Bohol lost almost one-third of the estimated tarsier population in the past ten years, according to a research by experts that include the National Geographic Society.
Director Dioscoro Melana of the Protected Area Wildlife Bureau (PAWB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENBR) in Central Visayas said the move of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) against the capture of tarsiers from the wilds and their display for commercial use is on right track.
Quoting the expert studies in his powerpoint presentation during a committee hearing at the Capitol, Provincial Board Member Alfonso Damalerio II said tarsiers were estimated to number 1,000 in 1991.
A decade later or in 2001, the population of Bohol’s eco-tourism icon believed to be already 45 million in existence dwindled to 700 more or less.
The trend can render the tarsiers extinct in the next 20 years, Damalerio expressed.
Melana, himself present in the SP environment committee hearing headed by Damalerio, assured to support the move banning the capture of tarsiers and their commercial display by enterprising tourism outlets, primarily those in Loboc.
The committee gathered inputs vital to the enactment of a provincial ordinance towards this end.
The proposed ordinance is enough bases to reject all future applications to domesticate tarsiers purposely for leisure and fees from viewers who are mostly tourists and visitors.
The present system does not require a clearance from the provincial environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO), whose head Nestor Canda also appeared to Damalerio’s committee, when applying for DENR Regional Office permit for the captive breeding of tarsier.
The intent of the permit is good, but the blatant display of the primate for commercial viewing mocks the very purpose of the license from the DENR, according to other eco-tourism stakeholders attending the committee hearing.
Even some existing laws and special issuances was blamed for the permitted capture and domestication of tarsiers. - source: The Bohol Chronicle
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