With no practical way to commute to remote rainforest areas we had to setup camp using local materials and crafts. The only luxury was using a tarpaulin for a roof instead of palm thatch!
Short Stories
The expedition and rainforest
This is the full collection of stories on Palawan
All the stories here tell different aspects of the vegetation and the island as discovered by the expedition. These stories appear on the relevant pages as well
Collecting in rainforest presents the challenge of bringing specimens down from the top of 40m trees, preserving the material for transport, and avoiding ants and snakes.
The Expedition was directed to find the answers to many fundamental questions about the vegetation of the unique island of Palawan and to suggest a suitable area to be set aside for the gene conservation area project.
Background research, networking, permits, team members, inclusion of national researches, medicines, supplies, logistics, politics and an advance recon mission are needed.
13.2 cubic meters of collections were shipped from the Philippines to the Riksherbarium in Holland!
Prior to this expedition, the known flora of Palawan was represented by 1519 species in 649 genera and 138 families of higher plants. The known flora has now been expanded by 153 species, an increase of 10%
A study of the flora of Palawan had to start with the production of lists of the species already collected on the island. Lists were compiled for the very first time 1982 for Monocotyledons, Dicotyledons, Pteridophyta, Gymnosperm.
This story guides users to the where individual specimens were collected in the field, which herbaria have sets of the specimens and how to search the digital systems.
