Municipality Of Narra Champions Fight Against Climate Change

June 19, 2009 - PRLog -- Palawan, Philippines –  Mayor Clarito Demaala Jr. approved funding for this year’s celebration of the Katala Festival in Narra, Palawan. The festival is on its 3rd year of implementation and for the successive two years the Municipality of Narra had exemplified their commitment to help fight climate change through education activities. “There are many ways we can teach people how to help avert climate change and save our Mother Earth, and we in Narra believe that learning while having fun through festivals like our Katala Festival is an entertaining way to understand things. For the second year, we want people to know how we are committed to our vision, aptly adopted in our theme “Knowing our carbon footprint… saving our future”, says the honorable Atty. Demaala.

The Municipality of Narra is known as the Cockatoo Capital of the World with over 200 individuals of the critically endangered Philippine cockatoo, locally known as Katala, on a small coral island in Narra, now protected as Rasa Island Wildlife Sanctuary. The success of the Philippine Cockatoo Conservation Program implemented by the Katala Foundation since 1998 in Narra is mainly brought by the unrelenting support and cooperation of the local government, direct stakeholders and concerned agencies in the locality.

To highlight and strengthen the booming tourist economy of the municipality, festivity endeavours to develop a sense of pride and inculcate to the minds of stakeholders the importance of conserving the environment, to celebrate with and give back to nature and as a gesture of thanksgiving for the vast resources that the Creator has given to the municipality. It kicks off with an experience with wild cockatoos at mainland monitoring stations. Then, everyone heads on to the coastal areas of Panacan for clean up and tree planting activity. The Katala Fun Day resumes in the afternoon with interactive lectures and games, mascot appearance, puppet show, face painting and coloring activities. This is rounded up with a Green Concert along with the LGU night participated in by tribal communities and invited musical bands.

This is the second year the municipality has sponsored the festival and private entities and corporations in Narra are contributing to the success of the affair. KFI

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The Katala Foundation (KF) implements the Philippine Cockatoo Conservation Program in the Philippines and uses the Philippine cockatoo as its flagship species but employs an ecosystemic and participatory approach for conservation.