Mt. Malindang National Park is the lifeblood of the province of Misamis Occidental, Mindanao. With 15 major watersheds or catchment basins, the Park sustains the economic life of the province including the municipalities bordering the provinces of Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga del Norte.
About a million people depend on the Park for irrigation, for industrial and domestic water supply as well as for food.
The mountain range was believed to be formed through a series of volcanic activities within the historical times, but is not well documented. Several indicators of such activities are found in the site.
These include six (6) hectares of crater lake (Lake Duminagat) and two (2) big sunken areas (more than 20 hectares each) surrounded by high rock walls, cinder cones, dome volcanic plugs, amphitheater structures, extensive distribution of volcanic rocks, carbonized wood found in pyroclastic deposits and two sulfuric hot springs.
The entire mountain range is dissected by several canyons, gores and ravines, making its terrain very rugged, and the forest a beautiful scenery.
Mt. Malindang Natural Park lies within the Malindang mountain range in Mindanao, straddling the provinces of Misamis Occidental, Zamboanga del Norte, and Zamboanga del Sur. It covers approximately over 34, 000 hectares. Its highest peak measures about 2,402 meters above sea level.
The Park is an important biodiversity refuge. A great number of diverse endemic faunal and floral species are found in the old-growth and mossy forests in the higher areas.
(CLICK the video to see a glimpse of what's inside Mt. Malindang)
The flora is dominated by several dipterocarp species while the faunal species include, among others:
- the Philippine eagle
- Philippine hawk eagle
- Rough armed tree frog (rare)
- Water monitor lizard
- Philippine warty pig
- Golden-crowned flying fox (endangered)
- Philippine brown deer (rare)
- Red-bellied pitta (rare)
- Rufous hornbill (rare, threatened)
- Philippine hanging parakeet or colasisi, and the
- Philippine woodpecker
Lower down the mountain, the landscape has changed. Some areas have been logged and cleared for farms and gardens. Similarly, areas along the foot slopes and around the coast, up towards the Dipolog River have been cleared and planted to coconuts and irrigated crops.
Mt Malindang was proclaimed as a National Park and Watershed Area on June 19,1971. It covers a total area of 53, 262 hectares.
With the enactment of NIPAS Law in 1992, Mt. Malindang was one of the initial components of the system, although the legal procedures required by Chapter 3 of the Act have yet to be completed.
The boundary has been re-surveyed and revisions to it proposed:
- the Park proper (core zone) is now 34,694 hectares and has been re-designated as Mt. Malindang Natural Park; while
- 18,334 hectares has been designated as buffer zone.
- the park itself covers 65 barangays in 14 towns.
The buffer zone is home to some 18,000 people while some 900 others live in the core area of the park. Nine out of ten people living in the core are Subanen. The Subanen are indigenous people residing in the area. They probably arrived in Mindanao before the 16th Century, and are culturally distinct from more recent immigrants, having their own language and customs.
Mt. Malindang is the central feature of the eastern part of the Zamboanga peninsula of the island of Mindanao.
The park itself occupies most of the area above 800m on the mountain and is about 1150 Km SSE of Manila.
Scheduled public transport is available at Oroquieta City (park headquarters), but not to the park itself, although it has numerous roads leading close to it, about 20, which actually lead into it, plus about another 20 or so less well defined tracks.
1 comment:
That's what we call BEAUTY OF NATURE! :)
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