The Upper Agno River Basin Resource Reserve is a protected area located on the southeast flank of the Cordillera Central in the Philippine province of Benguet along its border with Ifugao and Nueva Vizcaya.
[1] The reserve comprises 77,561 hectares (191,660 acres) of the catchment area that feeds the Ambuklao and Binga dams, two of the country's oldest hydroelectric plants that supply power to the city of Baguio and entire Benguet province.
[3][4] The area of the Upper Agno river basin first achieved official park protection on February 16, 1929, when Governor-General Henry L. Stimson signed Proclamation No.
[5][6] Through an amendment to the law made in 1932 by Governor-General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the reserve lost 1,026.8931 hectares (2,537.508 acres) of fragmented lands to mining concessions.
The majority of the reserve is in Benguet shared by the municipalities of Atok, Bokod, Buguias, Itogon, Kabayan, Kibungan, La Trinidad and Tublay.
It is the oldest hydropower dam in the country built in 1956 with a reservoir capacity of 329,000,000 cubic metres (1.16×1010 cu ft) that supplied 75 megawatts (increased to 105 MW when it was rehabilitated in 2011) to the Luzon grid.
[14] Located 19 km (12 mi) downstream of Ambuklao at the southern edge of the reserve is the Binga Dam and reservoir built in 1960 that has a capacity of 87,000,000 cubic metres (3.1×109 cu ft) and maximum output of 100 megawatts.
The most dominant vegetation in the lower montane forests are the Benguet pine (Pinus kesiya), evergreen shrubs (Gaultheria borneensis) and makole flowering plants (Coprosma granadensis).
Above the upper montane forests that cover the summits of the highest peaks are grasslands dominated by dwarf bamboo (Yushania niitikayamensis) as well as heathgrass (Danthonia oreoboloides), reedgrass (Deyeuxia suizanensis), Pulag St. Johnswort (Hypericum pulogense) and (Trichophorum subcapitatum).
[18] A new species of endemic orchids, Dendrochilum ignisiflorum, has also been documented in the mossy forest around the summit of the 2,300-metre (7,500 ft) high Mount Komkompol in Bokod in 2020.