Palawan

Palawan is an island in the western Philippines. Together with surrounding smaller islands and island groups, it forms the Philippine province of Palawan in the MIMAROPA region. Largest city and capital is Puerto Princesa.

Geography

Palawan is elongated between the South China Sea in the northwest and the Sulu Sea in the southeast. The main island is about 450 km long, an average of about 40 km wide and crossed by a mountain range whose highest peak with 2085 m, Mount Mantalinganhan is. The narrowest point, between the Ulugan Bay and Honda Bay, measures about 8.5 kilometers. In the northeast, the Mindoro Strait separates the province of the island of Mindoro, to the southwest the Balabacstraße of Borneo. For the province also includes the north of the main island located Calamian Islands, the southern Balabac Islands, Cagayan and Cuyo Islands in the Sulu Sea and the Philippine occupied part of the Spratly Islands, Kalayaan. With an area of almost 15000 km ² Palawan is the largest province of the Philippines.

Geology

Palawan possibly as part of a microplate drifted southward part of the Eurasian plate, thereby forming also the South China Sea. The karst formations of the islands are similar to those in Borneo, South China and Vietnam. In contrast to the rest of the Philippines, there are in the province no recent volcanism.

Climate

Palawan is characterized by always humid tropical climate. Due to northeast trade winds and south-west monsoon, drop the least rainfall from November to April, most of them between June and October. The annual average values ​​are for Puerto Princesa 27.4 ° C, 1607 mm of rainfall and 68.9 % RH.

Flora and Fauna

Due to the lower sea levels during the last ice ages Palawan was repeatedly linked in the past by land bridges with Borneo and the Asian mainland, and thus part of Sundaland. The islands are therefore biogeographically separated by the Huxley - line that runs through the Mindoro Strait and the Sulu Sea and adjoins the southern Wallace Line, from the other Philippines. Overall, the flora and fauna of Palawan is similar to that of Borneo.

Palawan is characterized by a high degree of biodiversity and endemism. It developed so far known 232 species, including endemics such as the Palawan - rat, the Palawan Pangolin or Palawan Peacock-Pheasant, and 1522 species of flowering plants. The marine habitat is characterized by many coral reefs surrounding the islands; the Tubbataha Reef is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In Malampaya Sound is home to a population of Irawadidelphinen.

The following endemic species and subspecies are classified by the World Conservation Union as vulnerable ( incomplete):

  • Aioliops brachypterus ( Pfeilgrundel )
  • Arctictis binturong whitei ( Marderbär )
  • Balabac - Kantschil ( Tragulus nigricans, mouse deer )
  • Calamian Hirsch
  • Drepanosticta ceratophora (lower level)
  • Limnonectes acanthi ( frog)
  • Megophrys ligayae ( Zipfel frog)
  • Oxyeleotris expatriates ( Schläfergrundel, endemic in Manguao Lake)
  • Palawan Bearded Pig
  • Palawan mountain squirrel ( Sundasciurus rabori, Sunda tree squirrels )
  • Palawan flying fox ( Acerodon leucotis, flying fox )
  • Palawangrundschnäpper ( Ficedula platenae, Höhlenschnäpper )
  • Palawanhornvogel ( Anthracoceros marchei, Hornbill )
  • Palawan Stinkdachs
  • Parathelphusa cabayugan ( freshwater shrimp )
  • Pelophryne albotaeniata ( toad )
  • Philippines Barbour frog ( Barbourula busuangensis )
  • Philippines - Earth Turtle ( Siebenrockiella leytensis, terrapin )
  • Philippine island of porcupine ( Hystrix pumila, porcupine )
  • Antidesma obliquinervium ( Antidesma )
  • Antidesma subolivaceum ( Antidesma )
  • Aporusa elliptifolia ( Phyllanthaceae )
  • Arthrophyllum pulgarense ( Araliengewächs )
  • Cryptocarya palawanensis ( Laurel family )
  • Curranii Schefflera ( Schefflera )
  • Palawanensis Schefflera ( Schefflera )
  • Guioa palawanica (soap tree plants)
  • Fowliei Paphiopedilum ( Lady Slipper )
  • Podocarpus palawanensis ( Steineibe )

Nature Reserves and National Parks

In the province of Palawan, there are ten wildlife sanctuaries and two national parks. To protect the biodiversity of Palawan Island, the Republic Act 7611 in 1991, also known signed under the name Strategic Environmental Plan ( SEP) for Palawan Act, by the then President Corazon Aquino. In this law, the policies are set, in which the environmental policy of the provincial government of Palawan oriented and is intended to serve as the sustainable development of the province. As an advisory element of the policy, the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development was created, written annual reports on the state of the environment of the province and the implementation of the measures decided monitored. This law was the requirement to declare 1991 the island of Palawan Biosphere Reserve, one of two model regions of the Philippines. The Biosphere Reserve belonging to nature reserves and national parks are under the guidelines of Republic Act 7586, the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act of 1992, managed.

