MANILA, Philippines — Some 2,000 species of flora and fauna in the country are either critically endangered, threatened, and vulnerable, according to Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) chief Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga.
Loyzaga said these flora and fauna under threat are part of the 52,000 species found in the country. Half of these species are also endemic to the country.
“We do have a responsibility to eliminate what we would call the possibility of extinction of these species,” Yulo-Loyzaga said in a Malacañang insider interview on Friday
READ: Planting for the future of the Philippine eagle
To address this, the DENR chief said the country will be “playing a very big role” in the upcoming Convention on Biological Diversity in Colombia this year.
In a related development, the DENR also entered into an agreement with Singapore that would revitalize the country’s forests.
The DENR chief said Manila signed a memorandum of understanding with Singapore in line with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
“That is an agreement that allows for countries to work together to bring down their greenhouse gas emissions,” Yulo-Loyzaga said.
“One country would then be able to absorb or avoid those emissions and the other country would be able to offset whatever it is producing against that particular country’s inventory,” she added.
The Philippines only contributes less than one percent of global greenhouse gas inventory, while Singapore, being a heavily industrialized country, has higher emissions, she said.
“They (Singapore) seek to offset this (greenhouse gas emission) somehow as well as bring down their emissions actively,” the DENR chief said.
“They are seeking cooperation with different countries who do have the capacity to absorb carbon – and one of those countries is actually the Philippines,” she went on. “So, here, their interest is in voluntary cooperation between our two nations to see how we may both address our emission’s reduction efforts by, in fact, looking at structuring a kind of carbon credit rating system in order for them to meet their targets but also recognizing the need for the Philippines to bring down its own.”
Loyzaga noted that the country has 30 million hectares of land, of which, 15 million of which are classified as forest lands.
Of the 15 million hectares classified as forest lands, only seven million are covered by forest based on DENR’s last accounting, according to her.