会议时间：2018年3月21-23日
会议地点：柬埔寨 · 暹粒
演讲嘉宾：Pastor L. Malabrigo JR., University of the Philippines Los Banos

摘要：Wood coming from the trees is one of the greatest gifts of nature to mankind. The tree and its wood have played a prominent role in human life throughout history. Though, the cultural history of wood utilization is not completely written yet, it is very evident that the cultural activity of human beings has always been linked to wood. The floristic richness of the Philippines makes it a land of innumerable tree species of economic and ecological significance. As early as 1950’s, Philippines was already exporting logs to the different parts of the world. Regrettably, Philippine trees are also the most threatened in the planet. The country’s ever-increasing population lead to magnanimous increase in the people’s demand for space and resources. As a result, the Philippine forests are under constant threat from over-harvesting and habitat destruction. Philippines ranks 4th among the most endangered forest ecosystems, with only 7% of the original forest cover remaining. The 2017 Philippine Red List for Plants listed 984 threatened taxa. The list includes 153 highly economic important tree species which are essential parts of the Philippine wood culture and industry. The inclusion of these trees in the threatened list had a great impact on the wood industry since they are already ban for cutting and utilization. Recognizing the urgency to save the remaining populations of these threatened trees, the Energy Development Corporation initiated a noble tree conservation program called BINHI (Filipino term for seedling). Using science-based criteria primarily considering the ecological and economic importance, EDC came up with 96 priority threatened trees for conservation. For the past 9 years, EDC managed to discover and protect several new populations of the threatened trees. The company’s state of the art vegetative material recovery facility has already developed protocols for the mass propagation of species through cuttings with survival rate ranging from 93-97%. Many of the planted seedlings among EDC’s 143 partner institutions (mostly schools and universities) are now source of seeds even at a very young age. Lastly, all botanical information gathered for the 8-years of the project including new distributions, phenology, and propagation technology were recently published into a book “BINHI Tree for the Future” to disseminate the project learning and experiences to a larger public. With BINHI program, the Philippines is now assured that the 96 threatened trees will soon back to abundance.