History

Until c. 1980 the Philippine cockatoo was a common species found throughout the Philippine archipelago (Delacour & Mayr, 1946; DuPont, 1971). Since then a 60-90% decline in the population has occurred as a result of human activities (Lambert, 1994; Collar et ul., 1998) In 1994, approximately 1000-4000 birds are estimated to survive in the wild (Tabaranza, unpubl.; Lambert, 1994), with c. 70-75% of these in the Province of Palawan, now the major stronghold of the species (Lambert, 1994; Juniper & Parr, 1998).

A field survey conducted in 1991 by Dr F . Lambert on behalf of t h e IUCN Species Survival Commission, confirmed the degree of threat to C. haematuropygia and in June 1992 the species was transferred to Appendix 1 of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) (IUCN, 1992) and is now classified as Critically Endangered by IUCN (1996). In 1992 St-Martin-La-Plaine Zoo was invited by the European Endangered Species Program (EEP) Executive Office to coordinate a captive-breeding program. In that year an in situ conservation project, based mainly on Palawan, was launched in collaboration with W. Oliver and Dr F. Lambert. Marc Boussekey, as the scientific advisor of St-Martin-La-Plaine Zoo, France, nitiated the whole project in 1992 : in situ conservation project on Palawan and European coordinated captive breeding program called EEP (European Endangered species Program) under the EAZA umbrella (European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, Amsredam, Netherlands). Boussekey is still officially the European co-ordinator of the Red-Vented Cockatoo EEP publishing every year the European Studbook for this species and co-ordinator of the PCCP and the signatory to the Memorandum Of Agreement with DENR/PAWB and the contract with the main sponsor of the project the Loro Parque Fundacion.

All components of the in situ conservation programme come under the terms of a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the Philippine authorities of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) (Boussekey, 1995). The MoA was initially discussed in November 1992, signed in March 1994 and renewed in May 1997.

In 1998 after receiving reports of Philippine cockatoos being resident on Rasa Island, a group led by Peter Widmann and Indira Lacerna explored the feasibility of a potential conservation project on the island. This included preliminary surveys on the cockatoo and an analysis of the potential stakeholders of the cockatoo and Rasa.

In early 1999, the Philippine Cockatoo Conservation Program was launched in the municipality of Narra. Among the first activity was to organize a consultative meeting and planning workshop with stake-holders like poachers, claimants of lots on Rasa, residents of the nearby fishing villages, representatives of the Local Government Units and relevant agencies. This forum set the goals to be achieved in the coming two years. The most important were: the conservation of the endangered cockatoo and its habitat, Rasa, through the implemen-tation of a wardens scheme, livelihood projects for key stakeholders and intensive public relations and information campaigns.

From start of 1999 to the end of 2000 the cockatoo population showed clear signs of recovery. In other aspects of the program like livelihood, linkaging, information dissemination and capacity building the program has been successful. Therefore it was decided to enter into a new program phase in order to consolidate the conservation process in Rasa, shift the responsibility of conservation to the local community and local government units and to transfer the experiences gained on Rasa to other areas with remaining cockatoo populations in Palawan.