The Northwestern University Ecotourism Park and Botanic Gardens (NUEBG) is a place where one can experience nature’s beauty and splendor, coupled with Ilocano hospitality and ingenuity. Located in Payas, San Nicolas on a 7.8-hectare property, it is a paradise of Philippine indigenous flora and fauna, the first colossal park ever established in Northern Luzon.
Experience nature’s beauty with a touch of Ilocano ingenuity
Opened in 2007, NUEBG was the brainchild of the late Ben A. Nicolas, the president of the university. He “saw in it a rich potential of natural resources that could serve as the center of research and community extension services of the university,” wrote Erlinda Gloria, in her book, Legacy: The people, events, ideas and amazing faith that built Northwestern University. He realized that “the land [could] be developed for the production of agro-forestry crops.” Its establishment was based on a policy of achieving harmony between resource protection and public use.
True to that vision, NUEBG has, throughout the years, been able to cultivate its resources, which has translated into agricultural produce, processed goods, and research products.
Furthermore, it offers recreational activities that are closely linked to natural history and wildlife, such as bird watching, butterfly watching, nature photography, botanical study, mountain biking, hiking, camping and training.
The Ecotourism Park is unique in possessing a wide range of eye-catching natural features. Its broad spectrum of collections includes tropical forest trees, flowering ornamental, dessert-succulent plants, ferns and allies, grasses and its allies, wild flowers, vines, parasitic, carnivorous, epiphytes, cycads and palms, crops and variegated cultivars.
NUEBG Goals
The Living Collections
As a component of the Northwestern University Ecotourism Park, the Botanic Gardens primarily aims to:
Promote scientific research on the collection, identification, propagation, conservation, reintroduction & proper utilization (ethno-botany), of all known species of the kingdom plantae.
Create a broad collection of living plants as gene bank/stocks for horticultural trade, herbarium specimen exchange and botanical scientific cooperation around the world.
Supports global alliance with other Botanic Institutions participating in plant conservation.
Implements an ex situ and in situ conservation program especially for our Philippine flora that are now in the verge of extinction.
Highlights the role of Botanic Gardens in support of environmental awareness and sustainable development, through community extension as a big factor in mitigating climate change.
Establish microenvironments to display the world’s Flora according to their latest system of classification as live specimen for educational as well as recreational purposes.
Touring the gardens may take you an hour of strolling along its caterpillar pathways rolling down the slopes. Cultivars of different families are at their vast vigor. With their spectacular and showy inflorescence against colorful foliage, one can’t help but wonder about their nomenclature, their cultivation and their propagation.
FACILITIES
• Camping Sites
• Open Air Theater
• Guest House
• Conference room & Training center
• Sports Complex
• Shooting range
• Hiking Trail
• Biking Trail
The NUEBG houses the largest collection of living plants in the country. To date, the collection includes 155 families and 98 subfamilies of plants, and over 1500 species.
COMPONENTS AND ECOLOGICAL FEATURES
• Taxonomic Living Plant Collections
• Ben A. Nicolas Collection of Philippines Trees
• Breeding Lines
• Sunken Gardens
• Forest Water Falls
• Mini Japanese Gardens
• Butterfly Gardens and Insect Collection
• Terraced Gardens
• Zoological Gardens
• Experimental Fields
• Sloppy Agricultural Land Technology
• Plant Propagation Center
• Experimental Green House
• Experimental Screen House
• Herbaria and Preserved Specimen Chamber
• Native Plant Conservation Center
• In-situ conservation sites
COMPONENT PROJECTS
• Cultured Mushroom
• BioComposting
• Vermiculture
• Red Clay Processing
• Ceramics
INTEGRATED AGRICULTURE PROJECTS
• Biofarming
• Vegetables and Fruit Tree Production
• Animal Husbandry projects
The Northwestern University Ecotourism Park and Botanic Gardens is an accredited member of the Botanic Gardens Conservation International, the world’s largest plant conservation network, and an independent UK charity with its head office located at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.