SAVING THE VISAYAN WARTY PIG

SAVING THE VISAYAN WARTY PIG

Who in this country has seriously thought about saving the Visayan warty pig?

Apparently, some people have—and thank God for them. But compared with the attention given to the Philippine Eagle and the Tamaraw, we hardly hear about saving this rather unfortunate-looking but uniquely Filipino animal.

Is it because most Filipinos do not care much about our own wildlife? Or perhaps because we have such low regard for pigs in general that we care even less about a wild pig?

Maybe it is time to change that attitude.

The Visayan warty pig (Sus cebifrons) is Critically Endangered and has disappeared from more than 95 percent of its former range. Habitat loss, hunting and conflicts with farmers are among its major threats.

And now comes some rather surprising good news.

Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, through Re:wild and the Bezos Earth Fund, have launched the Phoenix Species Project, committing $200 million to recover 100 of the world's most threatened species across 30 countries. The Visayan warty pig is among them.

That makes our warty pig one lucky pig indeed!

But before we start congratulating the foreigners, perhaps we should ask ourselves: What are we Filipinos doing?

Fortunately, quite a lot—although apparently not enough. The Talarak Foundation, for example, has been breeding Visayan warty pigs and other endangered species and has already released groups of warty pigs into a 300-hectare forest site in Negros Oriental. The Mari-it Wildlife and Conservation Park in Iloilo also has a conservation-breeding program for the species. 

In fact, the Philippine government and international conservation organizations have been working on the Visayan Warty Pig Conservation Programme since 1993.

But perhaps conservation is no longer enough. We should also talk about rewilding—not merely preventing a species from disappearing, but rebuilding its population and returning it to suitable natural habitats.

The Phoenix project is particularly interesting because it emphasizes recovery, not merely managing decline. Its $200-million commitment is designed to provide multi-year support to locally led conservation efforts.

Could this be a wake-up call for us?

Perhaps it is time to ask what other Filipino species we should be conserving and rewilding—not only mammals, but also our endangered birds, fish, amphibians and marine life.

And perhaps it is also time to ask whether the DENR and its Biodiversity Management Bureau have enough resources and personnel to do all of this work properly.

I wish we had more Filipino billionaires—and movie stars—willing to put some of their millions into wildlife.

After all, why should we always wait for foreigners to save our own animals?

Maybe the warty pig can save more than itself. Maybe it can help awaken Filipinos to the value of our own biodiversity.

RAMON IKE V. SENERES

www.facebook.com/ike.seneres  iseneres@yahoo.com  senseneres.blogspot.com  09088877282/08-26-2027

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