The diverse ecosystem of the Philippines

Lying as an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, the Philippines belongs to the continent of Asia with a land area of about 298,170 square kilometers and a territorial waters more or less 1,830 square kilometers.

This nation is the 73^rd largest country in the world with a total population 103,775,002 in 2012 national census. It became an independent state in 1946 after liberating itself from the colonization of Spain to 300 hundred years.

With the assistance of the United States of America, the Philippines declared its independence and moved forward under the democratic form of government. The Philippine Peso is the currency of the Philippines and its people are known as Filipinos or Philippine.

The Sierra Madre mountain range contains the largest remaining tract of old-growth tropical rainforest in the Philippines. It is considered as the longest mountain range in the entire country and covering the stretch of the northeastern Luzon.

The foot of the Sierra Mountains Range can be found in the Cagayan province in the north and ends in Quezon in the south with a side trip to the east of Laguna de Bay and the Nueva Viscaya to the west side.

Other mountain ranges in the central island of Luzon formed the Sierra Madre such as the Caraballo Mountain, the Mount Mirador, the Quezon National Forest Park, and the Mount Anacuao with the highest peak of about 6,069 feet.

It is called the last biodiversity frontier because the original forest is still covering half of the province’s land. The mountains of Palawan harbor a vast stretch of old growth forest.

The minority population of the province is composed of the indigenous ethnic group who earned a living through subsistence fishing and farming. These groups of people managed to keep a significant portion of Palawan’s natural resources as their ancestral home claim.

Palawan has a complex ecosystem serving as a refuge for more than a hundred terrestrial threatened species and marine life such as the Philippine cockatoo, Palawan Peacock Pheasant, Palawan soft-furred mountain rat, the Philippine pond turtle, and various species of sea turtles.

The two World Heritage sites namely, the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park and the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park.

The Philippines full of biodiversity is due to its terrestrial and marine habitats that contain some of the richest diversities of plant and wildlife in the world. The country’s sea waters are considered a part of the bio diverse Coral Triangle, which is a marine area located in the western Pacific Ocean.

The patchwork of secluded islands, the hot location of the country, and the once all-embracing areas of rainforest have resulted in high species diversity in some groups of organisms and a very high level of endemism.

The Philippine Ecological Society reported that one-third of the more than 9,250 vascular plant species native to the Philippines are endemic which means growing or existing in a certain place or region

The Philippine eagle known to many Filipinos as the monkey-eating eagle is a subspecies of the family of Accipitridae. This bird is found only in the Philippines. The eagle displays a white-colored plumage together with the shaggy crest,

The length of the Philippine eagle is considered the widest in the world. It is also the largest, harpy eagle and the stellar’s sea eagle being the other contenders. The Philippine eagle is also regarded as the rarest and the most powerful birds in the world. It is also the national bird of Philippine Island.

The Philippine tarsier is an endangered species and endemic to the Philippines. These animals are found in the south-eastern region of archipelago. The Philippine tarsier is also the inhabitant of the islands of Leyte, Bohol, Samar, and Mindanao. Some of these species are known to reside in Siargao Island, Dinagat Island, and Maripipi Island. The Philippine tarsier measures around 118 – 149 mm weighing at 113 – 142 grams.