Sulu and Tawi-Tawi Islands

Sulu and Tawi-Tawi Islands

Lying at the southwestern tip of the Philippines is the Sulu Archipelago. With over four hundred volcanic and coral islands and numerous rocks and reefs, the double island chain extends 170 miles (270 km) southwest from Basilan island off southwestern Mindanao and ends near the eastern shores of Sabah (East Malaysia). The islands, the most important of which are Jolo, Sulu, Tawi Tawi, Sanga-Sanga, Sibutu, Siasi, and Cagayan Sulu, divides the Sulu (northwest) and Celebes (southeast) seas. The islands are thickly forested, and their fertile soils support some rice, cassava, coconuts, and fruit. Marine-based activities, however, are the economic mainstay.

Sulu and Tawi-Tawi Islands: a.) Sulu Archipelago; b.) Sulu and; c.) Tawi-Tawi

Sulu is a province of the Philippines belonging in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). It consists of over 157 scattered islands, some of them still unnamed, stretching from the tip of Zamboanga southward towards Borneo. These islands and islets are divided into four groups: Jolo group, Pangutaran group, Tongkil-Banguingui (Samales) group and Siasi-Tupal group. Sulu Province covers an area of 1,600.4 square kilometres (617.9 sq mi). Sulu's main island, Jolo has an area of 868.5 square kilometres (335.3 sq mi), making it the 16th largest island of the Philippine Archipelago in terms of area.

Dubbed as the “Mother of Pearls”, Sulu islands were considered as one of the finest in the world, found in high-bred shells in deep, clear, and rapid tidal waters. Within the islets of this archipelago lie some of the most refreshing beaches in the country. Maubo Beach in Patikul is one of the many fine beaches in Sulu. It boasts of about one kilometer of white sand. Another beach is the Tanjung Beach located just three kilometers away from the town proper.

Maubo Beach, Patikul

Tanjung Beach, Indanan

Other places to see is the Far-flung Sulu nested in the southernmost part of the Philippines. It lies between the Sulu Sea on the north and the Celebes Sea on the south. The glorious province is known for its best diving sites. Rising from the volcanic depths of Sulu Sea in the Western Philippines and the country’s first inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1993, Tubbataha Reef National Marine Park is the best-known diving site for many divers throughout the world for its marvelous underwater ecosystem and marine wilderness. The fabulous beauty of the marine park is the home of many marine creatures including snappers, sweet lips, groupers, angel fish, and morays. It is an atoll of coral reefs teeming with large schools of barracudas, jacks, rainbow runners, and tunas.

Tubbataha National Marine Park, Sulu Sea

But these astonishing sites in Sulu islands, on the other hand, seem to be paradoxical to what happened in its forests. The Sulu islands were once covered in forest, including lowland rain forest, beach forest, scrub forest and mangroves, but today much native habitat has been replaced by cultivation. According to WWF Philippines, almost no forest remains in Sulu as it was observed from the air in 1991 and, within the archipelago, only the eastern of Tawi-Tawi remained to be forested. This is very alarming since there are some endemic species in the area that are forest-dependent and losing considerable forested areas is tantamount to losing the habitat of these important species; like the Sulu Woodpecker, Sulu Hawk-owl and many others.

Tawi Tawi, a group of islands, is found in the southwestern tip of the Philippines. It lies along the equatorial zone. It is composed of 307 islands and islets, with a combined land area of 1,087.4 km² (419.8 sq mi), 88 of these are characterized by having extensive fringing reefs. The total land area of Tawi Tawi island itself is 114.9 square kilometers with terrain ranging from level to steep.The province has two seasons: dry and wet. The climate is generally moderate. The wettest months are from August to November. The other months of the year are generally dry with occasional rain showers.

With its relaxing scenery in beaches and heritage sites, people can never resist to visit Tawi-Tawi. It may be clouded by the hazy tourism due to political and peace and order instability, but this place is very promising to many adventurers. In an island called Bongao, the beauty of these regions is being manifested. Fifteen hours of land travel or an hour in a plane, people can get to visit the seas of this place of manifold surprises.

Bongao Island

 

Sangay-Siapo Island, an island near Bongao

But, again, on the other side of the story, Tawi-Tawi is bombarded with many threat in its biodiversity. Those beautiful places mentioned above cannot cover up the decline of the status of flora and fauna of the region. Deforestation has been a major threat to the biodiversity of Tawi-tawi Island since 1980s. A large part of the eastern area was swept by a series of logging. Several species of parrots and other birds are captured for illegal trade, which is likely to be a significant threat to the Philippine cockatoo and perhaps also to Sulu hornbill. Specifically, the biodiversity of Bud Bungao Peak is threatened by illegal logging, kaingin, harvesting of forest products, and digging for Yamashita treasure. A growing number of visitors collect wild orchids, litter in the area, and suffocate the trees with plastics.

The Sulu Archipelago is a very rich flora and fauna region. But despite of being blessed with its vast oceans housing various marine species, since it is in the apex of the Coral Triangle, and considerable number of endemic and endangered bird species such as Sulu hornbill, Sulu bleeding-heart, Sulu woodpecker and Tawi-Tawi brown dove, only few conservation effort was being done to stop the rapid loss of biodiversity in the region.