The development of the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area (LPPCHEA), a 175-hectare area considered as the “last coastal frontier” or the “last natural bastion in Metro Manila”, will be getting a much- needed financial boost.
The Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (Tieza) board of directors has approved a budget of P45 million for the conservation of LPPCHEA, including the construction of the Wetland Center, Birdhives, Boardwalk and View Towers at the Long Island, Sen. Cynthia A. Villar, chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources told participants of the First National Biodiversity Congress on Monday.
In her keynote speech, the senator added the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has also appropriated P10 million for the construction of the Nature Hall and Boardwalk at the Freedom Island and the long island and the installation of electricity and water. Villar’s Social Institute for Poverty Alleviation and Governance will construct the Visitors Centre.
LPPCHEA was declared as a critical habitat in 2007 by Presidential Proclamation 1412.
It is also on the Ramsar List of “Wetlands of International Importance”, and the sixth designated as such in the Philippines, alongside the Tubbataha Reefs National Marine Park in Sulu; the Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary; the Naujan Lake National Park in Oriental Mindoro; the Olango Island Wildlife Sanctuary in Cebu; and the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park in Palawan.
According to Villar, LPPCHEA is a combination of many natural wonders in one area—a bird sanctuary, wetland and mangrove forest.
“It hosts 84 species of wild birds, and that includes three endangered species: Black-Winged Stilt, Chinese Egret and the Philippine Duck. Its mangrove forest covers 36 hectares, which, according to a study conducted by the National Fisheries Development Institute, is ‘the hot spot for spawning in the Eastern part of Manila Bay’ where the volume of [fish] eggs laid is highest”, she said.
Villar said she is actively helping to protect and promote LLPCHEA as an ecotourism destination in Metro Manila.
The DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) considers LPPCHEA crucial to the protection and conservation of urban biodiversity.
“After successfully protecting it from various threats, including reclamation, we are now working to letting other people see and experience the natural biodiversity in LPPCHEA as an ecotourism destination. We recently had the groundbreaking for building the Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park at LPPCHEA,” she said.
Villar said she envisions LPPCHEA to be the premier learning environment for urban wetlands in the Philippines.
“We are doing our best also to make it a model of sustainable eco-tourism at its best,” she said.
Villar said LPPCHEA is now a venue for regular environment-related events and activities. “What we have been doing at LPPCHEA, I can say, is a good working example of how biodiversity protection or conservation of landscapes and seascapes can help communities, such as fisherfolks who get their daily sustenance and livelihood from LPPCHEA and the nearby barangays, which are protected by the threat of flooding. And now, it offers sustainable tourism opportunities.”
In her speech, Villar underscored the need to enhance information, education and communication campaign for the protection of the country’s rich biodiversity to “create awareness that, while biological diversity offers tremendous value to present and future generations, the number of species, is also being significantly reduced due to our own activities or doing.”
She said for a country like the Philippines, repercussions of biodiversity loss are tremendous.
The Philippines is one of the 17 megadiverse countries in the world or the world’s top biodiversity-rich countries, which host two-thirds of the Earth’s biodiversity and contain about 70 percent to 80 percent of the world’s plant and animal species.
The Philippines ranks fifth in terms of number of plant species and home to 5 percent of the world’s plants or about 10,000 to 13,000 species of plants described and recorded globally, she said.
The Philippines is also fourth in terms of bird endemism, fifth in mammal and reptile endemism; and it has the second-highest seagrass diversity in the world.
Villar underscored the importance of enhancing protection mechanism offered by the National Integrated Protected Areas System (Nipas) Act. There are currently 240 protected areas, but only 13 are backed with legislation.
Villar’s sponsored Expanded Nipas bill, which seeks to add 92 protected areas on the list that are covered by law, passed third and final reading in the Senate on Monday.