Banaue Rice Terraces, Tops National Geographic Blog Survey As Favorite World Heritage Site

Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras

Netizens pick Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras as one of the top World Heritage sites. Voting was done via Twitter, Facebook and the blog.

The details and other top heritage sites here.

For 2,000 years the mountains of Ifugao province in the Philippines have been carefully cultivated with a seemingly endless series of terraced fields that climb thousands of feet.

The Ifugao Rice Terraces, which follow the natural contours of the mountains, only enhance the region’s rugged natural beauty. They also epitomize a harmonic, sustainable relationship between humans and their environment. These fields, and the knowledge to farm and sustain them, have been passed down from generation to generation for centuries.

The structures’ original builders used stone and mud walls to carefully carve and construct terraces that could hold flooded pond fields for the cultivation of rice. They also established a system to water these plots by harvesting water from mountaintop forests. These incredible engineering feats were done by hand as was (and is) the farming itself.

The rice terraces have long been central to the survival of the Ifugao peoples but they also occupy a central importance within their culture. Entire communities cooperate on cyclical, seasonal systems of planting, pest control, and harvest, which are tied to lunar cycles and sometimes accompanied with religious rituals.

But the world is changing and this region is not immune. Increasing numbers of young people are migrating toward urban areas in search of a far different future. With few left to work the fields according to the old ways their future is uncertain. Some 25 to 30 percent of the terraces are abandoned and beginning to deteriorate, along with irrigation systems.

Due to these threats the site was placed on the list of World Heritage in Danger in 2001 and it remains there today. Sustainable tourism may offer hope for conservation. In fact, the region’s value to the nation as a tourist destination likely exceeds that of its rice production. via

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