Where is sulu archipelago

Most of this forest has now been cleared for coastal development and coconut plantations. The lowland rainforests were dominated by species of Dipterocarpaceae, especially Anisoptera , Dipterocarpus , Hopea , and Shorea.

Hardly any of the original scrub forests remain, and cannot be easily described. The mangrove community consists of species of Rhizophora , Ceriops , Brugueira , Sonneratia , Avicennia , and Nypa palms. During the Pleistocene about 18, years ago, when the sea level dropped by about m from present levels, all the islands on the Sunda Shelf were connected, allowing exchange and migrations of mammals and other terrestrial fauna.

Unsurprisingly, the mammal fauna is not rich because the islands are small and isolated. The Tawitawi Island rat is the only endemic mammal. Of the species of birds known from this ecoregion and 22 are Philippines endemics.

Five bird species are endemic to the ecoregion, namely the Tawitawi brown-dove, Sulu hornbill, blue-winged racket-tail, Sulu Boobook, and the Sulu bleeding-heart, assuming it is not already extinct. Several smaller endemic species, from small mammals to geckos, are still being scientifically described from the forests of these islands.

Basilan, Jolo, Tawitawi and other islands in the group are extinct volcanic cones rising from the southernmost ridge. Tawi-Tawi, the southernmost island of the group, has a serpentine basement-complex core with a limestone covering.

This island chain is an important migration route for birds. The largest municipalities in the area are on the island of Jolo. The larger island of Palawan to its north, the coastal regions of the westward-extending Zamboanga Peninsula of Mindanao, and the north-eastern part of the island of Borneo were formerly parts of the thalassocratic Sultanate of Sulu.

The archipelago is the home of the indigenous Tausug people; various group of Samal or Sama people including the semi-nomadic Badjaw; the land-based Sama; the related Yakan people; and the Jama Mapun people. The Tausug language is spoken widely in the Sulu Archipelago as both first and second languages throughout these islands. The Yakan language is spoken mainly in Basilan Island. Numerous dialects of Sinama are spoken throughout the archipelago, from the Tawi-Tawi Island group, to the Mapun island group Mapun , to the coast of Mindanao and beyond.

The archipelago is geographically subdivided into several groups, most significantly those around the main islands Basilan, Jolo and Tawi-Tawi. There are, however, other groups containing mostly small islands; not all of these are inhabited:. After that, it became part of the Bruneian Empire before gaining its own independence on The region then became part of the independent Sultanate of Sulu, founded in The arrival of Western powers later became a conflict when the Spanish start to impose the rule of Spanish East Indies over the Sulu Archipelago.

Spanish military expeditions against the sultanate were launched over the centuries of the colonial Philippines period — Enter your search terms:. Lying between the Celebes and Sulu seas, it includes over volcanic islands and coral islets extending almost to Borneo. Basilan is the largest island, Jolo the most important. Fishing is the major source of livelihood; the Sulu Sea supplies a large proportion of the nation's commercial catch. The Muslim secessionist movement in the southern Philippines has been perhaps the most publicized event within that country during the past decade.

Stemming largely from economic problems and aided by sympathizers from outside the nation, the movement resulted in a virtual civil war that only in recent months has abated into a somewhat tenuous truce.

The ramifications of that conflict are many faceted, not the least of which has been the displacement of large numbers of people as they have fled the areas of greatest conflict.

In some areas, the movement of such peoples has drastically altered the ethnic composition. Such is the case of southern Sulu, the islands comprising the province of Tawi-Tawi. When Europeans arrived in the seas of eastern Malaysia in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Sulu Islands were inhabited by two Muslim groups, namely the Tausug and the Sama.

The Tausug, the most culturally homogeneous of the two, were concentrated on Jolo Island with sizeable populations on Siasi and nearby islands. The sultanate which held political and economic domination over the archipelago was essentially a Tausug development wich ultimately incorporated virtually all the Sama people War-.

Tausug settlements existed beyond Jolo and Siasi, but Jolo has always been considered their cultural homeland and historically the island has been synonymous with the Tausug.

On the other hand, the Sama people have always been more widely dispersed, and more heterogeneous than the Tausug. Presently, Sama populations are found as far north as Luzon, near Cebu, around the western shores of Mindanao especially in the Zamboanga area , throughout all the Sulu Islands, and along the coasts of eastern Borneo.

Peoples with close linguistic relationships to the Sama are found in enclaves throughout Indonesia, around Borneo, and even on the eastern coast of the Malay Peninsula, thereby making the language family the most widespread in Southeast Asia Pallesen Historically, however, the greatest concentration of Sama-speakers has been in Sulu, especially the islands of Tawi-Tawi and Sibutu and on the nearby shores of eastern Borneo.

Although sharing certain cultural features as a group, the Sama are much more heterogeneous than the Tausug. Members range from nomadic boat-dwellers who still follow their indigenous religious beliefs to devout Muslim farmers and Christian fishermen. Within the Sulu Islands, this settlement pattern of Tausug concentration in the northcentral and Sama concentration in the south has persisted throughout written history, as has the Tausug political domination of most of Sulu.

