Monte Kanlaon

Mount Kanlaon Natural Park protects the volcano of the same name, some 2,435 metres high, on the island of Negros, between the provinces of Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental. It was declared a national park in 1934, one of the first in the Philippines, and later recategorised as a natural park.

Kanlaon is the most active volcano in the centre of the archipelago, with numerous recorded eruptions and recent explosive episodes that have forced the evacuation of settlements on its lower slopes and the establishment of a permanent danger zone around the crater. Its activity governs access to the park, which is frequently closed.

Its biological value is high because it preserves one of the few fragments of montane forest left on Negros, an island that has lost more than 95 % of its original forest cover, one of the most severe deforestation rates in the world. That remnant is the last refuge of several species endemic to the Western Visayas, among them the Visayan hornbill, the Visayan warty pig and the Visayan spotted deer, all critically endangered and the subject of captive breeding programmes. The pressure of sugar cane farming in the lowlands and logging are the main threats.