‘Rarae aves’

“Paradise Lost” is a truly appropriate term for the areas in the country that have been laid to waste by loggers and others that benefit from felling trees and clearing and burning operations. The result, as detailed in a recent report by Agence France-Presse (AFP), is the despoliation of tracts of forest and the virtual extinction of Philippine birds in marvelous colors and plumage. It’s yet another example of how the climate of impunity plaguing the Philippines is devastating its biodiversity as well.

Bislig, which has been identified as a key biodiversity area, is a destination of local and foreign birders. But it is slowly losing its avian population because so many trees have been felled, according to the AFP report. (Haribon’s “Priority Sites for Conservation in the Philippines” maps the site at 154,829 hectares covering Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Sur, Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley—an area threatened by “logging concessions, land conversion [plantation], human encroachment.”)

Birders used to be rewarded with sightings of the wonderful creatures that made their home in Bislig—blue fantails, writhed hornbills, rufous-fronted tailorbirds, brown tit-babblers and leafbirds. “Back in the 1990s, I’d take them to one area and they would see all the endemics in one day. Now, there’s no guarantee you’ll find them even if you went looking everywhere for three days,” said nature guide Felizardo Goring. These birds, found nowhere else in the world, are now endangered, much like Bislig itself.

Once lush, Bislig is now a far cry from how it was. It is said that beyond the damage caused by logging, settlers have moved in and destroyed the forest cover to set up farms. The forest is being burned and cut down, patch by patch, leading to birds losing their natural habitat. Goring led a birding party through Bislig but failed to find such breeds as the celestial monarch, the Mindanao bleeding-heart pigeon and the Mindanao broadbill. Not only birders but also ordinary folk must be anguished at these disappearances, and lament these rare birds’ fate along with that of the Philippine Eagle in other parts of the country.

Thankfully, the fight to save these treasures continues. In Palanan, Isabela, “ecoguardians”—government conservationists, students and teachers—have banded together to protect the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park. Measuring 359,486 hectares, it was declared a national park in 1997. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has identified at least 240 bird species in the untouched forest, including the Philippine Eagle, the Luzon water redstart, and one of the rarest birds in the world and endemic to the area, the Isabela oriole.

“We encourage the ecoguardians, aside from the volunteers from the villages, to continue their noble contribution in protecting the environment,” said William Savella, Isabela’s provincial environment and natural resources officer.

In Culasi, Antique, the Panay Bird Club helps visitors find and admire the elusive creatures in the nearby remote areas. Mount Madja-as, one of the remaining unexplored areas and perhaps the most challenging climb for Philippine mountaineers, is home to the Panay striped babbler that was first found in 1987. Renowned local guide Tatay Joswe Alejo says he has climbed the mountain “more than 300 times” and has seen the birds travel in flocks. “It makes me happy to know that these birds can only be found here in Panay. That means they are unique and valuable,” he says.

Culasi Mayor Joel Lomugdang is in the thick of working to have Madja-as declared a natural park, so as to protect endangered species from “the wholesale clearance of forest habitats as a result of logging, hunting, kaingin for agricultural conversion and mining activities.”

The fight goes on in other places, including Mount Makiling Forest Reserve in Laguna, where the locals join conservationists in protecting flora and fauna in some of the few remaining virgin forests. Bislig is a cautionary tale of how species endemic to the Philippines are being decimated, how the habitats of other wondrous creatures are being destroyed at an alarming pace, how government neglect is making the destruction of natural resources an obscenely easy enterprise. Exactly how many rarae aves have been lost?