MANILA, Philippines — About 2,000 Philippine species are facing extinction unless the government implements a program to protect critically endangered species, Environment Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga said.
“We have over 52,000 species, about half of which are not found anywhere else in the world. Sadly, around 2,000 are either critically endangered or threatened or vulnerable,” Loyzaga said. “We do have a responsibility to eliminate what we would call the possibility of extinction of these species, and therefore a very pointed program is necessary in order to protect the species that are critically endangered in the country.”
She noted that the Philippines is one of the most megadiverse countries in the world.
The environment secretary said that the country will play a big role in the Convention on Biological Diversity, which will be held in Colombia this year.
The Philippines will also host the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in October
“This conference actually focuses on three things: disaster risk financing; inclusion and inclusivity, so basically gender equality issues; and the third would be localization, the recognition that in fact between rural and urban and natural environments, disaster risk takes different shapes. Therefore, all our solutions need to be tailored to the different context that they are situated in,” she said.
She noted that the Asia-Pacific is one if not the most disaster-prone region in the world but also recognized as the strongest regional economy.
“We also are home to more than 60 percent of the eight billion population in the world so recognition here is that despite the enormous challenges of hazards that are occurring, we do have a way for us to bring down our exposure, we do have a way for us to bring down vulnerability and build capacity to become a resilient region,” Loyzaga noted.