If nature and natural resources were measures of economic wealth, then our very own country would be one of the Earth’s richest.
Our ecosystems provide the essentials of life to people – from seafood and game animals, to fodder, fuelwood, timber, and pharmaceutical products. Likewise, they play a major role in economies and are an important social safety net for the rural poor.
“It is the poor, with limited assets and greater dependence on common property resources, who suffer most when biodiversity is lost,” said the Manila-based Asian Development Bank in an article.
Biodiversity is the buzzword for biological diversity – the ecosystems, species, and genes that together constitute the living world.
“Biodiversity is complex beyond our understanding, and valuable beyond our ability to measure,” explains John C. Ryan, author of Life Support: Conserving Biological Diversity.
The Philippines is among the world’s seventeen “megadiversity” countries, which together account for some 60-70 percent of total global biodiversity. What is alarming is that our beloved country is also included in the list of biodiversity “hotspots” – threatened areas with very high levels of biodiversity.
“Second only to Brazil” is how the Philippines has been described as it has one of the highest rates of wildlife endemism in the world. Its estimated two million species include 8,000 flowering plants, 395 birds, 180 mammals, and 293 reptiles and amphibians. The diversity of its fauna is second only to those found in Madagascar.
Take the case of Mount Makiling in Laguna. Perhaps not too many Filipinos know that the forest reserve contains more species than the whole of North America. In 1997, the late award-winning zoologist Dioscoro Rabor reported at least 50 species of mammals, 120 bird species, six species of amphibians, 19 types of reptiles and several varieties of fish inhabiting the fabled mountain.
The Philippines has among the highest rates of discovery in the world with sixteen new species of mammals discovered in the last decade. Because of this, environmentalists believe that the rate of endemism for the Philippines is likely to rise.
However, conservationists fear that, without immediate intervention, the Philippines hotspot is on the brink of an extinction crisis. In fact, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has identified the Philippines as “one of the most endangered of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.”
“Widespread destruction and conversion of natural habitats, overexploitation, and pollution have led to rapid biodiversity loss,” said a World Bank report.
Natural habitats refer to forests, which are believed to shelter more than half of the country’s life forms. Recent estimates put the forest cover at around 5.4 million hectares. Only about 800,000 hectares are considered primary forest.
Logging, both legal and illegal, continues to pose a threat to the Philippines’ forests, the World Bank report stated. Other imminent threats to Philippine forests include mining and land conversion.
Due to the aforementioned threats, environmentalists are not surprised to know that the number of endangered species increased from 212 in 1990 to 284 in 1998. Trade in 30 species is prohibited under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and trade in another 109 species is strictly regulated under Appendix II.
A couple of years back, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) admitted that more than half of the native fauna in the country are facing extinction. Of the 1,137 bird, mammal and amphibian species endemic to the country, 592 are considered “threatened or endangered” by the IUCN Red List, along with 227 endemic species of flowering plants.
More species are fast disappearing. The Philippine eagle, the second-largest eagle in the world and found in Davao and other parts of Mindanao, are on the verge of extinction. These birds breed only in primary lowland rain forest.
The tamaraw, a dwarf water buffalo that lives only on Mindoro, may soon join the dodo into extinction. The endemic freshwater crocodile, the most threatened crocodilian in the world, may also be in the list. In 1982, wild populations totalled only 500-1000 individuals; by 1995 a mere 100 crocodiles remained in natural habitats.
Deforestation doesn’t happen only in the uplands and lowlands but also down under. Coral reefs, the oldest and richest communities of plants and animals, are likewise in deep trouble. They are touted to be the rainforests of the sea.
The Philippines has one of the largest areas of coral reefs in the world, about 27,000 square kilometers within a 15- to 30-meter depth. They are habitats for rare species, including some 488 species of corals, 971 species of benthic algae, and 2,000 species of fish, according to the DENR.
The World Atlas of Coral Reefs reported that 97% of the reefs in the country are under threat from destructive fishing techniques, including cyanide poisoning, over-fishing, or from deforestation and urbanization that result in harmful sediment spilling into the sea.
Why should disappearing plants and animals concern us?
“To biologists, and to many others, the question hardly needs asking: a species if the unique and irreplaceable product of millions of years of evolution, a thing of value for scientific study, for its beauty, and for itself,” explained Ryan in his book.
“For many people, however, a more compelling reason to conserve biological diversity is likely to be pure self-interest: like every species, ours is intimately dependent on others for its well-being,” he wrote.
