Luzon Island’s Importance The Philippine Mammal Project’s expeditions to the Central Cordillera mountains of northern Luzon Island began in 2000, and will continue in 2008. The team is currently focusing on this region because it has the highest concentration of mammal species of any place in the country, including some truly amazing animals that had previously been very poorly known—and quite a few previously unknown species as well. The Cordilleras are a critically important region because the majority of the largest rivers arise in this mountainous headwater are. Those rivers provide much of the water for drinking, industrial use, and irrigating the country’s crucial rice crop. Although the Central Cordillera was thinly populated until recently, the southern portions of the mountains have received a flood of people from the lowlands in the last 50 years. Many of these people live in the few large cities (especially Baguio), but use of the land has greatly intensified, due to the increasing market for vegetables that can be grown in the cool, moist mountain climate. Carrots, potatoes, turnips, cabbage, broccoli, and many other vegetables—which grow poorly or not at all in the lowlands—thrive in the Cordilleras. Vast commercial vegetable farms have now displaced much of the original mossy rainforest (also called “cloud forests”) of the Cordilleras. Located often on steep slopes, these commercial farms and their shallow-rooted, non-native plants leave the land highly vulnerable to severe flooding and erosion when typhoons sweep through the area, as they do each year. Continue to 2008 Expedition Goals.