The Protect Wildlife Project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) together with its local partners turned over to Puerto Princesa City Mayor Lucilo R. Bayron, the approved management plan of the Cleopatra’s Needle Critical Habitat (CNCH), almost coinciding the third-year anniversary of the Cleopatra’s Needle as Critical Habitat through Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) Resolution No. 17-612.
The turnover was conducted at the Office of the City Mayor during the Protect Wildlife Project’s Close Out Session, since the project will terminate on December 31, 2020.
The Protect Wildlife, launched in 2016 is a multi-pronged program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that worked to conserve biodiversity, protect wildlife, and sustain ecosystem services in ways that also improved the local population’s livelihoods and long-term well-being. The program also aimed to help reduce habitat destruction, wildlife poaching and trade, and other environmental degradation, while targeting to place 141,296 hectares of biologically significant areas under improved natural resource management.
Present during the activity were Jeanne Tabangay, Site Manager of USAID-Protect Wildlife Project and Cristina Flores of USAID-Protect Wildlife; Senior Environmental Management Specialist (SEMS) Zorina Arellano and Ms. Hazzel Valones of the Office of the City ENRO; and Elizabeth Maclang of the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (PPSRNP).
The CNCH management plan was approved on August 20, 2020 by the Interim Management Committee (IMC) presided by the chairman himself, Mayor Lucilo R. Bayron.
One of the strategies identified in the CNCH management plan is the improvement of governance and institutionalization of the management body through the creation of a management office.
In CNCH, it is expected to achieve optimum protection and care of the area to safeguard the threatened wildlife and its habitat, and ensure sustaining flow of nature’s ecological services that benefited humans, as manifested in its vision.
“Maayos na naproprotektahan at napangangalagaan ang mga nanganganib na buhay ilang at kanilang mga tirahan at napapanatiling daloy ng mga serbisyo ng kapaligiran para sa kapakanan ng mga komunidad at iba pang stakeholders, sa pamamagitan ng epektibo at sama-samang pamamahala,” the CNCH vision said.
CNCH, considered as the oldest and most diverse forest, is one of the country’s biggest critical habitat covering an area of more than 40,000 hectares and Palawan’s second highest peak at 1,593 meters above sea level. It covers the barangays of San Rafael, Tanabag, Langogan, Binduyan, Concepcion, New Panggangan, and Tagabinet. It is also the home of threatened endemic wildlife species, thus, its declaration as critical habitat is vital to the survival of these species.
Atty. Carlo B. Gomez, the City Environment and Natural Resources Officer said that the CNCH is the first in Puerto Princesa City to be declared as such.
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