TropicalCoast 4th new indd

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July 2008

important, considering 

the lack of detailed 

information at the species 

level such as population 

sizes. Expert rankings 

of the importance of 

particular sites were used 

in place of threshold 

populations.  

In March 2001, maps of 

these important areas for 

each taxa were overlaid to 

identify areas of frequent 

overlap or areas of special 

importance to a particular 

taxa (Stakeholders of 

the SSME, et al., 2004).   

Corridors linking the 

different biogeographic 

regions were identified as 

priorities for conservation. 

These were established 

as priority conservation 

areas (PCAs) for the 

marine ecoregion and 

included in the  Ecoregion 

Conservation Plan (ECP), 

which was  adopted 

by the governments of 

Indonesia, Malaysia and 

the Philippines.

While the PCAs are not 

expected to be fully-

protected, these are to   

be managed and zoned 

with fully-protected 

areas.  They address 

fisheries and threatened 

species concerns (e.g., 

marine turtles; dugongs; 

whalesharks, etc.) since 

these taxa were among 

those considered in the 

selection of PCAs.  More 

detailed planning and 

zoning work, however, is 

needed within each PCA.

Philippine Priorities

 

The Philippines is one of the 17 

megadiversity countries in the 

world. Its biological diversity 

is under threat from habitat 

destruction and overexploitation. 

In 1997, the Department of 

Environment and Natural Resources 

(DENR) developed and adopted 

the National Biodiversity Strategy 

and Action Plan (NBSAP) in an 

attempt to address the country’s 

biodiversity crisis.   

In 2000, a refinement of the 

Figure 1.  Integrated biodiversity conservation priority areas in the Philippines.

Image Source: CI-Philippines.

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Tropical Coasts

national biodiversity plan was done 

through the Philippine Biodiversity 

Conservation Priority-Setting 

Program (PBCPP).  Drawing inputs 

from more than 300 natural and 

social scientists from about 100 

local and international institutions, 

government and nongovernmental 

organizations,  academia, peoples’ 

organizations, donors and the private 

sector, the results of the PBCPP 

represent the national consensus 

on the priorities and strategies for 

conserving Philippine biodiversity.

A total of 206 biodiversity 

conservation priority areas were 

identified, out of which,  170 are 

terrestrial and 36 are  marine 

(Figure 1). 

Five strategic actions needed to 

address the biodiversity crisis 

were identified to ensure that 

conservation activities are to be 

directed to the 206 PBCPP priority 

areas (Ong, et al., 2002): 

1.  Harmonize research with 

conservation needs;

2.  Enhance and strengthen the 

protected areas system;

3. Institutionalize innovative 

and appropriate biodiversity 

conservation approaches — the 

Biodiversity corridors; 

 

4.  Institutionalize monitoring and 

evaluation (M&E) systems of 

projects and of biodiversity; and 

5.  Develop a national constituency 

for biodiversity conservation in 

the Philippines.

Refining Priority Sites 

for Conservation in the 

Philippines Using the KBA  

Approach

Building on the results of the 

PBCPP, the Key Biodiversity Areas 

Table 1. Criteria and thresholds that were provisionally considered 

appropriate for the identifi cation of marine KBAs (Edgar, et al., 

2008a).

Criterion

Sub-criterion

Provisional thresholds 

for triggering KBA 

status

Vulnerability

Regular occurrence of 

a globally threatened 

species (according to 

the IUCN Red List) at 

the site

Regular presence of 

a single individual for 

Critically Endangered 

(CR) and Endangered 

(EN) species; regular 

presence of 30 

individuals or 10 pairs for 

Vulnerable species (VU) 

Irreplaceability

Site holds X% of 

a species’ global 

population at any stage 

of the species’ lifecycle

5% of the global 

population at  site

a. restricted-range 

species

Species with a global 

range less than 100,000 

km

2

;

b. Species with 

large but clumped 

distributions

5% of the global 

population at site 

c. Globally significant 

congregations

1% of global population 

seasonally present at site

d. Globally significant 

source populations

Site is responsible for 

maintaining 1% of global 

population

(KBA) approach (Eken, et al., 

2004) was employed to further 

refine the terrestrial and marine 

biodiversity priority areas in the 

Philippines. KBAs are “sites of 

global significance for biodiversity 

conservation” which are identified 

using widely accepted criteria and 

thresholds  (See Table  1) based 

on the conservation planning 

principles of vulnerability and 

irreplaceability. 

The identification and delineation 

of terrestrial KBAs in the Philippines 

utilized the 117 Important Bird 

Areas (IBAs) previously identified 

by Haribon Foundation and 

Birdlife International and the 206 

conservation priority areas of the 

PBCPP (CI-DENR-Haribon, 2006).   

Using the 2004 IUCN Red List as 

the primary reference for the list 

of globally threatened species, a 

total of 128 KBAs were identified 

for 209 globally threatened and 

419 endemic species of freshwater 

fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds 

and mammals and 62 species of 

congregatory birds. Only one third 

(35%) of these KBAs are under 

legal protection status. Areas that 

are equally important but have no 

data to satisfy KBA criteria were 

designated as candidate KBA which 

can be considered priority areas for 

research. There are 51 candidate 

terrestial KBAs identified for the 

Philippines.

The KBA criteria which were applied 

to terrestrial species needed 

modifications  to be applicable for 

marine species (Table 1) (CI, 2008; 

Edgar, et al., 2008a). Prior to its 

application in the Philippines, initial 

testing of the modified KBA criteria 

was done in the Galapagos (Edgar, 

et al., 2008b). 

In 2008, the application of the KBAs 

to marine areas in the Philippines 

     

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