Team PH bests 31 countries in wildlife conservation
ENVIRONMENT Secretary Roy Cimatu has lauded a Philippine delegation for winning the “Most Useful Project Resources Award” at the Global Wildlife Programme where it bested 31 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
GWP is a World Bank-led Global Environment Facility (GEF)-funded global partnership seeking to reduce both the supply and demand that drives the illegal wildlife trade through various country projects.
Themed “Working Together for Wildlife Conservation,” the three-day (November 30-December 2) annual conference held virtually, was focused on successfully collaborating, engaging and empowering stakeholders to support wildlife conservation and sustainable local livelihoods.
During the conference, Team Philippines presented seven video clips and nine text documents about wildlife, and bested 36 projects of in all of the 31 countries.
“We will leave no stone unturned in our pursuit of illegal poachers, traders, and buyers. We will find and arrest the large-scale syndicates, the middle-men, the financiers, the ‘illegal wildlife lords’,” Cimatu said.
According to the DENR chief, the materials produced were “to encourage the audience to spread awareness about illegal wildlife trade and inspire them to partner with the agency in protecting, conserving, and managing our country’s resources for the present and future generations.”
The contest aims to showcase lessons learned, good practices, innovations and success stories through the knowledge products that are developed and share with other countries that may find it useful to them.
“We are proud to share to a wider audience the fruits of our hard work and labor of love from the DENR-Asian Development Bank/GEF Project on Combating Environmental Organized Crime in the Philippines,” he added.
All the partner countries presented samples of their knowledge products and resources to the organizing team.
The GWP Team, in turn, uploaded the materials in “HowSpace,” a digital collaboration platform open to all conference participants.
At the end of the event, all the conference participants voted for the country with the “Most Useful Project Resources,” among other awards with the Philippines topping them all.
Team Philippines was also nominated in the “Best Knowledge Market Pitch” category and was represented by Atty. Theresa Tenazas, OIC-Chief of the Wildlife Resources Division of the DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau (DENR-BMB).
