We have partnered with the Mabuwaya Foundation, which helps in the conservation of these crocodiles,” Labuguen said.
 
Crucial life support
DENR Forest Management Bureau Director Ricardo Calderon said protecting the forest of  Isabela is crucial to ensure the survival of the people, who depend on the Cagayan River Basin, the country’s largest river basin, which irrigates vast tracts of agricultural land in the Cagayan Valley region. Isabela itself is one of the country’s top producers of rice and corn. “The Northern Sierra Madre Mountains of Isabela is second largest in terms of forest cover in the Philippines. Almost all expensive wood used in furniture making can be found in that forest,” Calderon said. But because of its vastness, protecting the forest and its wildlife is easier said than done, he said.
“Last year we released P20 million for forest protection. This year NSMNP will get the same amount,” Calderon said.

Revolutionizing forest protection
Protecting the NSMNP is a big challenge, a reason it was selected for the launching of the United States Agency for International Development-backed Lawin Project, Calderon said. Launched on March 10, the Lawin Project, or Landscape and Wildlife Indicators-Forest and Biodiversity Protection System, makes use of a mobile application as a tool to enhance forest protection and wildlife-conservation effort in the NSMNP.
The Web-based mobile application, a cyber-tracker, would be helpful in providing accurate information about the status of protected areas covered by RA 7586, or the Nipas Act.
The tool will allow concerned government agencies to cope with  different challenges of biodiversity conservation, Lim said.
During the project’s launch, Lim and Calderon signed the guidelines and mechanics for the national adoption of the project, hoping to make use of the same tool in other protected areas in the country to make life easier for forest-protection officers.
Developed by the DENR and   the the USAID, through the Biodiversity and Watersheds Improved for Stronger Economy and Ecosystem Resilience (B+Wiser) Program the project, revolutionizes the monitoring system used by the DENR.
“It is basically a system that we developed in biodiversity monitoring. Only, it is now aided with a mobile-application technology that makes it much easier for forest-protection officers and wildlife law enforcers to do their job,” Lim said.
She said the Lawin Project aims to improve the response mechanisms to address observed threats and ensure the sustainability of conservation efforts inside the NSMNP. Before its launch in the NSMNP, the Lawin Project was pilot-tested last year in seven other B+Wiser project sites, covering a total area of 442,000 hectares. The other pilot sites are Kaliwa-Upper Marikina Watersheds in Tanay, Rizal; General Nakar in Quezon province; Naujan Lake National Park in Oriental Mindoro; Quinali “A” Watershed in Albay; Bago Watershed Forest Reserve in Negros Occidental; Mount Kitanglad Natural Park in Bukidnon; and Mount Apo Natural Park in Southern Mindanao.
At least 670 personnel who will act as forest-protection officers and wildlife law enforcers, consisting of resource and data managers and community monitors from the communities, were trained during the pilot-testing. The project’s system operates a Web-based, open-source software called CyberTracker for the data-collection interface and the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (Smart) for data analysis, mapping and report generation.
“This makes life easier for our forest-protection officers,” Calderon said. Data can be transferred to Google maps and other tools for creation of actionable reports, which facilitate decision-making, he said.
He added that decision-makers at the regional and national level could easily access Lawin Project reports generated at the field level.
The data collected give national and local planners a more detailed perspective of the biodiversity within a protected area, giving them a better idea of how to manage them better. Through this tool, community volunteers can also quickly alert wildlife officers to clearing of wooded areas, and allows them to upload observations and photos of signs of illegal logging as evidence, and send these photos to concerned law-enforcement agencies.
“We hope to implement the project in all areas and we are eyeing to include it in our budget proposal,” Calderon said. That way, protecting the forest and conserving the country’s rich biodiversity will be a breeze, he said.