Why Palawan Is Inviolable

Saturday Stories

January 20, 2018

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I'm not sure why the YouTube videos I shared on my Facebook Timeline have all vanished. They include about two hundred songs for my OPM series and stories on some Cinemelaya movies. What hurts me most is losing my conversations with friends on the comments.

I also lost my full story on Palawan because I wrote it on a post with a shared YouTube video, and I didn't blog it. But, as I was telling a friend yesterday, I really tend to look at the bright side, and I'm happy to say that I found a copy of a short excerpt on my online portfolio.

So here it is, "Why Palawan Is Inviolable," which I posted on June 11, 2017 but is now God knows where.

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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has declared the entire Palawan archipelago of 1,700 islands, covering 1,150,800 hectares, as a "Biosphere Reserve" as mandated by international laws.

The UNESCO has also cited both the Tubbataha Reef Marine Park and the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River as World Heritage Sites. This means they are of paramount global importance and their protected status is official and recognized worldwide.

Palawan has 9,900 square kilometers of coral reefs with 379 species of corals, and 31 species of mangrove in 44,500 hectares of mangrove forests.

It is home to 279 species of birds, 400 species of fish, 600 species of butterflies, 58 species of terrestrial animals, 69 species of reptiles, and various endemic species like the pangolin, mouse-deer, bearded pig, birdwing and many others.

Palawan has "105 out of the 475 threatened species in the Philippines," says UNESCO. "Of the 105 threatened species, 67 are endemic to the Philippines, while 42 of the 67 Philippine endemics are Palawan endemics."

Yet Palawan is also extremely fragile precisely because of its unique and wonderful biodiversity.

Photo courtesy of MarkHaroldEstandarte20.wordpress.com