Fires & burning
Slash-and-burn clearing shows up as heat within hours. We catch the thermal signature before the smoke even settles.
NASA VIIRS · ~3h latency
Satellite eyes on the last frontier
The forest can't call for help. So we listen for it.
Palawan Watch reads the same satellites that circle the planet every few hours, and tells you the moment a forest is cleared, a fire is lit, or a hillside is opened up for mining. No noise. Just the signal that someone needs to know.
Only emails when something real happens. Unsubscribe anytime.
Palawan · 9.5°N 118.5°E
What we watch for
Three quiet threats, caught from space.
We don't process raw imagery or guess. We listen to the global alert systems that already scan Palawan on every satellite pass, and surface only what matters, for the whole province, from Coron down to Balabac.
Deforestation
Radar sees through the monsoon clouds that blind ordinary cameras for weeks, so a forest cut in the rain still gets noticed.
GFW Integrated · RADD radar
Mining & clearing
Open pits and bare-earth clearings stand out against the canopy. New roads cut into intact forest are often the first sign.
Sentinel-2 · 10m optical
Real satellites, right now
What the orbit is seeing over Palawan
Loading detections…
Active fire
Forest loss
Bare-earth / mining
Flooding
Every dot is a real detection from NASA and Global Forest Watch — an actual satellite pass over the whole province. When the map is quiet, there were no new detections in the latest window. Toggle the NASA fire layer to see the raw thermal data the way the satellite records it, or the Flood layer to overlay NASA's daily surface-water detections (optical — heavy typhoon cloud can hide water until the sky clears). This is the same feed that powers your alerts.
Fires across the Philippines
Loading…
The same NASA satellites, read nationally. Recent windows list detections by town and coordinates — read them as a timeline or grouped by place; longer ones summarise, because the archipelago can produce thousands in a day when the burning season peaks.
Loading fire history…
What we're watching
Documented mining & land-cover change sites
These are the major nickel mining, processing, and forest-loss sites Palawan Watch tracks, in Palawan first, and across the wider Philippines. Each is paired with near-real-time fire detections and forest-loss alerts. Sources: operator filings and disclosures, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB MIMAROPA), PCIJ mine profiles, and EJAtlas. Some background figures were initially compiled from Wikipedia and are indicative until confirmed against a primary source.
In Palawan
Rio Tuba Nickel Mine
One of the largest nickel mines in the Philippines (~60 Mt ore). The orange laterite footprint is visible from orbit. Operating since the 1970s; the mined area expanded through the 2010s.
PalawanCoral Bay HPP
Hydrometallurgical processing plant adjacent to Rio Tuba mine; tailings and processing footprint.
PalawanCitinickel Pulot Mine
Part of a ~2,176 ha tenement spanning Narra and Sofronio Española.
PalawanCitinickel Toronto/Narra Mine
Northern portion of the Citinickel tenement; clearing on the Narra side.
PalawanBerong Nickel Mine
~288 ha mining area; MPSA period 2007-2031. Newer expansion secured 2025.
PalawanBrooke's Point (Ipilan)
Nickel operation in Brooke's Point; first shipments in 2025. The Mt. Mantalingahan Protected Landscape lies nearby.
PalawanElsewhere in the Philippines
Taganito Mine
One of the world's largest nickel mines (~70k tonnes Ni in 2023). Open-pit laterite footprint along the Claver coast.
SurigaoCagdianao Mine
~5,220 ha tenement on the Dinagat Islands; >110 Mt resource. Satellite imagery shows substantial cleared, bare-earth land cover across parts of the island group.
DinagatHinatuan (Tagana-an) Mine
Island-scale nickel extraction; satellite imagery shows cleared, bare-earth land cover across much of the small island's interior.
SurigaoMarcventures Mine
Open-pit nickel-laterite operation, ~4,799 ha tenement (MPSA 016-93-XIII). One of the clearest satellite before/after cases in Caraga.
SurigaoPGMC Claver Mine
Nickel-laterite operation, ~4,376 ha. Part of the dense Claver-Carrascal nickel belt along the Caraga coast.
SurigaoDidipio Mine
Gold-copper open-pit + underground mine, OceanaGold's first FTAA under the 1995 Mining Act. The pit and tailings storage sit in the Kasibu highlands.
Nueva VizcayaMarcopper (Mt. Tapian)
Former copper-gold mine, closed since 1996. The 1996 Boac River tailings spill and earlier tailings disposal at Calancan Bay are matters of public record, investigated by Philippine government agencies and extensively reported at the time. This entry summarises that record and adds no findings of its own.
MarinduqueSierra Madre (Kaliwa / lowland clearing)
The forest backbone of Luzon. Clearing for the Kaliwa Dam, logging roads, and lowland conversion is visible along the range's edges. This is forest loss, not mining.
Sierra MadreCagayan Black-Sand Coast
Coastal magnetite (black-sand) extraction across seven northern Cagayan municipalities. Satellite imagery shows shoreline change along this coast; coastal erosion here has several possible causes and is not established by imagery alone.
CagayanZambales Nickel Belt
Cluster of nickel laterite operations on Luzon's west coast. Satellite imagery shows extensive bare-earth land cover across the belt. Concerns about river and coastal siltation in the area have been raised in Philippine news coverage; this entry does not attribute them to any individual operator.
ZambalesTampakan Copper-Gold Project
Large planned copper-gold project (~10,000 ha tenement) in the highlands between four provinces. Environmental assessments have estimated old-growth forest within the project footprint.
South CotabatoNueva Ecija foothills
Western Sierra Madre foothills above the Pantabangan reservoir; quarrying and clearing on the watershed slopes.
Nueva EcijaSite descriptions are observational and drawn from public sources: satellite alerts (Global Forest Watch, NASA FIRMS), the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), operator filings, and reporting by outlets such as PCIJ and EJAtlas. Land-cover changes shown are derived from satellite imagery and are not, by themselves, a statement about the legality or compliance of any operation. Operators and readers who believe anything here is inaccurate are welcome to write to [email protected] and we will review and correct as needed. Each entry links to its public Google Maps listing, where anyone can read what people who have been there say. Those listings and reviews are hosted and moderated by Google, not by us — we neither write nor solicit them.
Protecting a place starts with paying attention to it.Start paying attention
The people protecting Palawan
You're not watching alone.
Across the province, organizations and communities are defending Palawan's forests, seas, and peoples. Here are some of them.