Plans being drawn up to protect Mt. Hamiguitan

MANILA, Philippines - Local officials of Davao Oriental are faced with the formidable task of protecting Mount Hamiguitan, recently named a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The wildlife sanctuary is touted to have the richest biodiversity in the country.

“The key here is to work harder to protect Mount Hamiguitan. We have put in place measures and we need everyone to take part in this effort,” Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon said yesterday.

The governor said with the inscription as official world heritage site comes the huge responsibility of protecting the mountain.

“The conservation of Mount Hamiguitan is the Filipinos’ gift to humanity,” she said.

After six years of documentation and evaluation, the Department of Foreign Affairs said the 38th Session of the World Heritage Committee formally inscribed Mount Hamiguitan into the UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

Mount Hamiguitan was found to have proven its outstanding universal value as “the most important and significant natural habitat for on site conservation of biological diversity.”

The World Heritage Committee lauded local authorities for protecting the mountain and for bringing together community stakeholders in preserving the site.

Malanyaon said the Mount Hamiguitan management and development council would lead efforts to protect the site, as she cited the need to educate people about the mountain.

“We need to educate people on the huge biodiversity that cannot be found anywhere else but only in Mount Hamiguitan,” she said.

Malanyaon said an interpretation site and an area for tourism purposes should be established at the lower portion of the sanctuary.

“People can’t just climb and roam around the mountain. A large portion will be restricted to climbers and mountaineers so as not to disturb the sanctuary,” she said, adding that the tourism and interpretation site will offer visitors a glimpse of the mountain.

Mt. Hamiguitan traverses the towns of San Isidro, Governor Generoso and Mati City in Davao Oriental.

6th heritage site

With the inscription, Mount Hamiguitan becomes the country’s sixth world heritage site, joining the Tubbataha Reef, the Baroque churches, the rice terraces of the Cordilleras, the Puerto Princesa Underground River and the historic city of Vigan.

The mountain is famed for its unique bonsai field or pygmy forest of 100-year-old trees.

It is also home to 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 Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi).

According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an advisory body to the World Heritage Committee, the mountain is host to threatened and endemic flora and fauna species, “eight of which are found nowhere else except on Mount Hamiguitan.”

The inscription came after a long process that started in 2009, and which highlighted the stellar conservation and management practices on the mountain.

“We are thrilled with the approval of Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary as a UNESCO World Heritage Site,” said Virginia Miralao, secretary general for the Philippine National Commission for UNESCO.

The original nomination for Mount Hamiguitan was submitted in February 2012, after three years of extensive documentation and management planning.

The inscription signals the start for the country’s membership in the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, an inter-governmental body in charge of directing the implementation of the World Heritage Convention. With Pia Lee-Brago