DEVELOPMENT is necessary. Roads connect communities. Energy projects strengthen the economy. But there are places where the question should not simply be how quickly development can proceed, but how much can be built without destroying something that can never be rebuilt.
The Central Panay Mountain Range is one such place.
More than 95 percent of the world’s remaining Dulungan or Rufous-headed Hornbills are concentrated in Central Panay, as reported in today’s headline of this paper. Only an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 mature individuals remain. The species is already extinct in Guimaras and functionally extinct in Negros. Panay is effectively its last major refuge.
Yet this refuge faces mounting pressure from road construction, dam projects, renewable-energy developments, forest loss and illegal wildlife trade. Proposed wind projects cover portions of Ibajay in Aklan and Pandan in Antique within Dulungan habitat, while several road networks cross the mountain range.
These projects should not automatically be condemned. Communities need roads. Panay needs reliable energy. Renewable energy is essential to reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
But “green” development ceases to be green when it requires sacrificing intact forests.
Climate solutions should not destroy critical habitats that already store carbon and provide water. Renewable-energy facilities should, whenever possible, be directed toward degraded lands and other lower-impact areas. Roads likewise should follow routes that minimize damage to forests, watersheds and wildlife habitat.
The stakes extend far beyond the Dulungan. The Central Panay Mountain Range stretches across Aklan, Antique, Capiz and Iloilo and serves as Panay’s ecological backbone and main watershed. Its forests sustain ecological processes upon which communities themselves depend. The Dulungan, a vital seed disperser known as a “Farmer of the Forest,” helps these forests regenerate.
Saving the bird, therefore, is not sentimental environmentalism. It is part of protecting Panay’s natural infrastructure.
This is why declaring the Central Panay Mountain Range a Protected Area deserves urgency. Coordination among the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, local government units and Indigenous Peoples is necessary, particularly because portions of the proposed protected area overlap ancestral domains. Consultations must be genuine and thorough. But they must also move.
Too often, environmental protection advances slowly while development moves quickly. Studies drag on, legislation waits and boundaries remain unsettled while projects steadily transform the very landscape government eventually intends to protect. Government must reverse that sequence.
Protect first. Plan development around what must be protected.
Identify critical habitats, watersheds and irreplaceable forests. Establish clear ecological limits. Then determine where roads, energy facilities and other infrastructure can proceed with the least damage.
That is not anti-development. It is intelligent development.
The latest count recorded 68 Dulungan in Central Panay, compared with 59 in 2025 and 62 in 2024. Encouraging as this may appear, conservationists warn that the numbers do not yet show a definite upward population trend. There is no room for complacency. Panay now carries responsibility for the survival of a species found nowhere else on Earth.
But ultimately, this is about more than saving the Dulungan. It is about whether Panay can pursue progress without destroying the natural systems that sustain it.
Roads can be rerouted. Energy facilities can be relocated. Engineering plans can be redesigned. An extinct species cannot be brought back.
Neither can an ancient forest simply be rebuilt once it is gone.
Protect Central Panay now — before there is little left worth declaring protected.
