The Luzon tropical pine forests are a

tropical coniferous forest Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests are a tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. These forests are found predominantly in North and Central America and experience low levels of precipitation and moderate va ...

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

of the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

in the western

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. These pine forests are home to a large number of the island's

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

plants and animals.

Location and description

Luzon Luzon ( , ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political ce ...

is the largest island in the Philippines and lies at the north of the group of islands. These pine forests are found at elevations over 1000m in the

Cordillera Central Central Cordillera refers to the New Guinea Highlands. Cordillera Central, meaning ''central range'' in Spanish, may refer to the following mountain ranges: * Cordillera Central, Andes (disambiguation), several mountain ranges in South America ** ...

mountains in the north of the island, where they are mixed in with areas of Luzon montane rain forests especially at the northern end of the range. The Cordillera Central includes Luzon's highest peak

Mount Pulag Mount Pulag (; ) is Luzon's highest peak at above sea level, List of mountains in the Philippines, third-highest mountain in the Philippines, and the List of islands by highest point, 26th-highest peak of an island on Earth. It is List of Ul ...

along with other high peaks such as Mount Puguis, Mount Polis and

Mount Data Mount Data is a mountain located in the Cordillera Central mountain range rising to a height of in the north of Luzon Island, Philippines. It is about north of Baguio on the borders of the provinces of Benguet and Mountain Province along the ...

. Pine forests are also found in the

Zambales Mountains The Zambales Mountains is a mountain range in western Luzon. The mountains spread along a north-south axis, separating Luzon's central plain from the South China Sea. The range extends into five Provinces of the Philippines, provinces: Zambales, ...

of west-central Luzon, particularly in

Mount Tapulao Mount Tapulao (also known as High Peak) is the highest mountain in the Zambales Mountains, Zambales Mountain Range and in the Provinces of the Philippines, province of Zambales in the Philippines. The peak, which rises to an elevation of above s ...

and Mount Redondo near

Subic, Zambales Subic, officially the Municipality of Subic (; , Kapampangan: ''Balen ning Subic''), is a municipality in the province of Zambales, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 111,912 people. Etymology The native Zamba ...

. Rainfall is high (over 2500mm per year) but concentrated in the July/August monsoon with a long dry season from November to April.

Flora

Luzon has long been isolated from other land masses so a unique flora has developed. In this ecoregion Benguet pine (''

Pinus insularis ''Pinus kesiya'' (Khasi pine, Benguet pine or three-needled pine) is one of the most widely distributed pines in Asia. Its range extends south and east from the Khasi Hills in the northeast Indian state of Meghalaya, to northern Thailand, Philipp ...

'') trees are thinly spread over the grasslands that cover the slopes. Regular fires in the dry season maintain the balance of pines and grassland and prevent other deciduous trees and shrubs from taking hold.

Fauna

There are a number of mammals endemic to the Cordillera Central, mainly species of mice and rats including large squirrel-like

cloud rat The cloud rats or cloudrunners are a tribe (Phloeomyini) of arboreal and nocturnal herbivorous rodents endemic to the cloud forests of the Philippines. They belong to the family Muridae and include five genera: ''Batomys'' (hairy-tailed rats), ' ...

s. Three larger mammals of the forest are the

Philippine long-tailed macaque The Philippine long-tailed macaque (''Macaca fascicularis philippensis'') is a subspecies of the crab-eating macaque, known in various Philippine languages as ''matching''/''matsing'' or the more general term ''unggoy'' ("monkey"). It is endemic ...

(''Macaca fascicularis''),

Philippine warty pig The Philippine warty pig (''Sus philippensis'') is one of four known species in the pig genus ('' Sus'') endemic to the Philippines. They have tufts of hair on the top of their head and on the lower sides of their jaws, as well as four warts on t ...

(''Sus philippensis''), and

Malayan civet The Malayan civet (''Viverra tangalunga''), also known as the Malay civet and Oriental civet, is a viverrid native to the Malay Peninsula and the islands of Sumatra, Bangka, Borneo, the Riau Archipelago, and the Philippines. It is listed as "L ...

(''Viverra tangalunga'') all of which are vulnerable to forest clearance while the pig and the macaque are prey for hunters. Birds of the pine forest include the pine-nut eating

common crossbill The red crossbill or common crossbill (''Loxia curvirostra'') is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. Crossbills have distinctive mandibles, crossed at the tips, which enable them to extract seeds from conifer cones and other ...

, which is found in pine forests all over the world.

Threats and preservation

Pine trees have been cut down for timber, firewood and

turpentine Turpentine (which is also called spirit of turpentine, oil of turpentine, terebenthine, terebenthene, terebinthine and, colloquially, turps) is a fluid obtainable by the distillation of resin harvested from living trees, mainly pines. Principall ...

production for centuries and today this is intensified as forest is cleared for agriculture and copper and gold mining projects as the population of the Philippines grows and remains impoverished in these rural areas. In the dry season it is a straightforward process to set fires for forest clearance. Protected areas include Mount Pulag, home to a number of endemic plants and birds.

References

{{coord missing, Philippines Ecoregions of Malesia Ecoregions of the Philippines Forests of the Philippines Indomalayan ecoregions Montane forests Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests

Location and description

Flora

Fauna

Threats and preservation

See also

References