It is sad how the lands here have been damaged. When one is struggling to survive, being a fan off the environment comes second I suppose. Then again, I guess it could be the larger companies that are doing this strip harvesting. I don’t know. Perhaps you do though.

I want a Cockatoo inn a big way and they are native to the PI but very endangered. They should be plentiful here and cheap, instead it seems impossible to obtain them. One Filipina told me you can but you have to have the proper paper work. Do you know anything about that? I’d really love to have one but not one take from the wild. One taken from the wild is revolting. Especially with the numbers in such a horrible state.

I recently saw a moratorium is in effect for coconut lumber. It is a prize possession? Good stuff? Seems like there is plenty of that around.

I noticed pretty quick that wildlife in the Philippines is not doing well. There is even very little road kill, might not be a pleasant way to observe it but I did. A song bird is very rare in Cebu. At least where I have been so far.

I didn’t have time to fully write on this article. There is an organization in New York, I forget the name. It list the RP as one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist.

They claim that bribes to journalist are common and that one runs the risk of offending opposing “paymasters” and death is a common result.

It makes me extremely sad. I often travel by ferry and as you approach coming down from Manila, as you are a couple of klicks down from Nasapit skirting the coast you can see the huge deforestation and oit is only within the last 10 years or so that it has gotten so bad on Mindanao. the Philippines only has 2% of its virgin forests still intact, out of all 7,107 islands. It is the reason for such horrendous disasters like the mudslide on Leyte 2 years back that killed about 1000 kids in a school (more than 1000 actually).

Seeing those naked peaks now, whereas it used to be so beautiful and green is very disturbing.