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Rice Terraces of The Philippine Cordilleras

The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras are an over 2,000 year old cultural landscape carved into mountainsides by the Ifugao people. Through stone terracing and irrigation systems, the Ifugao developed a sustainable rice farming method passed down generations. Considered an engineering marvel ahead of its time, the terraces follow the mountains' contours and use mud and stone walls to create pond fields for rice cultivation. While historically extensive, UNESCO designated five intact terrace clusters as World Heritage Sites representing the Ifugao's ancient living culture in harmony with nature. However, more than 25% of terraces have been abandoned and the system is vulnerable to social and economic changes.

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170 views2 pages

Rice Terraces of The Philippine Cordilleras

The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras are an over 2,000 year old cultural landscape carved into mountainsides by the Ifugao people. Through stone terracing and irrigation systems, the Ifugao developed a sustainable rice farming method passed down generations. Considered an engineering marvel ahead of its time, the terraces follow the mountains' contours and use mud and stone walls to create pond fields for rice cultivation. While historically extensive, UNESCO designated five intact terrace clusters as World Heritage Sites representing the Ifugao's ancient living culture in harmony with nature. However, more than 25% of terraces have been abandoned and the system is vulnerable to social and economic changes.

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helius5
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

RICE TERRACES OF THE PHILIPPINE CORDILLERAS

The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras is an outstanding example of an evolved, living cultural
landscape that can be traced as far back as two millennia ago in the pre-colonial Philippines. The terraces are
located in the remote areas of the Philippine Cordillera mountain range on the northern island of Luzon,
Philippine archipelago. While the historic terraces cover an extensive area, the inscribed property consists of
five clusters of the most intact and impressive terraces, located in four municipalities. They are all the
product of the Ifugao ethnic group, a minority community that has occupied these mountains for thousands
of years.

The Rice Terraces of Banaue are considered by many to the be the 8th Wonder of the World. The
mountainsides of the area have been carved out to create terraces for rice farming over the last 2,000 years.
The Rice Terraces in the Philippine Cordilleras region was designated a cultural site by UNESCO in 1995. The
site represents over 2,000 years of ancient and cultural living landscape that illustrates how the Ifugaos in
the area has lived in harmony with nature. It also showcases a sustainable agricultural method that has been
passed down from generation to generation.

The five inscribed clusters are;

 The Nagacadan terrace cluster in the municipality of Kiangan, a rice terrace cluster manifested in two
distinct ascending rows of terraces bisected by a river;
 The Hungduan terrace cluster that uniquely emerges into a spider web;
 The central Mayoyao terrace cluster which is characterized by terraces interspersed with traditional
farmers’ bale (houses) and alang (granaries);
 The Bangaan terrace cluster in the municipality of Banaue that backdrops a typical Ifugao traditional
village; and
 The Batad terrace cluster of the municipality of Banaue that is nestled in amphitheatre-like semi-
circular terraces with a village at its base

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CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Features of the Rice Terraces


 The rice terraces in the Philippine Cordillera follow the natural contours of the mountains in the region.
 The original builders of the terraces used mud and stone walls in order to construct these terraces.
 These walls serve to hold the pond fields with which the rice was cultivated in.
 Aside from the construction of the pond fields themselves for planting the rice, the Ifugao natives also
developed an irrigation system that would supply water to these plots of rice.
 The water used for irrigation is sourced from the mountaintop forests. It is an engineering feat for
farming that was way ahead of its time.

Cultural Significance
The rice terraces in the Ifugao region of the Philippines play a vital role in its cultural formation. Hence, they
are considered national cultural treasures. The terraces play a central role in the locals’ survival primarily
because this is their main source of food. However, the season system of planting is also intermingled with
some religious rituals. The act of planting and harvesting is an activity shared by the entire community.

Due to modernization, the site has been placed on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Danger. More
than 25 percent of the terraces have been abandoned and continues to deteriorate. Today, its value is
primarily on tourism and its contribution as a source of rice has been exceeded by that.

Criterion

 The rice terraces are a dramatic testimony to a community's sustainable and primarily communal
system of rice production, based on harvesting water from the forest clad mountain tops and creating
stone terraces and ponds, a system that has survived for two millennia.
 The rice terraces are a memorial to the history and labour of more than a thousand generations of
small-scale farmers who, working together as a community, have created a landscape based on a
delicate and sustainable use of natural resources.
 The rice terraces are an outstanding example of land-use that resulted from a harmonious interaction
between people and its environment which has produced a steep terraced landscape of great aesthetic
beauty, now vulnerable to social and economic changes.

Being a living cultural landscape, evolutionary changes continuously fine-tune and adapt the cultural
response of the terraces’ owners and inhabitants in response to changing climatic, social, political and
economic conditions. However, the fact that the Ifugao community continues to occupy, use and maintain
their ancestral lands in the age-old traditional manner ensures appreciation and awareness of the enduring
value of these traditional practices which continue to sustain them.

Nevertheless the reduction in the workforce and other social and environmental factors, including changes
in management of the watershed forests, makes this traditional system and thus the overall balance highly
vulnerable and requires sustained management and conservation.

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