PALAWAN

"The Philippine's Last Frontier"

Facts about Palawan

Geography:

  Attractions:

Unspoiled nature is what really makes a visit to Palawan worthwhile for the entomologist and ordinary tourist alike.  Palawan has no real historical land marks. Palawan's major tourist attraction is the world's longest underground river, stretching no less than 8.2 km. into the limestone mountain of Saint Paul in the Saint Paul Subterranean River National Park.  Its a unique experience and you shouldn't miss it, if you come to Palawan !

Links to pictures:
	Beach of Sabang [49 kB]
	Mouth of Subterranean River [72 kB]
	Inside the Subterranean River [51 kB]
	Sunset at the beach of Port Barton [36 kB]
	Lagoon with bizarre rocks at El Nido [78 kB]

Population:

  Tribal groups:

The Tagbanua are a fairly large ethnic group and mainly found in the hills of central Palawan.  They partly live from farming and partly from hunting in the forests.
The Batak are very special as they are negritos, being small, very dark-skinned and having a short curly hair.  They live as semi-nomads in the forests around Mount Cleopatra's Needle and are very shy towards strangers.  They remain much dependent on the forest.
The Tao't bato are known as the cave/stone people, the name referring to their habitat at the Signapan caves at the lower flanks of Mount Mantalingahan in the municipality of Rizal, south-west Palawan.  Until a few years ago only they lived as semi-nomads, using their caves as shelters during rainy season. Unfortunately Christian missionaries have destroyed much of their native identity and nowadays the younger Tao't bato settle in small villages and mix with Pala'wan and immigrants.
The Pala'wan inhabit the mountains of southern Palawan and like the Tagbanua, they live in villages or smaller settlements, farming and hunting in the forests.

Links to pictures:
	Tao't bato with native stile "gerry can" [59kB]

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  Puerto Princesa City:

Puerto Princesa City is the capital and heart of Palawan, being the center for trade, transport, communication, etc.  Currently the city has a population of some 160.000 people.  There's air transport to Manila daily and boats to Manila and the Visayas a few times weekly from Puerto Princesa.  Most modern conveniences and groceries can be found in the city.

Links to pictures:
	Usual traffic in Puerto Princesa [77kB]

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Palawan forests:

Flora and fauna:

Palawan's fauna has a number of special and endemic species, like the Palawan bearcat, the Palawan peacock pheasant, the Philippine cockatoo and a number of rodents.  Balabac island and a couple of its satellites are home to the endemic, nocturnal Balabac mouse deer - the world's smallest deer !  Large mangrove forests provide some untouched habitats for saltwater crocodiles and upriver you may find the Philippine freshwater crocodile.
Butterflies are bountiful and number nearly 500 species - more than can be found in the whole of Europe, up to the Ural mountains!  Many of the butterflies are endemic species or subspecies like the famous birdwing butterfly Trogonoptera trojana and Papilio lowi.  Among moths new species are discovered frequently.

Links to pictures:
	Wild lilly [38kB]
	Your local guide... - monkey [71 kB]
	A real beauty of the rainforest - snake from the top of a tree [80kB]
	Carnivorous plant (Nepenthaceae) [30kB]
	The guards of the beach - crabs [100kB]

Conservation and protection:

The whole Province of Palawan has been declared a National Nature Reserve and a total logging ban has been imposed by the national government to protect the remaining forests.  Commercial destruction of the forests of Palawan have now been halted.  Now remains the problem of slash-and-burn farming - or "kainin" as it is called in Tagalog.  The major problem for the "kainero" (slash-and-burn farmer) is the difficulty to transport his crops from remote areas to a place with a road connecting to the City.  This means that only a few crops are produced and the farmer moves on to another place in search of a livelihood.  The greatest danger in the slash-and-burn farming is the damage caused by fires lit by the farmers.  During the El Niño droughts of 1998, at least 25.000 hectares of forest and grasslands were lost in huge bush-fires.  In a remote place like the Balabac group farmed goods are very difficult to sell, because transportation by boat is expensive and competition by the mainland is too tremendous, so most goods simply start rotting even before reaching the market!  This prompts some people to engage in illegal logging, as to make a daily bred.  Much lumber is still being smuggled from Balabac to Sabah in Malaysia, often during night.  Some remote areas of southern mainland Palawan suffer from the same problem.  Up to around 1990, tall primary rainforest grew almost to the very coast of southern Rizal municipality, south west Palawan.  In 1995 it was a 2.5 hour hike (about 5 km!) through extensive fields of mainly the coarse "cogon" grass (Imperata cylindrica) before coming even near the forest!  It appeasrs that the nature suffers less in central Palawan (basically the area governed by the City of Puerto Princesa).  Just 12 km from downtown Puerto Princesa you find fine, primary rainforest with a lot of interesting species of flora and fauna.  The proximity of the City allows better surveillance of illegal logging activities and "kainin".  The northern part of mainland Palawan has little forest left nowadays.  Supposedly much of it was logged by timber logging companies and shipped off to mainly Japan.  Luckily those days are over and the forest is struggling to re-establish itself again.

Links to pictures:
	Forest fire at Irawan during El Nino [54kB]
	A common scene... burned vegetation [54kB]

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Reforestation:

Practical Travel Tips:

Accommodation:

Visitors of Palawan will find a wide range of accommodation possibilities in central and northern Palawan.  The southern parts largely lack established accommodation!

Food and drinking:

Prepared food and drinks will be available most places you stay.  In some places you may have to order your food a day in advance as they do not have fresh food of "tourist quality" readily available, but you may often have the option of trying out the neighbouring "eatery".  In Puerto Princesa you will have a very wide range of restaurants serving meals with drinks from US$ 2 up.  At the small road side eateries you can get a complete meal for about a dollar only.  Water seem to be fairly safe for drinking in most places in Puerto Princesa, but I recommend you to stick to bottled mineral water - just to be on the safe side.  Regular sized beer and softdrinks usually sell at 25 cents, but prices may be the double of that on remote places, to cover transport and cooling (by ice blocks!) costs. Those ice blocks are used for the national refreshment "Halo Halo" ( meaning "mixture mixture" - pieces of coconut, palm "heart", egg, cake, beans, ... topped with shreddered ice and evaporated milk - it's amazingly good), too, which in the south of Palawan is a guaranteed way for catching serious stomach trouble (like typhoid fever)...
For those of you, who love fresh fruits and sea food, Palawan is paradise. From banana to pineapple, mango, and papaya as well as all kinds of "never seen before" tropical fruits, everything is available, especially at the local market in Puerto Princesa (some fruits like mangos are seasonal). Fish, shells, snails, crabs, cuttle-fish and seaweeds are available all year long. In the small coastal villages of the north you can buy fish directly from the fisher men at the beach, if you are up early enough in the morning.

Links to pictures:
	Jackfruit [45kB]
	Fresh, delicious fish - can you see the foot ;-) [79kB]

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Transportation: