Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary

The Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary was established in 2004 in the province of Davao Oriental, in south-eastern Mindanao, and protects some 6,834 hectares across seven barangays. UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List in 2014.

Its exceptional feature is the pygmy or bonsai forest that covers the upper reaches of the 1,637-metre mountain. It grows on ultramafic soil, derived from rocks rich in heavy metals and extremely poor in nutrients, and under those conditions the trees, which are around a century old, reach an average height of barely 1.4 metres and some eight centimetres in diameter. It is one of the best-preserved dwarf forests in the world and is draped in mosses and epiphytes.

Among the dominant species of that formation is the tinikaran or red fig (Wendlandia nervosa), which is found only in this kind of forest. The mountain also holds slipper orchids, carnivorous plants of the genus Nepenthes with endemic species, staghorn ferns, rhododendrons and Philippine hardwoods such as yakal and tangile. Its complete altitudinal gradient, from lowland dipterocarp forest to the dwarf forest of the summit, supports a fauna with high endemism, including the Philippine eagle, one of the most threatened raptors on the planet.