Two wildlife biologists found a Pahiopedilum haynaldianum, also known as lady’s slipper orchid, in a “local garden in the village adjacent to the forest somewhere in the Mount Busa Key Biodiversity Area.”
Kier Mitchel E. Pitogo, resident wildlife biologist of the Protected Area Management Office
It’s well known that the Philippines is a biodiversity hotspot, its 7641 islands holding a vast array of flora and fauna, many yet unrecorded, all of them rapidly disappearing. But despite this being common knowledge, the importance of this doesn’t usually hit home until a new species is discovered.
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The Busa Mountain Range (BMR) straddles the provinces of Sarangani and South Cotabato in southern Mindanao.
According to Kier Mitchel E. Pitogo, resident wildlife biologist and project development officer of the PASu AVPL, “it is one of the last remaining primary forests in the region.”
A primary forest is a forest whose ecology hasn’t been disturbed by human activity and thus, contains flora and fauna native to the region.
Pitologo recently assisted Aljohn Jay Saavedra, resident botanist and Forest Extension Officer of the Protected Area Superintendent office of the Allah Valley Protected Landscape (PASu AVPL) in DENR-PENRO South Cotabato, in a research expedition to catalogue amphibian and reptile species in the area. They encountered so many orchid species during this time that they also ended up publishing another paper called “Richness and Distribution of Orchids (Orchidaceae) in the Forests of Mount Busa, Sarangani, Southern Mindanao, Philippines