Philippine Island - Luzon Island - NARA - 68156971

Mount Data is a mountain located in the Cordillera Central mountain range rising to a height of in the north of

Luzon Island 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, Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political cen ...

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. It is about north of

Baguio Baguio ( , ), officially the City of Baguio ( ilo, Siudad ti Baguio; fil, Lungsod ng Baguio), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines. It is known as the "Summer Capital of the Philippines", ...

on the borders of the provinces of

Benguet Benguet (), officially the Province of Benguet ('';'' ; pag, Luyag/Probinsia na Benguet; ilo, Probinsia ti Benguet; ), is a landlocked province of the Philippines located in the southern tip of the Cordillera Administrative Region in the islan ...

and

Mountain Province Mountain Province is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Bontoc. Mountain Province was formerly referred to as ''Mountain'' in some foreign references. The name is usually short ...

along the

Halsema Highway Halsema Highway (also known as the , or Mountain Trail) is a national secondary highway in the Philippines. Situated within the Cordillera Central range in northern Luzon, it stretches from the city limit of Baguio to the municipality of Bontoc ...

. The mountain and surrounding area has been declared a

national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

since 1936. In 1940 the park was expanded to . The slopes of the mountain are covered with pine forests and mossy oak forests. The national park hosts five major rivers: the Chico, Ahin, Siffu, Abra, and

Amburayan Amburayan was an administrative division of the Philippines, existing as a politico-military ''comandancia'' from 1890 to 1902, and a sub-province from 1902 to 1920. Its territory encompassed most of the Amburayan River watershed, initially predo ...

rivers. The

Agno River The Agno River, or Pangasinan River, is a river in the island of Luzon, in the Philippines. Traversing the provinces of Baguio and Pangasinan, it is one of the largest river systems in the country, with a drainage area of . The river originate ...

also originates from Mount Data and flows through Benguet. The reserve is also a watershed, which serves towns in Mountain Province, Buenget, and

Ifugao Ifugao, officially the Province of Ifugao ( ilo, Probinsia ti Ifugao; tl, Lalawigan ng Ifugao), is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Lagawe and it borders Benguet to the wes ...

. The mountain is the site of the

Mount Data Peace Accord The Mount Data Peace Accord is a peace deal signed between the government of the Philippines and the Cordillera People's Liberation Army on September 13, 1986, ending hostilities due to the latter's campaign for greater autonomy for the Cordille ...

of 1986 between the government of the Philippines and the

Cordillera People's Liberation Army The Cordillera People's Liberation Army (CPLA) was a militant organization based in the Cordillera region in the Philippines founded by Conrado Balweg. Formation In 1986, the CPLA broke away from the communist New People's Army (NPA), critici ...

Fauna

Mount Data is formerly known for its great biological diversity and is a place that has long been in the attention of biologists. In 1895, the Englishman John Whitehead gathered a vast collection of mammals and birds from the mountain. This mammal collection was then donated to the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. A research by zoologist

Oldfield Thomas Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist. Career Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for the first time. He was appoin ...

showed that many unknown species inhabit the area. Half a century later, a large collection of small mammals was collected by an expedition led by the Filipino biologist Dioscoro S. Rabor. Some of these mammals are ''Carpomys melanurus'' (

short-footed Luzon tree rat The short-footed Luzon tree rat or greater dwarf cloud rat (''Carpomys melanurus'') is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found only in the Philippines, specifically in northern Luzon. Its natural habitat is tropical moist montane ...

) and ''Carpomys phaeurus'' (

white-bellied Luzon tree rat The white-bellied Luzon tree rat (''Carpomys phaeurus'') is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found only in Philippines. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry forest A forest is an area of land dominated by t ...

). In addition to several rare species of mammals, there are also some bird species like the ''Collocalia whiteheadi'' (

Whitehead's swiftlet Whitehead's swiftlet (''Aerodramus whiteheadi'') is a species of swift in the family Apodidae. It is endemic to the Philippines. It is named after the British explorer John Whitehead (1860–1899) who collected natural history specimens in Borne ...

), which was only known then from a specimen that was caught during the expedition of John Whitehead on the mountain. ''Carpomys melanurus'' (greater dwarf cloud rat) was first found on Mount Data in 1896.

References

Data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted ...

National parks of the Philippines Protected areas established in 1936 Landforms of Mountain Province Landforms of Benguet Tourist attractions in Mountain Province Tourist attractions in Benguet {{Cordillera-geo-stub

Fauna

See also

References