Jumping frog? A hungry predator with a gaping mouth? Even though this image appears to be an animal, it is actually a geographical formation.

This is a satellite image of the Tawitawi archipelago, which lies off the southernmost tip of the Philippine islands chain.

It is the country’s major location for the extraction of the seaweed product agar-agar due to its sheltered bays.

The Tawi-Tawi Province is more than a thousand kilometers southwest of the Philippine capital Manila and forms the southernmost tip of this country, which is spread over more than 7,000 islands. The name of the Tawi-Tawi archipelago, which lies on the border with Malaysia, is said to be derived from a Malay word for “distant” and therefore comes from the fact that the first settlers of these islands felt they were far away from the Asian mainland.

South Sea idyll with brown spots

This image from the Landsat 8 satellite shows the unusual shape of the Tawi-Tawi archipelago: its main island and many smaller islets form a shape resembling an animal leaping, mouth wide open when viewed from above. Especially in the south and east, the coasts of the archipelago are characterized by flat, sheltered bays. The shallow waters of these areas appear bright turquoise in this image.

In some parts of the archipelago, however, strikingly light brown areas can also be seen – especially on the northern edge of the main island and on Tumbagaan Island to the north. 

For the purpose of extracting raw minerals, woods and vegetation had to be razed. For this reason, open-pit mining of nickel ore is common in these places.

Algae cultivation for agar-agar

One of the most important sources of income for the residents of Tawi-Tawi lies in these protected coastal zones: algae farming. The region is considered the seaweed capital of the Philippines. In the bays of the archipelago, there are many aqua farms, in which various red algae are mainly cultivated. The coveted agar-agar can be obtained from their cell walls – a vegetable gelling agent that is contained in many culture media for cell research and microbiology. Agar-agar is also used in food – as a vegan substitute for gelatine.

“In Tawi-Tawi, seaweed farming is more than just a form of livelihood,” explains Philippine marine biologist Richard Dumilag. 

It also defines the structure and coherence of the families who, in many cases, live right next to their algae fields in the middle of the sea. Fishing is another key source of revenue for the islanders, in addition to algae farming. These islands’ waters are regarded as the best in the region for catching fish.

Source: NASA Earth Observatory

Image Credit: Getty

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