Wildlife biologist Nina Rivera Ingle, PhD received the prestigious Parker/Gentry Award in the Field Museum last 11 October in Chicago, Illinois. The Award honors her for her “commitment to biodiversity conservation through research, management, and education.”
A member of the board of Trustees of the Ateneo de Davao University, Ingle is an alumnus of the Ateneo de Davao High School and the Ateneo de Manila University. She obtained her PhD in Natural Resources Management from Cornell University in 2001.
“Society’s appreciation for and understanding of the natural environment is crucial for biodiversity conservation,” Ingle said. “One-third of Filipinos are under 15; what they learn in primary and secondary schools can have far-reaching effects on their futures and on the future of the Philippine environment,” she explained.
Ingle is currently working with the Ateneo de Davao High School on educational activities that develop academic knowledge and skills in the context of understanding the local landscape.
Early in her career, Ingle chose to focus on bats whose diversity and role in forest ecology fascinated her. She wrote the first identification key to the 70 species of bats then known from the Philippines with Field Museum mammal curator Lawrence R. Heaney, PhD.
In partnership with Bat Conservation International and Filipino wildlife biologists, cavers, and government environmental personnel, Ingle is leading an effort to collect information on the status of Philippine cave bats as a basis for conservation action. An initial product is an audio-visual presentation designed for communities near caves where bats live. The presentation explains the benefits from bats and the threats they face.
She was one of the founding members of the Wildlife Conservation Society of the Philippines (WCSP) and is its current president. The Society started in 1992 as a small group of wildlife biologists; the annual WCSP Philippine Biodiversity Symposium now draws about 200 participants from throughout the Philippines and abroad. For several years, Ingle edited the peer-reviewed WCSP Proceedings, working especially with authors who had not yet published a scientific paper.
The Parker/Gentry Award is given annually by the Museum to honor an outstanding individual, team or organization whose efforts have had a significant impact on preserving the world’s rich natural heritage and whose actions can serve as a model to others.
The award bears the names of the late Theodore A. Parker III and Alwyn Gentry, ardent conservationists and leading naturalists. Parker, an ornithologist, and Gentry, a botanist, died in 1993, while surveying hill forests of western Ecuador. Parker and Gentry worked closely with Field Museum scientists on several joint efforts, including rapid inventories for conservation.
Ingle’s commitment to biodiversity conservation exemplifies the spirit of the Parker/Gentry Award.
