Puerto Princesa City, Palawan—Penal authorities, village leaders, and conservationists renewed a memorandum of agreement designed to protect the critically endangered Philippine cockatoo or “katala” inside the Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm.
The covenant covers the conservation, protection, management, and preservation of the bird species’ known nesting and foraging grounds in 10 barangays in Puerto Princesa City.
“Perhaps, unknown to our knowledge, the lowland forest of Iwahig is the third most important habitat of the katala,” said Indira Dayang Lacerna-Widmann, chief operations officer of the Katala Foundation Inc.
"The first important dwelling ground is Rasa Island in the southern Palawan town of Narra, followed by Balabac municipality, and the IPPF in the city in Barangay Iwahig," Lacerna-Widmann said.
She said about 60 to 70 of the critically endangered bird, which is also known as the red-vented cockatoo, are dwelling in the IPPF’s lowland forests.
“We might think that’s a small number and not important, but in the whole world, there are only now more or less 1,200 katala. They are only found in the Philippines and this is why Palawan is very important in cockatoo conservation,” she said.