The Conservation International and Cemex Philippines have tied up with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to protect and preserve tarsier under DENR's Adopt-a-Wildlife Species (AAWS) program.
Their collaboration in fact chose the tiny animal, often mistaken for the smallest monkey in the world, as the first species for protection under the AAWS.
Timely enough, the ambassador of the Czech Republic, His Excellency Josef Rychtar, is presently in Bohol to inspect a hydro-power project site - and see for himself the tarsier right in its sanctuary in Corella.
Many have viewed as "commercialization" the display of tarsiers along tourist route outside the nocturnal animal's natural habitat.
Their have been claims, however, that tarsiers have multiplied even in captivity beyond their forest home, making the "ET (extra-terrestrial)-looking" animal an ET by the meaning "extra-territorial."
Having a tiny body supporting its 360-degree rotating large head with oversized round eyes, the tarsier has been acclaimed to be the smallest and oldest known living primate on Earth.
It has attained an iconic stature not just in Bohol but Philippine tourism, an industry regarded as an engine for national economic growth and recovery.
Gov. Edgar Chatto said the economic and tourism values now of tarsier should only tell of how paramount its preservation must indeed be.
Green advocates have considered the existence of tarsier as one indication of the state of Bohol's environmental health.
Chatto said during his live Friday morning airing of the Kita ug Ang Gobernador that preserving the tarsier would not mean that tourists could no longer see it.
The AAWS program adopting tarsier will be implemented in three phases for three years starting in 2011.
According to a report, this is to ensure the sustainability of the benefits to the biodiversity and stakeholders in Bohol.
The tarsier was chosen under the AAWS program reportedly "because it is the most visible symbol of the Philippines" and "is not only unusual but also attractive."
While they are endemic to a Corella forest in Bohol, tarsiers have also been found somewhere in Samar and Leyte.
It is an established tourism industry fact, though, that whenever and wherever it is mentioned, tarsier always goes with the surname Bohol.
In its global evaluation of various species, the 2010 International Union for Conservation of Nature classified tarsier as "near threatened."
The category suggests that it may not yet be critically endangered today but the tarsier is close to qualifying for the category of the threatened species in not a remote future.
This helps explains why there is also now a new DENR manual for wildlife law enforcers being adopted to speed up the prosecution of offenders.
The manual is called the Wildlife Law Enforcement Manual of Operations (WLEMO) to guide the WEOs or wildlife enforcement officers in seizing illegally collected, possessed and traded wildlife species.
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