Stop to Boracay overdevelopment sought

ILOILO CITY—Residents and tourists on Boracay Island have launched an online petition to stop the commercial development of a beach and its surrounding forest that the petition said was the island’s last remaining pristine area.

The petition is calling for the protection of the Puka Shell Beach and the forest around it in the northern tip of the 1,032-hectare Boracay.

“Help us protect the last remaining pristine beach, forest and wildlife in Boracay,” said the petition.

“They cannot take away all our wildlife on this island for profit,” it said. “If you don’t speak up, the last forest will disappear,” it added.

The petition, made through Change.org, said property owners and developers are “again pushing to revoke the forest classification of the area and make it into commercial land for development.”

As of March 25, at least 1,123 people signed the petition.

The proposed Boracay Development Plan 2013-22 seeks to categorize Puka beach and its surrounding forest as commercial land.

The petition seeks to classify the area as a wildlife sanctuary.

It was initiated by Friends of the Flying Foxes (FFF), a Boracay-based nongovernment organization advocating the conservation of flying foxes, an endangered fruit bat species.

Conservationists have identified three bat species in Boracay, including the golden-crowned flying fox which is endemic to the Philippines, as an endangered species.

FFF said bats perform essential roles in pollinating plants and trees, reforestation and keeping insect population under control.

Fruit bat population in Boracay had declined from 15,000 in 1986 to 2,238 in April 2014 according to the petition.

Flying foxes have become a tourist attraction in Boracay. Tourists wait by the beach at sunset to see thousands of bats fly together from their roosting sites to the Aklan mainland, a distance of about 40 kilometers, to feed on fruits in the forests.

In recent years, bat flights have become rare and conservationists blamed this on uncontrolled development on the island.

Puka beach is yet an undeveloped area, attracting visitors who want to avoid the thick crowd in Boracay’s main beaches. It is surrounded by a forest which is home to wildlife, including turtles, lizards, monkeys and birds.

“In protecting this forest and declaring it a wildlife sanctuary, we make sure our island’s ecosystem, Puka Shell Beach and its forest will survive for future generations and tourists to explore and enjoy,” said the petition.