Manila: A mountain range in Southern Philippines has been named by Unesco as a World Heritage site, thus ensuring the preservation of its diverse ecosystem for future generations.
The Department of Foreign Affairs, in a statement said that the Mount Hamiguitan Range in Davao Oriental had joined the list of World Heritage sites in the Philippines.
“After six years of documentation and evaluation, the Philippines gained another World Heritage Site as the 38th Session of the World Heritage Committee formally inscribed the Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary into the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) World Heritage List,” the foreign affairs department said.
Inclusion on the World Heritage list is vital for the preservation of such important sites, because not only does it mean that the government needs to preserve such sites for future generations to enjoy, but it also goes to say that world bodies such as Unesco could draw support from other international agencies for its preservation.
Other than Mount Hamaguitan, the other World Heritage Sites that can be found in the Philippines include the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park and Subterranean River National Park in Palawan, the country’s Baroque Churches, the Rice Terraces in the Cordilleras, and the Historic City of Vigan in Ilocos.
The Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary is valuable because it provides a “one stop shop” snapshot of the Philippines’ bio-diverse ecosystem.
“Mount Hamiguitan was found to fulfil a criterion proving its Outstanding Universal Value, which celebrates the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation,” the DFA said quoting Unesco.
Situated in Davao Oriental in Eastern Mindanao, Mount Hamiguitan is well known for its unique bonsai field or pygmy forest of 100-year old trees. It is also home to some 1,380 plant and animal species, including 341 that are endemic to the Philippines. These include the orchid Paphiopedilum adductum, the Philippine cockatoo (Cacatua haematurogypia) and the iconic Philippine eagle or Pithecophaga jefferyi.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said the mountain range “provides a sanctuary to a host of globally threatened and endemic flora and fauna species, eight of which are found nowhere else except in Mount Hamiguitan.”
It further added that the property “represents complete, substantially intact and highly diverse mountain ecosystem”, and acknowledged the bonsai forest as an “epitome of nature’s bid to survive in adverse conditions.”
Dr Virginia Miralao, Secretary General of the Philippines National Commission for Unesco, said, “we are thrilled at the approval of Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary as a Unesco World Heritage Site, which makes it the sixth from the Philippines.”
The inclusion of Mount Hamiguitan also ushers in a positive start for the Philippines’ membership in the Unesco World Heritage Committee. The panel is an inter-governmental body in charge of directing the implementation of the World Heritage Convention.
