The west coast of Palawan was still a true frontier in 1980. Small, scattered groups of indigenous Tagbanua had lived in the area
for generations but migrant farmers ('lowland' Christians) from other areas of the Philippines began to settle the west coast in the 1950s.
To support their families they cleared the dense tropical forest that once covered the region for their farms -- here 'slash and burn' fields with coconut orchards close to the coast.

Indigenous groups such as the Tagbanua are slowly disappearing -- through attrition and intermarriage with lowland settlers -- and the Christian migrants originally from Cuyo and the Visayas now dominate Palawan.