Sierra Madre (Philippines)

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The Sierra Madre in the right part of the map

The Sierra Madre is the longest mountain range in the Philippines and has a length of approximately 350 kilometers. The mountain is located in the eastern part of the island of Luzon, starting at the north- east in the province of Cagayan and ends in the south in Quezon province, southeast of Laguna de Bay, the largest lake in the country. The foothills of the central mountain range rich west to the province of Nueva Vizcaya and connect there with the Caraballo Mountains, the central node of the Philippine Cordilleras mountain.

The highest peak is Mount Anacuao with an altitude of 1850 m. In the north of the mountain is the only active volcano of the mountain, the Cagua. The Sierra Madre is home to about 1.4 million hectares of rainforest, which corresponds to about 40 % of the total forest area of the Philippines. They have a great importance for the conservation of the biodiversity of the country, as many rare endemic animal and plant species live in them.

The oldest fossil remains of humans on the territory of the Philippines were discovered near the town of Peñablanca in the archaeological sites in the Cagayan Valley, located in Callao Cave. They have been dated to an age of about 67,000 years. Another important locality of early human activities in the Sierra Madre is the Archaeological Park of Arubo and near the Laguna de Bay, the petroglyphs of Angono.

In the Sierra Madre are a number of national parks and nature reserves make up the Sierra Madre biosphere corridor. These are the Peñablanca Protected Landscape & Seascape, the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, the Aurora Memorial National Park, the Minalungao National Park, the Fuyot Spring National Park, Pamitinan Protected Landscape, Marikina Watershed Forest Reserve and the Angat Watershed Forest Reserve.

In the middle Sierra Madre is the Angat Reservoir, with more than 90 % of drinking water is taken for the metropolitan region. In the southern Sierra Madre of Caliraya Lake and the Lumot Lake, both of which are important recreational areas of the metropolitan region of Metro Manila are.