Pasonanca Natural Park

Pasonanca Natural Park
IUCN category II (national park)
Location in the Philippines
Location	Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines
Nearest city	Zamboanga City
Coordinates	7°4′15.96″N 122°4′31.8″E / 7.0711000°N 122.075500°E / 7.0711000; 122.075500
Area	12,107 hectares (29,920 acres)
Established	December 17, 1987 (Watershed forest reserve) July 5, 1999 (Natural park)
Governing body	Department of Environment and Natural Resources

The Pasonanca Natural Park is a protected area that preserves a major watershed in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao in the Zamboanga Peninsula. It contains the headwaters of the Tumaga River in the southern Zamboanga Cordillera mountain range that serves the water requirements of some 800,000 residents in Zamboanga City. It was named after the village of Pasonanca located in the city's northern fringes where the Pasonanca Park, a public eco-park, and the Abong-Abong Park, a pilgrimage site, can also be found.

The natural park is managed as part of the Philippines' National Integrated Protected Areas System. It was initially established in 1987 as the Pasonanca Watershed Forest Reserve encompassing an initial area of 10,560 hectares (26,100 acres) declared through Proclamation No. 199 issued by President Corazon Aquino.^[1] In 1999, through Proclamation No. 132 issued by President Joseph Estrada, the park was enlarged and reclassified as a natural park.^[2] It has the largest remaining block of old growth lowland dipterocarp forest in Zamboanga.^[3]

On May 13, 2024, Secretary Toni Yulo-Loyzaga and Mayor John M. Dalipe led the inauguration ceremony of the Pasonanca Natural Park as the 52nd of ASEAN Heritage Parks in Sitio Canucutan, District I, Barangay Pasonanca, Zamboanga City. The park is the first old-growth dipterocarp forest in the Zamboanga Peninsula. The ASEAN Center for Biodiversity, DENRA unveiled the Park's pyramid-Philippine eagle monument, since it is the national bird's-Mindanao bleeding-heart habitat and Refugia^[4][5]