Conservation catch-up: Communities coming together to protect critically endangered species

Last month, our conservation team visited the Visayas in the Philippines to meet with in-country project partners. Here, Dr Ricardo Lemos de Figueiredo, Lecturer in Conservation Science, who was joined by Dr Sam Penny and Dr Rebecca Sargent, also Lecturers in Conservation Science, shares some exciting project developments.

We spent the first week of our visit in northwest Panay, where we are working with local NGO PhilinCon (Philippine Initiative for Conservation of Environment and the People) to reduce illegal hunting of the Critically Endangered Visayan warty pig in the natural park, as part of our Darwin Project, which is funded by the Darwin Initiative. We spent the first day with our community team, who took us to four of the eight communities around the natural park that we have been working with to implement alternative livelihood schemes to provide additional income and reduce pressures on forest resources. We visited some of these livelihood schemes, such as the shrimp and native chicken farms, as well as rice retail stores.

Read about our conservation work in the Philippines.

Despite being affected by drought, it was great to see how well the communities are progressing with their respective livelihood schemes, and we even joined an opening ceremony of a rice retail store. They have also started to diversify their livelihoods beyond the project's scope, and we saw some of the beautiful woven bags they are producing for sale in local tourist areas.

The following day, we gathered our team and all eight community facilitators, one from each community we are working with, for a lovely lunch and meeting in the river (literally inside the river!). Each facilitator shared updates and everyone stated that the communities are happy with the project and feel that it is helping them!

We spent the next couple of days with the market research team, who were previously responsible for conducting surveys at local markets but have now redirected their focus to organising a conservation campaign to instil pride and appreciation for local wildlife. After a day of brainstorming with the team, we joined a launching event in one of the communities, which was not short of games, music and free ice cream for the children. Warty the pig, our fabulous campaign mascot, also made his community debut at the end of the event and was an immediate hit with the children!

The last few days in Panay were spent with our field and ranger teams, where we accompanied them into the forest for three days. It was fantastic to witness first hand such a pristine area of primary rainforest, so rich in biodiversity and filled with rare endemic species. Some highlights include sightings of Visayan tarictic hornbills, which we have at Bristol Zoo Project, warty pig tracks, and calls of the rare and elusive Negros bleeding-heart dove. It was also good to see our rangers and field surveyors at work, monitoring signs of illegal activity, warty pig tracks, and surveying bird diversity in the forest, providing an opportunity for us to assess methodologies and identify opportunities for future work.

After a fruitful week in Panay, we continued our journey and travelled down to Negros, with a first stop in Negros Forest Park, in Bacolod city, the breeding centre of our project partner Talarak Foundation. Here, we saw the Negros bleeding-heart dove and the Walden’s hornbill, which are part of the Visayas’ ‘Big Five’ alongside the Visayan warty pig, the Philippine spotted deer and the tarictic hornbill.

From there, we travelled to Talarak’s nature reserve in Bayawan, where they are releasing several threatened species. We spent two days in the reserve, learning about Talarak’s conservation projects, including the release programme for the Negros bleeding-heart dove, which Bristol Zoological Society is advising on

The last few days of our trip were spent in Dumaguete city, south Negros, with our third project partner, CenTrop (Center for Tropical Conservation Studies). which is managed by Silliman University. On top of housing several threatened species, CenTrop is the pioneer of the Negros bleeding-heart dove breeding programme and one of only three facilities to currently house the species. Bristol Zoological Society’s conservation, animal and veterinary teams have been supporting CenTrop to improve the management and welfare of their animals and it was wonderful to see the substantial improvements that they have made over the last year. We had several meetings with representatives from both CenTrop and Silliman University to discuss opportunities and the future of the partnership. I also conducted a lecture/workshop on the topic of reintroductions, which was attended by staff members of CenTrop and Silliman University, as well as several biology students from the university.

Overall, this was a very productive trip for the Philippine conservation team, and we came back with many ideas for future work under the programme, as we continue to make a difference for both wildlife and people!