{"id":7983,"date":"2022-08-31T09:02:08","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T01:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=7983"},"modified":"2022-08-31T09:02:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T01:02:09","slug":"exploring-the-largest-cave-system-in-the-philippines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/exploring-the-largest-cave-system-in-the-philippines\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring the largest cave system in the Philippines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Gregg Yan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Philippines has over 3100 known caves. Featuring 12 chambers over its seven kilometer span, the\u00a0Langun-Gobingob Cave\u00a0in Samar is the king of them all. Discovered by Italian Guido Rossi in 1987, it was opened to the public in 1990.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We recently explored it to celebrate the Year of the Protected Areas or YOPA<\/strong>, which aims not just to convince people to conserve the country\u2019s 246 protected areas, but to encourage them to visit the sites themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caves are underground chambers, usually situated in mountains, hills or cliffs. Generations of imaginative fear-mongers have made them the home of everything from treasure-hoarding dragons to a whip-wielding Balrog. In reality, caves are special ecosystems which need our protection, particularly from unscrupulous miners who would break apart tons of rock for a handful of precious stones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unique But Threatened Biodiversity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samar Island, overshadowed by more popular places like Palawan and Boracay, isn\u2019t usually considered a top tourist destination, owing to its long history as a hotbed for insurgencies and a punching bag for typhoons. Though the Philippines\u2019 thirdlargest island exudes rugged beauty, its real value as an ecotourism destination lies beneath the earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSamar is unique because it is a karst landscape made primarily of limestone. Millions of years of weathering has created numerous caves and sinkholes on the island,\u201d explains\u00a0Anson Tagtag<\/strong>, head of the\u00a0Caves, Wetlands and Other Ecosystems Division of the DENR. \u201cCaves are special ecosystems which harbor highly-evolved fauna, most of which have adapted to darkness.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Birds, bats, spiders, snakes, crickets and even blind cave fish thrive inside the Langun-Gobingob Cave. The lack of light confines plants to entrances, but mushrooms and other types of fungi cling to life as discreet denizens of the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe speleothems or rocks in caves are in a very real sense \u2018alive\u2019 \u2013 they just grow and move at timescales difficult for people to comprehend,\u201d explains\u00a0Dr. Allan Gil Fernando<\/strong>, a professor at the National Institute of Geological Sciences in UP Diliman. \u201cThe constant dripping of water for instance leaves minute traces of minerals like calcite. Over time these traces pile up to form hanging stalactites and their inverted kin, stalagmites. It takes about a century for a stalactite or stalagmite to grow one inch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is because of their surreal beauty that many caves are sundered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople used to enter the Langun-Gobingob Cave to break apart and mine stalagmites plus white calcite rocks for collectors,\u201d says Samar Island Natural Park (SINP) Assistant Superintendent\u00a0Eires Mate<\/strong>. Our guide Alvin confirms this. \u201cLocals used to mine the cave for Taiwanese businessmen, who paid a paltry PHP7 for a kilogram of rock. Balinsasayao or swiftlet nests were plucked out too, to be shipped to Chinese markets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cave was finally declared a protected area in 1997. \u201cThank God for legal protection. Mining was effectively stopped,\u201d says Eires. The Langun-Gobingob Cave is just one of many natural systems benefiting from the country\u2019s protected area system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDeclaring key biodiversity sites as protected areas is one of the best ways to ensure that future generations can continue enjoying their beauty,\u201d says United Nations Development Programme Biodiversity Finance Initiative (UNDP-BIOFIN) Manager Anabelle Plantilla<\/strong>. \u201cVisitors should positively support local communities but be mindful of the environmental impacts of their travels. They should for instance, avoid taking wild plants or leaving trash in tourist sites.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year of the Protected Areas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launched in May of 2022, YOPA\u00a0hopes to generate funds from tourists to ensure the continued management of protected areas hard-hit by COVID-19 budget cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0Langun-Gobingob Cave is part of the Samar Island Natural Park (SINP), one of YOPA\u2019s six highlighted parks, the others being the\u00a0Bongsanglay Natural Park in Masbate, Apo Reef Natural Park in Occidental Mindoro, Balinsasayao Twin Lakes Natural Park in Negros Oriental, Mt. Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary in Davao Oriental, and Mt. Timpoong Hibok-Hibok Natural Monument in Camiguin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The country\u2019s caves are now open for tourism, but visitors should know what not to do inside them. \u201cCave tourism should be well managed and there are cave\u00a0do\u2019s and don\u2019ts<\/em>,\u201d says\u00a0Buddy Acenas<\/strong>\u00a0from the GAIA Exploration Club, a Manila-based caving and exploration group. \u201cA comprehensive assessment should be conducted before a cave is opened for tourism. Trained guides and set trails should be used to minimize human impacts. Like so many of our fragile wilderness areas, caves must be stewarded by those visiting them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For its part, the Philippine government is doing what it can to promote responsible tourism. “Our caves, mountains, beaches and other protected areas are now open for tourism. We invite both Filipinos and foreigners to come and visit, but to do so in an environmentally-responsible manner,” adds DENR-BMB Director\u00a0Natividad Bernardino<\/strong>.\u00a0\u201cBy practicing responsible and regenerative tourism in PAs, we\u2019re helping our national parks flourish and recover from the economic blow they suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caves are underground chambers, usually situated in mountains, hills or cliffs. Generations of imaginative fear-mongers have made them the home of everything from treasure-hoarding dragons to a whip-wielding Balrog. In reality, caves are special ecosystems which need our protection, particularly from unscrupulous miners who would break apart tons of rock for a handful of precious stones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[110,1742,1077,1809,845,1909,1564],"class_list":["post-7983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-destinations","category-travel","tag-travel-2","tag-travel-adventure","tag-travel-destination","tag-travel-insurance","tag-travel-philippines","tag-travel-time","tag-travel-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7987,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7983\/revisions\/7987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}