The Spanish and American colonial periods succeeded in weakening Tausug suzerainty, but never fully destroyed it. Within the past decade, however, the settlement patterns in southern Sulu, now called Tawi-Tawi Province, have been drastically altered. Five phenomena can be isolated as responsible for this alteration. They are: 1 the development of the bakan industry by immigrant Tausug on the northwest coast of Tawi-Tawi Island; 2 the introduction of the agalagar aquaculture on the great reefs of Tawi- Tawi and Sibutu; 3 the destruction of the city of Jolo in ; 4 the separatist movement and accompanying warfare in the Tawi-Tawi area; and 5 the creation of Tawi-Tawi as a separate province with its capital in Bon- gao in Small settlements of Tausug have long existed in Tawi-Tawi.

Some of these represented transient groups who came to the area for a few months or several years to fish or farm, and then eventually returned to Jolo or Siasi.

Others were families who had been in Tawi-Tawi for several generations with no intentions of ever returning to Jolo or Siasi. Their numbers, however, were insignificant compared to the overwhelming majority of Sama speakers in the area. The earliest significant movement of Tausug into Tawi-Tawi during the period under consideration began in early At that time several Tausug families from Jolo moved to the central area of the northwest coast.

No Sama settlements of any significance existed along the coast previously and consequently few Sama people were displaced. The lands beyond the mangrove swamps had never been farmed, but before long Tausug moved into the forests and carved out farmsteads. Thus, an area of Tawi-Tawi which was formerly virtually uninhabited acquired a Tausug population. The motivations for moving into the area are not clear, but probably lack of economic opportunities at home was the prime mover.

At about the same time, the commercial cultivation of agalagar was introduced to Sulu. Varieties of this sea plant are indigenous to the reefs of Sulu, and for some years before the commercial cultivation, they were collected from the reefs and sold to Western and Japanese outlets. A research team from the University of Hawaii introduced the aquaculture, first to the Siasi area, and then to the Sibutu and eastern Tawi-Tawi reefs.

For local political reasons, the new crop was not initially successful within the Siasi area, but within a very short time, it became enormously successful in Tawi-Tawi, and especially, Sibutu. Most of the initial cultivation was in the hands of the various Sama groups who lived near the reefs where it thrived. The success of their plots and the considerable economic rewards for a relatively small amount of work attracted outsiders to the area - especially Tausug from Jolo or Siasi.

Meanwhile, the heightening warfare on Jolo between Muslim separatists and the Philippine militia was forcing some Tausug families to look for more peaceful dwelling places.

Consequently, within a matter of months of the successful introduction of agala- gar cultivation, hundreds of Tausug moved into the reefs and villages of eastern Tawi-Tawi and Sibutu, especially the Sitangkai area. As more people moved to the reefs, competition for growing plots increased with accompanying quarrels and occasional killings. Before long the aggressive Tausug had displaced many of the Sama cultivators, and what began as an industry dominated by Sama became an industry dominated by Tausug.

Formerly small, Sama fishing villages, became sizeable towns dominated by Tausug as well as outside Sama. For example, Tungbangkao was a small fishing village of about people in the mid's, comprised primarily of boat-dwelling Sama. By the summer of , it was a community of two to three thousand people, at least half of which were Tausug. The boat- dwelling Sama had almost totally left the area. Similar movements to Sitangkai, chief town in the Sibutu area, changed that population from mostly Sama-speakers in to approximately 15, mostly Tausug in Other factors were operative in bringing about these movements of people to southern Sulu, and especially to the towns of Bongao and Sitangkai.

The secessionist movement among Muslim groups of the southern Philippines reached one of its most pitched battles in Jolo in But in February of , a devastating battle stemming from a separatist attempt to capture Jolo city resulted in the partial destruction of the city by the Philippine militia. Thousands of people left Jolo at this time, many going to Zamboanga and many to Bongao and Sitangkai.

The continuing conflict on Jolo in subsequent years caused even more people to abandon the area for the south. Precise figures are not available for the actual numbers who moved from Jolo to the south during this period, but they had to be in the many thousands to account for the rapid growth of Tawi-Tawi communities, especially Bongao and Sitangkai. The conflict within the Tawi-Tawi area is a significant factor contribu-. The separatist movement was certainly not limited to Jolo, although the greatest fighting within Sulu occured there.

Sporadic fighting in Tawi- Tawi between the Philippine militia and Muslim separatists during the 's resulted in movements of people, largely Sama, from the outer, more remote settlements to Bongao, and to some extent, Sitangkai, where Philippine militia provided a degree of security. Others uprooted by the conflict chose to leave the Philippines entirely for eastern Borneo, especially Sabah, where large numbers of Sama people from the Tawi-Tawi and Sibutu area are currently residing.

A final factor contributing to recent movements within Sulu was the creation of Tawi-Tawi as a separate province with its capital in Bongao.

One of the chief reasons for establishing Tawi-Tawi Province was to provide the Sama majority of the area an opportunity to govern themselves rather than live under an administration that was primarily Tausug residing in Jolo. Ironically, since the creation of the new province in , the area has been inundated by Tausug from Siasi and Jolo.