Sunday, March 18, 2007 Ifugao starts bio-diversity preservation
THE Ifugao Provincial Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Office (Paenro) has embarked on a bio-diversity project to recover and protect the endangered flora and fauna of the province.
With a funding of P750,000 from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Paenro personnel already started consultation meetings with the beneficiaries and cooperators as the phase one of the project.
Raymundo Bahatan of Paenro said that most of the cooperators are small private forest (muyong) owners who would be consulted and oriented in the identification and determination of the endangered and extinct flora and fauna in their respective private forests.
Eventually, they would be trained to produce and propagate these endangered and extinct flora and fauna in order that the once balanced indigenous ecology of the province can be regained, maintained and sustained, he explained.
Bahatan added that the one-year project would also include the establishment of nurseries for the production, propagation and distribution of indigenous tree seedlings for planting in private forests and denuded mountains of Ifugao.
These indigenous trees are considered water retaining plants which explained why the natives of Ifugao survived the irrigation of their rice fields for centuries.
This can also be good for the preservation and maintenance of the forest of Ifugao as a watershed area and help bring back the balanced ecology the province has been enjoying for a thousand years until its deterioration due to technological advancement, new industries, increase in population, abuse and other contributory factors.
Bahatan said the first phase of the project would be tenuous because it involves the survey of the forests and includes the process of identifying all existing, endangered and extinct flora and fauna before the intervention can be properly decided.
If the project succeeds, it could help maintain and sustain the province as a watershed area that sufficiently supplies the Magat Dam located in the boundaries of Ifugao and Isabela of which many industries such as fish and rice farming depend on and can also help solve the water shortage problem occasionally brought by the El Niño phenomenon.
