The research team, led by Bryan Joel S. Mariano and Denise Margaret S. Matias of Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development, together with colleagues from the Philippines and Europe, approached the problem through an unusual analytical lens. Rather than treating pangolin decline as a purely biological issue, they applied the Social-Ecological Systems framework originally developed by Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom in 2009 and refined with Michael McGinnis in 2014. This framework dissects conservation problems into four interacting subsystems: the resource system, meaning the forest ecosystems where pangolins live; the resource units, meaning the pangolins themselves; the governance systems, meaning the institutions and laws regulating wildlife use; and the actors, meaning everyone from Indigenous hunters to smugglers and enforcement officers. By mapping existing research onto these subsystems, the team could reveal not just what is known about the species, but where the critical blind spots lie.

The methodology behind the review was rigorous. The researchers searched Web of Science and Google Scholar using the terms “Philippine pangolin” and “Manis culionensis,” generating 369 articles published between 1965 and July 2024. After two rounds of screening that removed non-English or non-Filipino publications, duplicates, and papers without substantive focus on the species, only 36 articles remained, and just 16 papers made the final analytical cut, supplemented by three additional papers found through a broader Google search. That tiny number tells its own story. A previous review by Heighton and Gaubert had already identified the Philippine pangolin as the most understudied of all eight extant pangolin species, and this new analysis confirms it. The 16 publications spanned 2005 to 2023, with human geography dominating the disciplinary mix at six papers, followed by zoology and ecology with three each, anthropology with two, and single papers each from political science and psychology.

The trafficking statistics buried in the reviewed literature are staggering. Between 2000 and 2017, authorities recorded 39 seizure incidents representing an estimated 740 Philippine pangolins. Then the trade exploded: in just 2018 and 2019, officials seized 2,008 kilograms of pangolin scales, equivalent to roughly 6,820 animals, plus 74 live or dead individuals. The sharp rise in seizures and retrievals outside the species’ home range coincided with an influx of foreign nationals involved in the physical and online gambling industry in the Philippines. Projections cited in the review suggest the species could lose more than 80 percent of its population within two decades due to overexploitation and habitat destruction. Because poaching is clandestine, the true scale can never be fully measured, but seizure data offers the clearest window into trafficking dynamics, and that window shows a market accelerating in both volume and price.

The economics of the trade reveal a chilling escalation. In 2006, hunters received about 1.50 US dollars per kilogram of pangolin. By 2012, pangolin scales fetched around 71 dollars per kilogram, and between 2011 and 2019 the mean price paid from harvester to intermediary reached 178 dollars per kilogram. By 2022, harvesters were receiving 59 dollars per kilogram for live pangolins. The review also mapped the intricate supply chains that move animals from Palawan’s forests to distant markets. At the base are harvesters, hunters, and collectors, often local community members or non-local specialists; above them sit intermediaries including logisticians, specialist smugglers, vendors, transporters, and buyers; and at the top, exporters and distributors feeding local restaurants and international trade networks. Boats are the most common transport mode, followed by fishing vessels, motorcycles, shuttle vans, jeepneys, and planes, exploiting Palawan’s archipelagic geography to conceal smuggling routes toward Metro Manila and, ultimately, international destinations.

Ecologically, the reviewed studies sketch a species intimately tied to its forest home. Philippine pangolins occupy primary and secondary lowland forests, riverine areas, mangrove edges, agricultural ecosystems, and even cultivated plantations. They show a marked affinity for fig trees, which provide shelter while their fruits attract the ants that form the pangolin’s primary diet. Documented prey includes red ants of the species Odontomachus infandus, black ants of the genus Diacamama, and black termites of the genus Nasutitermes. Camera traps have even recorded pangolins alongside domesticated dogs, which unfortunately also serve as hunting companions for poachers. Yet despite these behavioral insights, the review found a glaring absence: no comprehensive quantitative population study of the species exists. Anecdotal accounts from hunters and local communities consistently report substantial declines in recent decades, but without baseline data, conservation planning proceeds largely in the dark.

The governance picture is equally paradoxical. The Philippine pangolin has been listed under CITES since 1995, received a zero export quota for commercial purposes in 2000, and was moved to CITES Appendix I, prohibiting international trade of wild-caught specimens, in 2017. Domestically, the species is protected under the Strategic Environmental Plan for Palawan and the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act of 2001, which prohibits killing, injuring, trading, hunting, possessing, and transporting wildlife without permits. The IUCN lists it as critically endangered, as does the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, though the national environment department’s 2019 Red List assessed it as only endangered, an inconsistency that itself complicates enforcement. The review found that legal frameworks and strategies are formally in place, yet poaching persists, hampered by weak enforcement, low conviction rates, limited technical capacity among wildlife officers, and an inability to scientifically identify confiscated specimens for prosecution.

One of the review’s most provocative findings concerns Indigenous Peoples. Only three of the 16 studies explicitly involved Palaw’an and Tagbanua communities as research participants, even though these communities have long valued the pangolin for subsistence, folk medicine, and ritual. Traditional uses documented in the literature include treatments for asthma, stomach aches, joint and body pain, skin diseases, and prostate conditions, alongside cultural practices such as burning scales for protection against bad spirits and drinking pangolin blood for rejuvenation. Here the law creates a genuine tension: the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997 promotes customary sustainable use of natural resources, but because the pangolin is classified as threatened, even customary use is now prohibited under a blanket hunting ban. The authors argue this legal ambivalence, mirrored in cases from South Africa to Australia, demands deeper anthrozoological research and fresh frameworks such as socioecological harm reduction and multispecies justice to navigate the collision between conservation law and cultural rights.

The review’s ultimate call is for interdisciplinary, multistakeholder knowledge co-production. Poverty in Palawan has risen, with the lower poverty limit climbing from 9.5 percent in 2018 to 14.2 percent in 2023, pushing some residents toward poaching as a supplementary income alongside farming, charcoal-making, and fishing. The authors caution that simply offering alternative livelihoods can backfire, adding income sources rather than replacing illegal hunting. They also highlight promising collaborations, including a university-government wildlife forensics partnership, NGO-led outreach such as the Zoological Society of London’s Balik Balikon program, and the Palawan Pangolin Conservation Strategy 2018-2043 developed by government agencies, the IUCN Pangolin Specialist Group, and conservation organizations. What emerges is a species whose fate depends less on any single intervention than on untangling the feedback loops connecting forests, markets, laws, and livelihoods, before the world’s most trafficked mammal loses one of its last strongholds.

Subject of Research: Social-ecological dimensions of Philippine pangolin conservation in Palawan

Article Title: Examining the social-ecological dimensions of Philippine pangolin (Manis culionensis) conservation

Article References: Mariano, B. J. S., Sy, E. Y., Pabico, L. A., Bacani-Tabi, N., Loor, C. G., & Matias, D. M. S. (2025). Examining the social-ecological dimensions of Philippine pangolin (Manis culionensis) conservation. Discover Conservation, 2(1), Article 46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44353-025-00069-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44353-025-00069-5

Keywords: Philippine pangolin, Manis culionensis, Palawan, wildlife trafficking, social-ecological systems, CITES, Indigenous Peoples, conservation policy, illegal wildlife trade, habitat loss, systematic review, biodiversity