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Romblon Hawk-owl
The Romblon boobook or Romblon hawk-owl (''Ninox spilonotus''), is a species of owl in the family Strigidae that is endemic to the Philippines. It is only found on the islands of Tablas, Sibuyan and Romblon. It was previously known as a subspecies of the Philippine hawk-owl, but was reclassified in 2012, as voice and other evidence suggested it was a distinct species. Its natural habitat is tropical moist lowland forest. It is threatened by habitat loss. Description and taxonomy EBird describes the bird as "A rare medium-sized owl of lowland and foothill forest on Tablas, Romblon, and Sibuyan islands. Upperparts, chest, and head dark brown and indistinctly barred. Underparts reddish brown. Note the long whiskers around the face and the bright yellow eyes. Probably the only owl in its range except for Mantanani scops-owl, but Romblon boobook is reddish rather than gray and lacks the black line around the face. Song is a phrase of three notes, 'wik weu-weu', with the second and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Swift Bourns
Frank Swift Bourns (1866 – 1935) was an American ornithologist and doctor. He was involved in two different expeditions to the Philippines with Dean Conant Worcester to gather natural history specimens. From 1887 to 1888 they participated in an expedition sponsored by Joseph Beal Steere. From 1890 to 1892 they returned on an expedition sponsored by Louis F. Menage and the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences. The two expeditions yielded thousands of specimens of birds and mammals including newly discovered species such as the Bornean slow loris and Sulu bleeding-heart. After the second expedition Bourns moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ... where he completed his medical degree and became a doctor. References American ornitholog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mindoro Boobook
The Mindoro boobook or Mindoro hawk-owl (''Ninox mindorensis'') is a species of owl in the family Strigidae that is endemic to the Philippines. Description EBird describes the bird as "A fairly small owl of lowland and foothill forest and woodland. Rather dark brown on the head and back and reddish-brown on the chest, with bright yellow eyes and thin white eyebrows forming a V. Mindoro scops-owl is similar in size and color, but Mindoro boobook is finely barred all over. Much smaller than chocolate boobook, without white on the chest. Song is a fairly high-pitched, descending mournful whistle, 'wiiiiuuuuu'." Among the Philippine hawk-owl species complex, it is distinguished by the fine barring on its head and belly and its overall darker plumage. The Mindoro boobook is an earless species. The males and females look much alike. It is medium-sized at 20 cm tall, along with the Sulu boobook, in the Philippine hawk-owl species complex. This is in between the larger Camiguin bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Guiting-Guiting
Mount Guiting-Guiting or G2 is the highest mountain in the province of Romblon, located in Sibuyan Island, in the Philippines, with an elevation of above sea level. Its steep slopes and jagged peak, have earned it the reputation, as one of the most difficult and technically most challenging mountain to climb in the Philippines. Ranked 11th-most prominent mountain in Philippines, and 71st-highest peak of an island in the world. Located at the heart of Sibuyan and dominates the landscape for miles around. Guiting-Guiting, in the Romblomanon dialect means ''"jagged"''. It is one of the focal points of Sibuyan's declaration as a biodiversity haven and has been dubbed by some local and international natural scientists as ''The Galapagos of Asia.'' The island of Sibuyan has been compared numerous times with the biodiversity endemism rate of the Galapagos islands in Ecuador. This endemism prompted much of the mountain and its slopes to be protected under the ''Mt. Guiting-Guiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slash-and-burn
Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegetation, or "slash", is then left to dry, usually right before the rainiest part of the year. Then, the biomass is burned, resulting in a nutrient-rich layer of ash which makes the soil fertile, as well as temporarily eliminating weed and pest species. After about three to five years, the plot's productivity decreases due to depletion of nutrients along with weed and pest invasion, causing the farmers to abandon the field and move to a new area. The time it takes for a swidden to recover depends on the location and can be as little as five years to more than twenty years, after which the plot can be slashed and burned again, repeating the cycle. In Bangladesh and India, the practice is known as jhum or jhoom. Slash-and-burn is a type of shif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic viability of investing in the equipment, labor, and energy required to extract, refine and transport the materials found at the mine to manufacturers who can use the material. Ores recovered by mining include metals, coal, oil shale, gemstones, limestone, chalk, dimension stone, rock salt, potash, gravel, and clay. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a laboratory or factory. Mining in a wider sense includes extraction of any non-renewable resource such as petroleum, natural gas, or even water. Modern mining processes involve prospecting for ore bodies, analysis of the profit potential of a proposed mine, extraction of the desired materials, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illegal Logging