Protected areas:

  • Calauit Game Preserve and Wildlife Sanctuary
  • Coron Iceland Protected Area
  • Culasian Managed Resource Protected Area, Rizal
  • El Nido - Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area
  • Malampaya Sound Protected Landscape / Seascape
  • Mount Mantalinganhan Protected Landscape
  • Omoi and Manambaling Cockatoo Reserves, Dumaran
  • Port Barton Marine Park
  • Iceland Rasa Wildlife Sanctuary
  • Ursula Iceland Game Refuge and Bird Sanctuary

National Parks:

  • Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park -
  • Tubbataha Reefs National Marine Park

History

In the Tabon Caves ( municipality of Quezon, Südpalawan ) 1962 human bones and tools were found, which represent the earliest evidence of people in the province with an age of at least 16,500 years.

Chinese sources from the era of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) show trade relations between Palawan and China. During the reign of Sultan Bolkiah (1485-1524) Palawan came under the jurisdiction of the Sultanate of Brunei, the Sultanate of Sulu later. Sources speak of annexations of the Sultans of Sulu and Maguindanao to Spanish East Indies in 1705. Recently renounced in 1749 Brunei territorial claims.

During the colonial period the main island was also called Paragua, possibly because their shape a flip close umbrella (Spanish paraguas ) is similar.

Already in 1591 there was an encomienda on the Calamian Islands. From 1622 the Order of St. Augustine began with the establishment of mission stations attached to the Cuyo Islands and Northern Palawan, including in Taytay. At the latest in 1818 was the province with its capital in Taytay Calamianes, which included the Calamian, Cuyo and Cagayan Islands and the northern part of the main island until about the 10th degree of latitude. 1858 covered the whole province of Palawan with the districts of Castilla in the north and in the south of Asturias. 1862, the District of Asturias as an autonomous province of Paragua Calamianes has been disconnected. Administrative headquarters was initially Taytay, Cuyo 1873. The Palawan province in its present form with its capital Puerto Princesa was the U.S. civil administration with the Commission Act No. 1363 1905 set.

During the Second World War Palawan stood from 1941 to 1945 under Japanese occupation.

Separatist groups like the M.I.L.F. strive for incorporation of Palawan in a future Moroland. In a referendum held in 2001, however, over 98 percent of the population who spoke out against a connection to the existing Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Population

Traditionally, two groups can be distinguished:

  • Indigenous ethnic groups such as the Tagbanuwa and negri matic Batak in Central and Northern Palawan and the Palawanos and Molbog in the south
  • The Palaweños, descendants later Filipino immigrants, of which a large part of the Cuyo Islands (called Cuyonons )

The individual population groups speak their own Philippine languages ​​and dialects with Tagalog as the main language and Transport; the Tagbanuwa developed their own writing system. The people are predominantly Roman Catholic faith, or, to a lesser extent, members of other Christian faiths. In the extreme south (municipalities of Balabac and Bataraza ) dominated by Islam.

Population change since 1990:

Economy and infrastructure

31 % of the land used for the cultivation of rice, wheat, corn, bananas, cassava, elephant grass, cashews and peanuts. Besides fishing, the wood copra and palm oil industry plays a role. At minerals chromite and nickel are mainly degraded. The indigenous organization ALDAW ( Ancestral Country / Domain Watch) feared environmental damage (including deforestation) due to expansion of nickel mining and palm oil production. In the South China Sea oil and gas reserves are exploited, Palawan making it the only oil-producing province of the Philippines.

From Puerto Princesa there are regular ferries over Coron to Manila and Iloilo to Cuyo. The main tourist centers are Puerto Princesa, Coron and El Nido. Apart from the international airport of Puerto Princesa (IATA: PPS ), there are other, smaller domestic airports and airstrips, of which the larger in Coron ( USU ), Culion ( CUJ ), El Nido ( ENI), Magsaysay ( CYU ), Rizal ( TGB ) and Taytay ( RCP ).

Administrative divisions

The Palawan province is divided in 23 municipalities and three districts Congress (legislative or Congressional districts, constituencies ).

First Congressional District:

  • Agutaya
  • Araceli
  • Busuanga
  • Cagayancillo
  • Coron
  • Cuyo
  • Culion
  • Dumaran
  • El Nido
  • Kalayaan
  • Linapacan
  • Magsaysay
  • Roxas
  • San Vicente
  • Taytay

Second Congressional District:

  • Balabac
  • Bataraza
  • Brooke 's Point
  • Narra
  • Quezon
  • Rizal
  • Sofronio Española

Third Congressional District:

  • Puerto Princesa (province independent city)
  • Aborlan

Universities

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