Foreword 
The 2011 Hears! Philippine Biodiversity Expedition 
Expeditions are the life-blood of scientific exploration and the source for most natural history 
collections. The romantic escapades of the likes of Roy Chapman Andrews’ explorations for 
dinosaurs in the Gobi Desert in the 1920s have provided the mspiration for exploration and adven¬ 
ture-seeking Indiana Joneses for the better part of a century. Andrews got his expeditionary start on 
the 1909 U.S. Fisheries Albatross Expedition to the Philippines, during which he studied cetaceans. 
The California Academy of Sciences began its work in the Philippines in 1907-08, when 
Joseph Cheesman Thompson, a naval surgeon and an Assistant Curator in the Academy’s Depart¬ 
ment of Herpetology, was stationed in Manila Bay. He collected reptiles and amphibians rather 
extensively in the Philippines as well as elsewhere in eastern Asia. The Academy’s herpetological 
work in the Philippines continued in the 1950s through collaborations with Walter Brown, an Acad¬ 
emy Research Associate, and continues today with Professor Angel Alcala of Silliman University, 
who is also an Academy Fellow and former Secretary of the Department of the Environment and 
Natural Resoiu'ces of the Philippines. 
The Academy’s marine research in the Philippines began in 1992, with a preliminary survey 
by Gosliner of parts of the Verde Island Passage that separates southern Luzon Island from north¬ 
ern Mindoro Island. That marine research has been the contmued focus of consistent Academy 
work in the Philippines over the last two decades, and since 2006 has included the participation of 
staff from the Steinli art Aquarium of the Academy and staff from the Academy’s Teacher and Youth 
Education Department. 
As stated in Gosliner and Burke (2013), which is reprinted in this volume, the 2011 Hearst 
Philippine Biodiversity Expedition had 94 participants (this volume. Expedition Participants and 
Logistics, Appendix 1, pp. 9-12), over half of whom were Filipino scientists and university stu¬ 
dents. It became the largest biodiversity expedition in Academy and Philippine history. From its 
onset, the expedition was designed to be integrative, with terrestrial, shallow-water marine, and 
deep-sea scientific components integrated with an educational outreach component, two media 
teams, and a team of aquatic biologists from the Academy’s Steinliart Aquarium. The significant 
achievements of the expedition were directly related to the integration, as well the sfrength of the 
partnerships with our Philippine partner institutions. Two planning trips to the Philippines prior to 
the expedition were critical in ensuring that partnerships, memos of understanding, and permits 
were all in place prior to launching the expedition. Coordinating the expedition travel logistics with 
field teams simultaneously in different places and changing locations at different times was com¬ 
plex and challenging. Because one goal of the expedition was to have educational outreach in each 
of the communities where scientists were conducting research, Burke developed a master calendar 
(this volume, Expedition Participants and Logistics, Appendix 2, pp. 13-17) that was critical to 
coordinating the detailed logistics. 
This special volume documents the scientific findings to date and educational outreach impact 
of the 2011 Hearst Philippine Biodiversity Expedition. Over 500 new species were discovered dur¬ 
ing the expedition, many of which are described in articles in this volume. Because the whole 
approach of the expedition was to integrate scientific research and public engagement, and share 
results as quickly and widely as possible, this volume also includes an article detailing how more 
than 900 people participated in numerous outreach events in the Philippines, including the capstone 
symposium at the University of the Philippines, which was attended by high-level U.S. and Fil¬ 
ipino dignitaries. 
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