The woman fighting to save the Philippines’ last rainforests

Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.

CNN —

Palawan, a cluster of islands in the Philippines, is breathtakingly beautiful. Home to underground rivers, turquoise coastlines and lush mountain peaks, it has earned the nameof the country’s “last ecological frontier.”

The paradise archipelago has not gone unrecognized. The entire area of Palawan, covering more than 1,700 islands, has been designated a biosphere reserve by UNESCO, and it also hosts two world heritage sites, the Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park and Tubbataha Reefs.

But despite these designations, threats still remain from mining, theillegal wildlife trade, climate change and deforestation. According to Global Forest Watch, Palawan had the most tree cover loss in the country between 2001 and 2023.

Conservationist Karina May Reyes, who refers to herself as KM for short, is on a mission to protect the archipelago, alongside a small team of people that form the nonprofit Centre for Sustainability PH (CS).

“Palawan is super special because from ridge to reef, you have pristine landscapes – mountains that still retain old growth canopy cover all the way to coral reefs that still have incredible biodiversity, whether you’re after manta rays or whale sharks or tiger sharks or turtles,” she tells CNN.

KM Reyes leads a grassroots conservation effort on the island of Palawan.

Rainforests once covered around 90% of the Philippines, she explains,but now less than 3% of intact old