Colorful nylon net bags of various sizes were used to dry samples. 



through, the forests along this "zig-zag" remain well 

 preserved, going right down to the sea in some places. 

 The valleys and slopes are covered by tall mixed forest, 

 the ridges by a lower forest. 



The Trident Mine site at Victoria Range (50-200 m 

 altitude) is located near the Trident or Bloomfield min- 

 ing area, along the Victoria Range's eastern slopes. 

 Collecting was done in a flat alluvial plain, forested 

 river banks, and in the more luxuriant forests along the 

 slopes. 



The Tabon Island site is on Tabon, a small island off 

 the coast of Quezon town. It consists of a limestone 

 formation at an elevation of about 200 m, with almost 

 vertical cliffs. The forest cover on the sea side goes 

 straight down to the sea, the one facing Palawan Island 

 gradually sloping at its base into a coastal forest and 

 mangrove formation. The island is officially preserved 

 under the management of the Philippine National 

 Museum. It is on this island that the famous Tabon 

 Caves, site of the oldest human remains in the Philip- 

 pines, are located. 



An Invaluable Resource, 

 Its Potential and Its Fragility 



In order to get an idea of the potential medical value of 

 Palawan's forests, a preliminary assessment was made 

 by comparing the list of plants we collected in Palawan 

 during the present field work against those which have 

 been computerized in the NAPRALERT ("Natural 

 products alert") data base at the University of Illinois at 

 28 Chicago. NAPRALERT is a unique data base of the world 



literature on natural products, including chemical con- 

 stituents, pharmacological activities, and ethnomedi- 

 cal (i.e., folk medicine) information. The data base 

 now contains information on more than 30,000 flower- 

 ing plant species, but includes chemical or 

 pharmacological data on only about 20 percent of the 

 plants collected in Palawan. Another comparison was 

 made between the Palawan list and the plants listed in 

 Quisumbing's Medicinal Plants of the Philippines (1978). 

 Again, only 20 to 30 percent of the Palawan plants 

 collected are to be found in this book. 



It is our hope and expectation that the remaining 

 70 to 80 percent of the plants may yield species of medi- 

 cinal importance, but serious problems confront us. At 

 the present rate of Palawan's rain forest depletion, time 

 may be running out. While Palawan's tropical rain 

 forests covered 1, 109,918 hectares (95 percent of the 

 island) in 1972, today there are but 741,000 forested 

 hectares — a loss of one third in the space of only 15 

 years. The situation in other Philippine islands is even 

 more serious. At least four island provinces (Cebu, 

 Masbate, Negros, and Panay) have lost almost all their 

 forest cover. 



One way of slowing down this process in Palawan 

 is to impose strict conservation measures. This kind of 

 control could greatly improve our chances of discover- 

 ing more medically useful plants; it would also enhance 

 the island's potential for economic development. 



I look forward to returning soon to do further field 

 work in Palawan's magnificent rain forests. A distant 

 voice rings in my ears: "Balik balik Palawan — 'come 

 back, come back to Palawan,'" — traditional words of 

 farewell to the departing visitor. FM 



