Saving the endangered ‘pawikan’

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

Conclusion

Published in the Business Mirror, January 18, 2016

Image Credits: Pawikan Conservation Staff-BMB-DENR

Pawikan conservation program

Institutionalized in 1979 with the signing of Executive Order 54 creating Task Force Pawikan by former President Ferdinand Marcos, conservation efforts in the Philippines have gone a long way. The pawikan conservation program, which used to be a special project, is now part of the wildlife resources-conservation and protection program of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Biodiversity Management Bureau (DENR-BMB).

The DENR-BMB’s pawikan conservation and protection efforts are the country’s contribution to the global effort to save the endangered wildlife from extinction.

In Photo: A green turtle goes back to the sea after laying eggs. This photo was taken on Turtle Islands Wildlife Sanctuary, Turtle Islands Tawi-Tawi - DENR-BMB

“Before, under the Task Force Pawikan, conservation efforts is concentrated on the Turtle Islands. Today the program is being implemented nationwide,” Lim said.

However, because of limited resources, the program is anchored mostly on information, education and communication campaign. Protection, which basically means enforcement of existing laws, gets the much-needed boost from various DENR-conservation partners.

The DENR continues to “tag” marine turtles for identification as part of the program.

“Every marine turtle that we encounter, with the help of our DENR regional office and partner-LGUs [local government units] and NGOs [non-governmental organizations], we put tags on marine turtles,” Milo Ramoso, the DENR-BMB’s point person for pawikan, said.

The tags used are small metals with alphanumeric codes indicating the turtle’s country of origin such as “PH” for Philippines followed by numbers and letters.

Ramoso said that from 1982, when tagging of marine turtles began up to September 2015, a total of 14,987 marine turtles have been tagged. Other partners such as LGUs, NGOs and people’s organizations have tagged a total of 5,000 during the same period. He said that only untagged pawikan are tagged by the DENR. The DENR currently has 53 institutional partners protecting and conserving marine turtles in various parts of the country.

Since the creation of Task Froce Pawikan, several laws have been passed, both national and local, institutionalizing marine turtle conservation along with other threatened wildlife, Lim said.

The program has inspired some local governments to establish their own pawikan sanctuaries or hatcheries to ensure the survival of the species.  Republic Act 9147, or the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act, promotes the conservation and protection of Philippine wildlife against various threats, natural or man-made.

The Philippines is also a signatory to several international treaties that promotes wildlife conservation, such as Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) and the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, or Bonn Convention.

Under the said law and international treaties, the Philippines strictly prohibit hunting pawikan, destroying their habitats, including nesting grounds, and harvesting their eggs.

Poor law enforcement, apathy

AA Yaptinchay, a veterianian and marine ecologist, said the Philippines has enough laws to protect its endangered wildlife.

“Our problem is implementation. Enforcement should not just be the problem of the DENR,” he said partly in Tagalog.

Yaptinchay, founder and director of Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines (MWWP), lamented that Filipinos, in general, seem to have no complete grasp of the situation of the endangered pawikan, saying that despite the law, hunting for food, harvesting of eggs and illegal wildlife trade persist.

Partly to be blamed, he said, is the inaction of LGUs.

At the very least, he said LGUs need to strengthen law enforcement for the protection of endangered wildlife within their jurisdiction.

LGUs, he said, can embark on a local program in support of the national government’s campaign by establishing units dedicated to rescue and rehabilitation, hatcheries or sanctuaries to protect and conserve these threatened wildlife and their natural habitats.

“Awareness is a big factor.  We need an increased appreciation of environmental laws,” he said.

Yaptinchay observed that many wildlife species could have been rescued, saved, rehabilitated and released back into the wild had LGUs only knew how to do it.

 “We lack technical know-how to address the many aspects of rescue and rehabilitation [of marine turtles],” he said.

In 2014, the DENR came up with a project to develop a series of manuals to serve as guide in rescuing endangered aquatic wildlife, including pawikan. Called Philippine Aquatic Wildlife Rescue and Response Manual Series, a collaborative effort of the DENR-BMB, MWWP and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the manuals aim to guide stakeholders involved in the rescue and rehabilitation of injured or threatened wildlife.

Threats at bay, threats at sea

According to Yaptinchay, many reports his organization receive involve threats to pawikan, including in beach resorts.

“We receive reports of violation of conservation laws in beach resorts. Notorious [are those occurring] in Guimaras, Surigao and even Boracay,” he said partly in Tagalog.

 He said just on January 3 his group received a violation of the law in San Carlos City.

Some resort owners, he said, illegally hold in captivity pawikan, which go to beaches to lay eggs.

He said they also receive reports of stranded marine mammals, with some already dead.

“Once a week, we receive incident reports. We report them to the DENR central office. Sometimes, actions were made, but sometimes we do not receive any feedback,” he said.

Resort owners, he said, should learn how to best develop their properties, noting that many nesting sites have been sacrificed in the name of development.

Habitat destruction is a major cause of the decline of the population of the marine turtles.

The massive land reclamation in various parts of the country has caused the loss of thousands of pawikan nesting grounds over the past several decades.

Normally, he said, marine turtles nest on the beach between 10 meters to 30 meters from the sea. These areas can be protected by not putting up structures and, as much as possible, preventing people from going in potential nesting ground.

“The Philippines is very rich in biodiversity. They are all over and many are destroyed,” he said.

Besides hunting and harvesting eggs, such as in Tawi-Tawi, by-catching or accidental catching has increasingly become a serious threat to the pawikan, he said. Yaptinchay used to work as an employee of the DENR in Tawi-Tawi. Many pawikan have ended up dead after being trapped in fishing nets left by fishermen.

Because pawikan are breathing creatures, they need to go to the surface to inhale and exhale from time to time. Once trapped in nets, they are unable to swim to the surface, drowning them in the process. “Fishing methods and gears that causes death to pawikan should be banned,” he said.

Everybody can help

Lim said resort owners have the responsibility to help protect the endangered marine turtles. In the same breath, LGUs should do its part by strengthening law enforcement. Resort owners can help protect nesting grounds of the magnificent wildlife, while LGUs can pass legislation imposing stiffer penalties for violation of environmental laws.

She said while the pawikan conservation program had made significant strides, much still need to be done to ensure the survival of the endangered marine turtle species.

“Everybody can help save the endangered pawikan, Yaptinchay said.

“All of us can make our share to save the pawikan,” he said.

He added that reporting cruelty against marine turtle is one way of helping save the species. But more important, he said, people can help save pawikan from extinction by not doing things that kill them.  By not hunting them, not destroying their habitats, by stopping the harvesting of wildlife, we can help protect and save pawikan,” he said.