Palosapis
Also known as: Mersawa (regional trade name for Anisoptera timber)
Definition
Palosapis is the Philippine timber name for Anisoptera thurifera, a large tree of the dipterocarp family Dipterocarpaceae native to the Philippines as well as parts of eastern Indonesia and New Guinea. One of the lowland rainforest giants grouped under the lauan trade category, it is assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as vulnerable to extinction.
Identities (Wikipedia/Wikidata/DBpedia)
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisoptera_thurifera
- Wikidata: Q15472212
- DBpedia: N/A
Also Known As
- Mersawa (regional trade name for Anisoptera timber)
Examples and Analogies
Palosapis plays in Philippine lowland forests the ecological role that apitong plays elsewhere in the family: a towering emergent whose winged fruits helicopter down from above the canopy, and whose straight, light trunk became a mainstay of the plywood and lumber trade.
Usage Scenarios
The wood is used in plywood, veneer, interior joinery, and light construction, and the species appears in reforestation research as a native dipterocarp for restoring logged lowland sites where its timber value can help justify conservation.
Strategies
Sustainable-use efforts include plantation trials of native dipterocarps, seed orchards that capture the species’ irregular mast fruiting, and reduced-impact logging rules intended to leave breeding trees standing in production forests.
Security and Safety Measures
National forest regulations require permits for timber harvest, and the species’ vulnerable status argues for conserving seed trees within logging concessions so regeneration follows harvest rather than permanent conversion to farmland.
Historical Context
Dipterocarps like palosapis built the twentieth-century Philippine plywood industry, whose log exports made the country a leading tropical timber supplier before overharvesting and the logging bans of the 1990s restructured the industry and left many mills closed.
Challenges and Controversies
Illegal logging, conversion of lowland forest to plantations and settlements, and the difficulty of regenerating dipterocarps outside sheltered forest conditions keep the species declining across much of its range despite formal protection of remaining old-growth stands.
Related Topic
Apitong