Philippine forest again nominated for World Heritage List

A forest and mountain range in the Philippines is again one of the areas considered for inclusion in a list of United Nations-protected heritage sites a year after it failed to bag the distinction.

Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary in Davao Oriental is among the 40 sites globally nominated for the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (Unesco) World Heritage List.

The World Heritage Committee is set to deliberate on the nominated sites as it meets in Doha, Qatar from June 15 to 25, Unesco said in its website. Mount Hamiguitan has also been nominated last year.

“Mount Hamiguitan presents the highest and richest bio-diversity in terms of flora and fauna per unit area having unique, rare and threatened endemic species of outstanding universal value,” Unesco said.

The mountain range is one of the habitats of the endangered Philippine eagle, which Unesco said is “of outstanding universal value for science and conservation” as the world’s second largest eagle.

Hamiguitan is also unique for its bonsai field or “pygmy” forest of 100-year old trees in an ultramafic soil. The trees, which have an average height of only 1.4 meters covers some 225 hectares of the sanctuary.

Experts have attributed trees’ stunted growth in the area to a high concentration of chromium, iron, nickel and magnesium in soil, which caused it to be unproductive.

Including the Philippine eagle, Hamiguitan is home to five endangered species, 27 rare species, 44 endemic species and 59 economically important species, Unesco said, citing government data.

It “belongs to the 15 biogeographic zones in the Philippines considered to have the highest land-based biological diversity in terms of flora and fauna per unit area,” the group’s website said further.

Mount Hamiguitan has been declared a portected area and a wildlife sanctuary. If named a world heritage site, it will bring to six the total number of UN-protected areas in the Philippines.

The other five World Heritage sites are the Tubbataha Reef, the Cordillera Rice Terraces, the Puerto Princesa Underground River, the town of Vigan, and local baroque churches.