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Survival has become difficult for the dulungan, as the indigenous people call the hornbill. Its habitat now consists of only a few meagre remnants of the rainforest, which on the Philippine island of Panay has been sadly reduced due to slash-and-burn and the selling of timber.
The trunks of the giant trees serve the dulungans as nest cavities, the fruits of the trees are their nutrition. On their flights they spread the seeds of these fruits on fallow fields and thus support rejuvenation of the forest. But the nest holes are plundered by poachers and the birds’ flesh - that is made into finger food and regarded as a luxury snack - fetches a high price. Thus the number of dulungans is decimated
by half each year. Fortunately nature conservationists in Germany have developed a concept with which the former hunters are to become
keepers. When former nest poachers watch the nest holes so that the hornbills can hatch in peace and rear their young, and the efforts to found national parks are still being supported, then hope remains that one of the last intact forest regions of the Philippines is not yet lost - and that the complex work of the nature conservationists, a collaboration of development aid and protection of the species, will prevail.