Founder | Merlijn van Weerd, Jan van der Ploeg |
---|---|
Headquarters | CCVPED building, Isabela State University Cabagan, Isabela North Luzon |
Key people | Merlijn van Weerd, Tess Gatan-Balbas |
Website | www.mabuwaya.org |
Mabuwaya is a contraction of the Filipino words mabuhay, "welcome" or "long live," and buwaya, "crocodile."
The Mabuwaya Foundation is an NGO in the Philippines, established in 2003, that is concerned with the conservation of the Philippine crocodile. Currently, its efforts concentrate on educating the people of Luzon, one of the islands of the Philippines where the animal is still found in the wild. Mabuwaya teaches that the crocodile is something of which to be proud, and how unsustainable fishing methods threaten both the animal and its environment.
Mabuwaya actively working in the municipalities of San Mariano and Divilacan to conserve the remnant wild populations of the Philippine crocodile that survive here in the wild in the Northern Sierra madre Natural Park and its periphery in northern Luzon. [1]
The Philippine crocodile is the most threatened species of crocodile on the planet. The foundation has a community-based conservation approach aimed at raising awareness about the Philippine crocodile and local acceptance and participation in crocodile conservation. The conservation program consists of five main components: 1) Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA) Campaigns 2) Research, 3) Protection, 4) Capacity Building, 5) Philippine crocodile population re-enforcement and recovery. [2]
Through cultural shows and community dialogue, school visits, field days with secondary school students and distribution of posters, storybooks, calendars and manuals the people who live in close contact with the crocodiles are educated about the importance of conservation and wetland management.
Three main research activities are carried out. The head start research, telemetry research and quarterly monitoring are all carried out. These research are essential for the design of local conservation plans and efforts.
The rearing station in barangay Minanga, San Marino plays an essential roll in the crocodile conservation. At the station hatchlings are protected until they have are big enough to be released into the wild. Since the start of the program the numbers of Philippine crocodiles in the wild have been rising. The CROC program was set up to combine the importance of education with the conservation of the Philippine crocodile. [3]
The Mabuwaya foundation was able to start its important work in 2003 because of a grant the organization received from the conservation leadership programme. [4]
In 2007 a grant from CEPF helped finance a research done by the Mabuwaya team: 'With support from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), the Mabuwaya Foundation worked with communities to develop a conservation program to change opinions about crocodiles and bring the species back from the brink of extinction'. [5]
Mabuwaya also works closely with the Taronga Conservation Society and the Victoria Zoo, both in Australia. The Phoenix Zoo, USA and many private donors.
In August 2014 Tess Gatan-Balbas received the Whitley award. This award recognizes the important work Tess and the Mabuwaya team are doing to protect the world's most endangered crocodile.
The Philippine eagle, also known as the monkey-eating eagle or great Philippine eagle, is a critically endangered species of eagle of the family Accipitridae which is endemic to forests in the Philippines. It has brown and white-colored plumage, a shaggy crest, and generally measures 86 to 102 cm in length and weighs 4.04 to 8.0 kg.
The Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Centre for Herpetology (MCBT) is a reptile zoo and herpetology research station, located 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of the city of Chennai, in state of Tamil Nadu, India. The centre is both a registered trust and a recognized zoo under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and comes under the purview of the Central Zoo Authority, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India. It was established with the aim of saving three Indian endangered species of crocodile—the marsh or mugger crocodile, the saltwater crocodile, and the gharial, which at the time of founding of the trust were all nearing extinction.
Bunawan, officially the Municipality of Bunawan, is a 1st class municipality in the province of Agusan del Sur, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 47,512 people.
The Siamese crocodile is a medium-sized freshwater crocodile native to Indonesia, Brunei, East Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The species is critically endangered and already extirpated from many regions. Its other common names include Siamese freshwater crocodile, Singapore small-grain, and soft-belly.
The Isabela oriole is a species of the oriole family endemic to Luzon in the Philippines. The bird was presumed to be extinct for many years until its rediscovery in December 1993 near Diffun, Quirino, and in Mansarong in September 1994. Additional sightings were made in San Mariano, Isabela. and Baggao, Cagayan Valley It It is found in moist lowland forest up to 440 masl. It is threatened by habitat loss and hunting.
The Philippine crocodile, also known as the Mindoro crocodile, the Philippine freshwater crocodile, the bukarot in Ilocano, and more generally as a buwaya in most Filipino lowland cultures, is one of two species of crocodiles found in the Philippines; the other is the larger saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus). The Philippine crocodile, the species endemic only to the country, went from data deficient to critically endangered in 2008 from exploitation and unsustainable fishing methods, such as dynamite fishing. Conservation methods are being taken by the Dutch/Filipino Mabuwaya foundation, the Crocodile Conservation Society and the Zoological Institute of HerpaWorld in Mindoro island. It is strictly prohibited to kill a crocodile in the country, and it is punishable by law.
