Giving a talk to University of the Philippines, Los Banos students at the end of my Fulbright Award (Project Palaka Phase I), in March of 2016.
Checking on the captive colony of Platymantis insulatus. Unless we are attempting to breed them, the frogs are kept individually.
Our frogs are kept in separate rooms, depending on where they are from. This room is dedicated to Platymantis insulatus from Gigantes Norte. Another room houses frogs from Gigantes Sur.
Platymantis insulatus, the “Gigantes Wrinkled Ground Frog”.
The limestone crevices where P. insulatus lives can be deep. Here we are using an endoscope repurposed to search for frogs that are too far back to be seen by our field crew.
Into the forest we go.
During each field work session, we set aside a minimum of one day per island to conduct educational outreach. Here we are on Gigantes Norte, explaining our project to the local community. I feel that community support and involvement make or break a conservation project, and I’m happy to say that the Barangay Captains, Kagawads, school teachers, field guides, and local community members support Project Palaka’s efforts.
During our educational outreach on Gigantes Sur, our field team spoke with local barangay captains and kagawads to ask how Project Palaka can help their community with educational outreach and citizen science initiatives.
We also spoke with local teachers to find out their needs. By far the most common answer was that they needed educational materials that would allow them to teach the children of the island about the local biodiversity. I committed to them that Project Palaka would develop educational materials for classrooms.
In 2018, I returned to the Philippines for a brief visit to discuss restarting Project Palaka. During that time, I was fortunate enough to meet with Professor Pura Valle of the UPLB College of Forestry and Natural Resources. We are discussing research collaboration possibilities between Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
During that same trip, I was honored to be able to give an impromptu presentation to Professor Pura's forestry class. The topic- "Land Use History of Carite Forest". Luckily, I travel with all my PowerPoint presentations, because academia has fully assimilated me.
