MANILA, Philippines?The global conservation organization WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) Sunday called for an immediate investigation into the alleged sale of one of the Turtle Islands, a protected sanctuary and nesting site for sea turtles.

?WWF calls for an immediate investigation of this report [the alleged sale of Great Bakungan Island] and requests that the matter be swiftly rectified,? the WWF statement read.

It added: ?The Turtle Islands are a historical, national treasure. They are key to maintaining the vitality and resilience of fisheries, food security, and economic stability in that section of the Coral Triangle...Protected areas will be crucial for national climate adaptation efforts.?

?Natural endowments that form part of the national patrimony can?t be exposed to risks of this nature,? WWF said.

The island?s buyer, Tawi-Tawi Gov. Sadikul Sahali, reportedly acquired the property from another private owner and insisted the transaction was aboveboard.

WWF president Lory Tan, in a phone interview, conceded that the Turtle Island case was ?not going to be a simple decision,? considering that lands in the southern part of Mindanao, much like in the Cordillera in the north, are also ruled by the indigenous peoples? traditional rights.

But Tan said the government should decide in favor of ?the greater good.?

He said that ownership of the 48-hectare Great Bakungan Island may have been covered by traditional rights of the indigenous people and this led Sahali to believe that there was nothing unusual about the property sale?or that the national government should have any say in it.

?There are traditional rights that precede the Constitution which makes the situation very complex. And I think it?s a situation similar to what the Philippine government faced when dealing with issues on indigenous peoples? domain and rights in the Cordilleras and Mindanao,? Tan said.

Different concept of ownership

To illustrate his point, Tan said he had met a man claiming to be the owner of Baguan Island, the marine sanctuary in the Turtle Islands where no one is allowed to live except for environmental officers looking after the sea turtles and their nesting places.

?This man was claiming ownership of Baguan because he said he used to maintain cows there. Their concept of ownership is still different from ours,? he said.

Simply, Tan said, issues on rights of domain in some parts of the country are ?not as cut and dried as some stories make them out to be.?

Tan said the issue over the sale of one part of the Turtle Islands was ?more than simply a question of who owns it or who has prior rights.?

Heritage Protected Area

In its statement, WWF stressed: ?Any threat against the Turtle Islands, as a center of biodiversity and marine productivity, is a threat against the Filipino people, whose future depends heavily on the health of our seas.?

Tan added that the bilateral agreement between the Philippines and Malaysia making the Turtle Islands a ?Heritage Protected Area??one of the first in the world?serves as a ?big tent [of protection] over Turtle Islands.?

Tan said the legal tussle over Great Bakungan Island should bring to the fore the need to fine-tune some national laws and should recall lessons the government learned when lawmakers were crafting the Indigenous Peoples? Rights Act (IPRA).

Turtle Islands Mayor Omarkhan Apirin said Sahali, through his children, was able to acquire Great Bakungan Island for P3 million from its alleged owner, Rolando Tan (no relation to WWF?s Tan).

Apirin said that the sale was ?illegal? because Turtle Islands was a ?protected area.?

Sahali, however, said that the transaction was a regular property transaction.