Globe celebrates Philippine Eagle Week through strengthened ties with PEF

Being a strong supporter and partner of the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF), leading telecommunications company Globe Telecom reiterates its commitment to the conservation and protection of the Philippine Eagle and its habitat as the country celebrates the Philippine Eagle Week.

Presidential Proclamation No. 79 has declared June 4-10 of every year as Philippine Eagle Week to commemorate efforts in environmental conservation; and to seek support to strengthen the work towards saving the Philippine Eagle from extinction through collaboration with different sectors of the society.

“The company has a lot of advocacies and one of the more important ones is on environmental sustainability.  We partnered with PEF because we wanted to be part of this important conservation work in Mindanao.  But the support of Globe does not end there.  We also help complement the efforts that PEF is already doing in the areas of livelihood, education, and other basic needs of the communities which are working to reforest the areas where the Philippine eagles and other wildlife breed,” said Yoly C. Crisanto, Head of Globe Corporate Communications.

        Dennis Salvador, PEF Executive Director said:  “We are happy that Globe elected to help us in our efforts to restore Philippine eagle habitats while addressing the needs of poor upland communities who are at the forefront of protecting the eagles in the wild.”

Thus, together with PEF, Globe is set to return to Arakan in October this year for another fund raising and awareness drive that will benefit the advocacy.

Last year, Globe Bridging Communities, has partnered with PEF on its forest corridor development program in Arakan to restore wildlife habitats.  Arakan is a valley situated at the northeastern tip of North Cotabato and bounded in the east by Davao City.

While protecting the remaining forest fragments, forest corridoring also aims to re-establish forest on grasslands along the forest corridor between the mountains of Mahuson, Sinaka, and Kabalantiian-Binoongan-Kulaman (KABIKU), rehabilitate degraded lands close to habitats of threatened wildlife and critical watersheds, provide incentives to both indigenous and non-indigenous community partners, and participate in carbon markets to generate supplementary income for upland communities who restore degraded habitats.

Due to over five decades of commercial logging and agricultural expansion, what is left  of the forest cover of Arakan are only isolated forest fragments in the mountain ranges of Mahuson, Sinaka and KABIKU.  These forest fragments prove to be biologically and ecologically important as these have been home to the Philippine eagle.  Sinaka and Mahuson are where two wild pairs of Philippine eagles have been breeding at lease since 1992.  

Likewise, Sinaka is regarded as one of the world’s important bird areas due to the relatively high proportion of unique threatened birds it contains.  Mahuson also has a unique mammalian assemblage as exemplified by the existence of the Philippine large-headed fruit bat.