Nature’s gifts to our planet are the millions of species that we know and love, and many more that remain to be discovered. Unfortunately, human beings have irrevocably upset the balance of nature and, as a result, the world is facing the greatest rate of extinction since we lost the dinosaurs more than 60 million years ago. But unlike the fate of the dinosaurs, the rapid extinction of species in our world today is the result of human activity.
The unprecedented global destruction and rapid reduction of plant and wildlife populations are directly linked to causes driven by human activity: climate change, deforestation, habitat loss, trafficking and poaching, unsustainable agriculture, pollution and pesticides to name a few. The impacts are far reaching.
If we do not act now, extinction may be humanity’s most enduring legacy. Here are some quick facts on the current wave of extinction and additional information about this problem here.
All living things have an intrinsic value, and each plays a unique role in the complex web of life. We must work together to protect endangered and threatened species: bees, coral reefs, elephants, giraffes, insects, whales and more.
The good news is that the rate of extinctions can still be slowed, and many of our declining, threatened and endangered species can still recover if we work together now to build a united global movement of consumers, voters, educators, faith leaders, and scientists to demand immediate action.
Earth Day Network is asking people to join our Protect our Species campaign. Our goals are to:
• Educate and raise awareness about the accelerating rate of extinction of millions of species and the causes and consequences of this phenomenon.
• Achieve major policy victories that protect broad groups of species as well as individual species and their habitats.
• Build and activate a global movement that embraces nature and its values.
• Encourage individual actions such as adopting plant based diet and stopping pesticide and herbicide use.
A wide variety of the planet’s animal species call the Philippines home. Conservation International, a nonprofit environmentalist group founded in 1987, recognizes the Philippines as one of only 17 mega-diverse countries in the world. Mega-diverse countries are nations that shelter the bulk of Earth’s animal and plant life. In other words, these countries have extreme biodiversity in terms of genetic, genus, and bio-network mixtures.
With so much biological diversity, the country is also home to a large number of threatened animal species. As of the day this article was published, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), has declared 418 animal species in the Philippines to be threatened: meaning they are either vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered, according to the IUCN red list criteria.
This article lists the top 50 critically endangered animals in the Philippines:
- Philippine eagle
- Philippine freshwater crocodile
- Tamaraw
- Walden’s hornbill
- Visayan warty pig
- Philippine cockatoo
- Negros bleeding-heart
- Philippine naked-backed fruit bat
- Philippine forest turtle
- Dinagat bushy-tailed cloud rat
- Hawksbill sea turtle
- The Philippine tarsier
- Philippine spotted deer
- Sulu Hornbill
- Negros Fruit Dove
- Flame-breasted Fruit Dove
- Giant Clams
- Cebu flowerpecker
- Golden-capped fruit bat
- Net coral
- Long polypgreen
- False flower coral
- Sei whale
- Blue whale
- Fin Whale
- Dinagat hairy- tailed rat
- Limbless worm skink
- Loggerhead turtle
- Dog-faced water snake
- Humphead wrasse
- Green turtle
- Black shama
- Panay Crateromys
- Negros shrew
- Flame-templed babbler
- White-winged flying fox
- Mindoro zone-tailed pigeon
- Japanese night heron
- Apo swallowtail
- Spiny turtle
- Calamian deer
- Streak-breasted bulbul
- Catanduanes narrow-mouthed frog
- Philippine tube-nosed fruit bat
- Luzon peacock swallowtail
- Frog-faced soft shell turtle
- Tawitawi brown dove
- Mindoro tree frog
- Hazel’s forest frog
- Mount Data forest frog
