Panay Peninsula to become Natural Park

21-08-2002

In April, the Philippine President, Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, signed a declaration to establish the North-west Panay Peninsula, Philippines, as a Natural Park. This top priority site for biodiversity conservation is a recognised Important Bird Area (IBA) and includes extensive lowland forest, probably the most extensive piece of this habitat remaining within the Negros and Panay Endemic Bird Area.

In recent years, surveys have recorded many highly threatened bird and mammal species, including Negros Bleeding-heart Gallicolumba keayi (Critically Endangered), Visayan Tarictic Hornbill Penelopides panini panini (Endangered), Visayan Wrinkled Hornbill Aceros waldeni (Critically Endangered), White-winged Cuckoo-shrike Coracina ostenta (Vulnerable), Green-faced Parrotfinch Erythrura viridifacies (Vulnerable), and Visayan Warty Pig Sus cebifrons (Critically Endangered).

The area is currently threatened through timber poaching and the large-scale conversion of forest into kaingin. Some natural forest has been converted to plantation, there are developments taking place around the forest, and there is heavy hunting pressure. The forest area is included within two pending mining applications.

The Philippine Endemic Species Conservation Project of the Frankfurt Zoological Society (PESCP) first recognised the conservation importance of the forests. Their project has conducted basic faunal and ecological research on herptiles, birds, mammals and forest trees, and is engaged in community-based conservation efforts, including conservation education, livelihood support and the 'soft release' of confiscated birds. For the last six years PESCP has been campaigning for the declaration of the forests as a Nature Park. Further action will include the drawing up of park boundaries, and the park's proclamation by Congress.