Illegal logging is the harvest, transportation, purchase or sale of timber in violation of laws. The harvesting procedure itself may be illegal, including using corrupt means to gain access to forests; extraction without permission, or from a protected area; the cutting down of protected species; or the extraction of timber in excess of agreed limits. Illegal logging is a driving force for a number of environmental issues such as deforestation, soil erosion and biodiversity loss which can drive larger scale environmental crisis such as climate change and other forms of environmental degradation. Illegality may also occur during transport, such as illegal processing and export (through fraudulent declaration to customs); the avoidance of taxes and other charges, and fraudulent certification. These acts are often referred to as "wood laundering". Illegal logging is driven by a number of economic forces, such as demand for raw materials, land grabbing and demand for pasture for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habitat Loss
Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby reducing biodiversity and species abundance. Habitat destruction is the leading cause of biodiversity loss. Fragmentation and loss of habitat have become one of the most important topics of research in ecology as they are major threats to the survival of endangered species. Activities such as harvesting natural resources, industrial production and urbanization are human contributions to habitat destruction. Pressure from agriculture is the principal human cause. Some others include mining, logging, trawling, and urban sprawl. Habitat destruction is currently considered the primary cause of species extinction worldwide. Environmental factors can contribute to habitat destruction more indirectly. Geological processes, climate change, introdu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endangered Species (IUCN Status)
Endangered species as classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), are species which have been categorized as very likely to become extinct in their known native ranges in the near future. On the IUCN Red List, endangered is the second most severe conservation status for wild populations in the IUCN's schema after critically endangered. In 2012, the IUCN Red List featured 3,079 animal and 2,655 plant species as endangered worldwide. The figures for 1998 were 1,102 and 1,197 respectively. IUCN Red List The IUCN Red List is a list of species which have been assessed according to a system of assigning a global conservation status. According to the latest system used by the IUCN, a species can be "Data Deficient" (DD) species – species for which more data and assessment is required before their situation may be determined – as well species comprehensively assessed by the IUCN's species assessment process. A species can be "Near ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. It uses a set of precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world. With its strong scientific base, the IUCN Red List is recognized as the most authoritative guide to the status of biological diversity. A series of Regional Red Lists are produced by countries or organizations, which assess the risk of extinction to species within a political management unit. The aim of the IUCN Red List is to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to reduce species extinction. According to IUCN the formally stated goals of the Red List are to provi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forest
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a forest as, "Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds ''in situ''. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban use." Using this definition, '' Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020'' (FRA 2020) found that forests covered , or approximately 31 percent of the world's land area in 2020. Forests are the predominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth, and are found around the globe. More than half of the world's forests are found in only five countries (Brazil, Canada, China, Russia, and the United States). The largest share of forests (45 percent) are in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secondary Forest
A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a timber harvest or clearing for agriculture, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. It is distinguished from an old-growth forest (primary or primeval forest), which has not recently undergone such disruption, and complex early seral forest, as well as third-growth forests that result from harvest in second growth forests. Secondary forest regrowing after timber harvest differs from forest regrowing after natural disturbances such as fire, insect infestation, or windthrow because the dead trees remain to provide nutrients, structure, and water retention after natural disturbances. However, often after natural disturbance the timber is harvested and removed from the system, in which case the system more closely resembles secondary forest rather than seral forest. Description Depending on the forest, the development of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primary Forest
An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological features, and might be classified as a climax community. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines primary forests as naturally regenerated forests of native tree species where there are no clearly visible indications of human activity and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed. More than one-third (34 percent) of the world's forests are primary forests. Old-growth features include diverse tree-related structures that provide diverse wildlife habitat that increases the biodiversity of the forested ecosystem. Virgin or first-growth forests are old-growth forests that have never been logged. The concept of diverse tree structure includes multi-layered canopies and canopy gaps, greatly varying tree height ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
