Publisher : IUCN/WCPA-EA
Place of publication :
Publication year : 2002
Thematic : Marine Resources
Language : English
Note
The Philippines, the world’s second largest archipelago after Indonesia, covers a land area of about 300,000 km2 [1]. It is one of the 17 megadiversity countries, which between themselves contain 70 to 80 percent of global biodiversity [2]. Philippine rainforest is home to more than 1130 terrestrial wildlife species (Table 1) and between 10,000-13,000 species of plants [3] so far recorded, of which more than half are found nowhere else in the world. As such, the Philippines has also been described as Galapagos times ten [4]. It is also one of 25 global biodiversity hotspots [5, 6] with more than 97 percent of its original forest cover lost [7, 8]. In fact more original forests were lost in the last 50 years of the 20th century than what was lost in the previous 450 years combined [9]. Yet more new species are still being discovered on these islands than any other areas on earth in recent times [e.g., see 10, 11] The country’s marine waters cover 2.21 M km2 with a coastline of 22,450 km and an estimated 27,000 km2 of coral reefs [21]. This contains exceptional marine biodiversity, among which are: (a) nearly 500 coral species of the more than 800 known coral species worldwide [22, 23]; (b) more than 2,000 species of fish (24, 25); and (c) more than 40 species of mangrove plants making the country one of the richest concentrations of marine life in the world [26, 27]. However, mangroves and seagrass beds have been reduced to 120,000 ha from 500,000 ha and only 5% of coral reefs in excellent condition, making the Philippines among the world’s Marine biodiversity hotspots (28, 29].
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Keywords : Pistacia malayana
Encoded by : Mae Belen Llanza
