Honda Foundation Inc. the corporate social responsibility of Honda group of companies, recently donated vehicles to Pawikan Conservation Center, in Morong, Bataan.
Honda donated three vehicles in total: one Honda FourTrax Rancher 420 4×4 ATV, a Honda TMX motorcycle with a sidecar, and a Honda XRM. Honda hopes the vehicles can be used in improving the conservation efforts of the group.
“We are honored to be part of this support through our ATV and Motorcycle donations. We hope to help the Pawikan Conservation Center ease their problems and improve their conservation efforts,” said Hirotake Shimosaka, Business Administration Office, Senior Assistant Vice President.
Volunteers from the Pawikan Conservation Center can use the vehicles to monitor the shoreline at night to search for Sea turtle nests and transfer the eggs to a hatchery. The group has already released a total of 116,404 hatchlings from 1999 to 2018, with an average success rate of 74 percent. With the donation, Honda hopes to increase this number.
“In the last 20 years, we have released some 200,000 or so hatchling back to the sea. If we had not been able to do so, we would have lost these hatchlings to poaching. We thank Honda Foundation, Inc. for this donation because these vehicles will allow us to better patrol the shoreline and beaches and better protect these important marine animals.” said Manolo Ibias, chairman, Pawikan Conservation Center.
According to a report by Oceana, some sea turtles like the green sea turtle, for instance, help to maintain healthy seagrass beds. By grazing on the seagrasses they increase the productivity and nutrient content of seagrass blades. Without constant grazing, seagrass beds become overgrown and obstruct currents, shade the bottom, begin to decompose and provide suitable habitat for the growth of slime molds.
Sea turtles such as the hawksbill sea turtle and the leatherback sea turtle keep the sea healthy by controlling the growth and population of sponges and jellyfish. By eating sponges from coral reefs, hawksbill turtles allow more coral species to thrive thus, allowing more formation of coral reefs. Leatherback turtles, on the other hand, control the population of jellyfish. By keeping the population of jellyfish in check, fish stocks are protected as jellyfish are one of the key consumers of fish eggs and larvae.