West Negros declared wetlands zone

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines – A 110-kilometer strip spanning nine towns and cities in Negros Occidental was added to the country’s “wetlands of international importance” on the occasion of World Wetlands Day last Feb. 2.

The province became the seventh Ramsar site in the Philippines after the formal declaration was read by Vincent Hilomen, executive director for Priority Program-Biodiversity Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in ceremonies at the provincial capitol.

The DENR cited the more than 80,000 hectares of wetlands that span the 110-kilometer strip from Bago City to Ilog town that served as home to over 100,000 migratory birds every year.

At least 79 bird species migrating from Siberia, China and Australia pass through the strip covering Bago City, Pulupandan, Valladolid, San Enrique, Pontevedra, Hinigaran, Binalbagan, Himamaylan, Kabankalan City and Ilog, the governor said.

World Wetlands Day marks the date of adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on Feb. 2, 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

The Ramsar Convention is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.

Negros Occidental Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. lauded the citation accorded to the province’s campaign to protect the migratory birds’ natural habitat, adding that it heightened as well the value of these LGUs in the areas of ecotourism and ecosystem protection.

Marañon was joined by former governor Rafael Coscolluela, lawyer Wilfred Ramon Peñalosa, head of the Provincial Environment and Management Office; Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer Andres Untal, and forester Conrado Marquez, acting head of the Protected Area Superintendent (PASu).

Marañon expressed confidence that the declaration will consequently attract more tourists to southern Negros.

The six sites in the country declared as “wetlands of international importance” are the Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary in Agusan del Norte, the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park and Puerto Princesa Subterranean River Natural Park, both in Palawan; Olango Island Wildlife Sanctuary in Cebu, Naujan Lake National Park in Oriental Mindoro, and the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area.

Marquez said Negros Occidental is the only area in Western Visayas that had been established as a migratory path of water birds coming from Australia, Siberia and China during change of season.

There were around 109,000 migratory shorebirds documented in the Bago-Ilog coastal wetlands in January alone, he said, the number exceeding those in Manila Bay.

Citing a document from the DENR-Biodiversity Management Bureau, Marquez said that the Bago-Ilog wetlands serve as flyway of migratory birds whose route will be cut off if these habitats are not protected.

“Wetlands regulate ecosystem services, like the filtration of pollution going to the sea especially in Negros where there are a lot of tidal or mud flats that not only serve as food sources of the migratory birds but also the womb of the sea where the fishes spawn,” Marquez explained.

Wildlife biologist Philip Godfrey Jakosalem of the Philippine Biodiversity Conservation Foundation Inc., who worked with the NGO’s director for field operations Lisa Paguntalan in the documentation of migratory birds, said that 66 species were found plying the Ilog-Hilabangan area alone, or about 18,209 birds at one time.

About 48 species frequent the San Enrique-Pontevedra territory  with 18,000 individual birds, and between 4,000 to 7,000 for the rest of the strip, except in Valladolid where the headcount was low, Jakosalem noted.

Eight species, considered as “threatened” migratory birds, were found in the southern Negros wetlands, the PBCFI biologist said.

These are the Red-necked stint, whose number was recorded at 4,972 in 2012, dropped to 2,758 in 2013, and increased to 8,008 last year; the Great knot with a headcount of 6,955 in 2014; Chinese egret, Black-tailed godwits, Red knot, Asiatic dowitcher, Eurasian curlew and Eastern curlew.