Stephen Robert Irwin, known as "The Crocodile Hunter", was an Australian zookeeper, conservationist, television personality, wildlife educator, and environmentalist.
The Philippine warty pig is one of four known species in the pig genus (Sus) endemic to the Philippines. The other three endemic species are the Visayan warty pig, Mindoro warty pig and the Palawan bearded pig, also being rare members of the family Suidae. Philippine warty pigs have two pairs of warts, with a tuft of hair extending outwards from the warts closest to the jaw. It has multiple native common names, but it is most widely known as baboy damo in Tagalog.
The Philippine Normal University is a public coeducational teacher education and research university in the Philippines. It was established in 1901 through Act No. 74 of the Philippine Commission "for the education of natives of the Islands in the science of teaching". It has campuses in Manila, North Luzon, South Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Pursuant to Republic Act No. 9647, it is the country's National Center for Teacher Education.
Agriculture in the Philippines is a major sector of the economy, ranking third among the sectors in 2022 behind only Services and Industry. Its outputs include staples like rice and corn, but also export crops such as coffee, cavendish banana, pineapple and pineapple products, coconut, sugar, and mango. The sector continues to face challenges, however, due to the pressures of a growing population. As of 2022, the sector employs 24% of the Filipino workforce and it accounted for 8.9% of the total GDP.
The Cuban crocodile is a small-medium species of crocodile endemic to Cuba. Typical length is 2.1–2.3 m (6.9–7.5 ft) and typical weight 70–80 kg (150–180 lb). Large males can reach as much as 3.5 m (11 ft) in length and weigh more than 215 kg (474 lb). Despite its smaller size, it is a highly aggressive animal, and potentially dangerous to humans.
The wildlife of the Philippines includes a significant number of endemic plant and animal species. The country's surrounding waters reportedly have the highest level of marine biodiversity in the world. The Philippines is one of the seventeen megadiverse countries and is a global biodiversity hotspot. In 2013, 700 of the country's 52,177 species were listed as threatened.
Lolong was the largest crocodile in captivity. He was a saltwater crocodile measured at 6.17 m, and weighed 1,075 kg (2,370 lb), making him one of the largest crocodiles ever measured from snout-to-tail.
Calauit Safari Park is a wildlife sanctuary in the Philippines which was originally created in 1976 as a game reserve featuring large African mammals, translocated there under the orders of the President Ferdinand Marcos during his 21-year rule of the country.
The Luzon rain forest is a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion on the island of Luzon. Luzon is the largest island in the Philippines, and the Luzon rain forest is the most extensive rainforest ecoregion of the country. The ecoregion includes the lowlands of Luzon and neighboring islands below 1000 meters elevation. Very little of the original rainforest remains, and the status of this area is critical/endangered.
Tadlac Lake, also colloquially known as Alligator Lake, is a freshwater volcanic crater lake located in Barangay Tadlac, in the municipality of Los Baños, Laguna. The lake-filled maar is located along the southern shore of Laguna de Bay, the largest lake in the country, with Alligator Lake protruding out of the shore of the larger lake. If not for its slightly-elevated crater rim, Alligator Lake would be wholly engulfed by Laguna de Bay.
Calamaria gervaisii, commonly known as Gervais's worm snake and the Philippine dwarf snake, is a species of small fossorial snake in the family Colubridae. The species is native to the Philippines.
The Sierra Madre is the longest mountain range in the Philippines. Spanning over 540 kilometers (340 mi), it runs from the province of Cagayan down to the province of Quezon, forming a north–south direction on the eastern portion of Luzon, the largest island of the archipelago. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the east, Cagayan Valley to the northwest, Central Luzon to the midwest, and Calabarzon to the southwest. Some communities east of the mountain range, along the coast, are less developed and so remote that they could only be accessed by taking a plane or a boat.
Robert Clarence Irwin is an Australian conservationist, television personality, zookeeper, wildlife photographer and actor. He is the son of Steve Irwin, and is often noted by fans to share similarities with his late father. Irwin hosts Robert's Real Life Adventures, a program on his family zoo's internal television network. He co-hosted the Discovery Kids Channel television series Wild But True and co-created the book series Robert Irwin: Dinosaur Hunter. He starred on the Animal Planet series Crikey! It's the Irwins with his mother, Terri, and sister, Bindi, from 2018–2022.
The Luzon montane rain forests is a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. The ecoregion is located on several volcanic and non-volcanic mountains of the island. Luzon is the largest and northernmost major island of the Philippines, located in the western Pacific Ocean.
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