No rest seen in campaign to restore, save rice terraces

BAGUIO CITY—Work to repair massive damages on Ifugao’s centuries-old rice terraces is halfway through, due partly to an outpouring of public support after massive landslides triggered by last year’s storms left these relics scarred.

But that’s not the only development warming the hearts of Ifugao farmers.

On Tuesday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) announced that it has removed the terraces from its Endangered Heritage List “following improvements in their conservation.”

Ifugao Rep. Teodoro Baguilat Jr., who helped found the Save the Rice Terraces Movement (SitMo) in 2004, said he was surprised by the Unesco action.

The last review team Unesco sent to Ifugao had seen the poor state of some of the terraces, Baguilat said. “They did not seem convinced last time they were here,” he added.

The World Heritage Committee met in Russia for its 36th assembly from June 24 to July 6. In a June 26 statement that was posted on the Unesco website, the committee said it had removed two sites from the List of World Heritage in Danger following improvements in their conservation: the Fort and Shalamar Gardens in Lahore, Pakistan, and the rice terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras.

The terraces were inscribed in the World Heritage List in 1995, “in recognition of the organically evolved cultural landscape that has been shaped by sacred traditions and the ingenuity of the Ifugao people,” wrote Richard Engelhardt, Unesco regional advisor for culture in Asia and the Pacific, for the 2008 Unesco book, “Impact: Sustainable Tourism and the Preservation of the World Heritage Site of the Ifugao Rice Terraces.”

Enshrined were the terraces in Banaue in the villages of Batad and Bangaan; those of Hungduan in the villages of Hapao, Dakkita, Maggok and Bakung; those of Kiangan in the villages of Nagacadan and Julungan, and those of Mayoyao.

But Engelhardt said the terraces were added to the danger list in 2001 due to damage left by “uncontrolled tourism,” as well as abandonment. “Experts estimate that up to 30 percent of the rice terraces have been abandoned and left to erode,” he said in the book.

In 2011, Baguilat and the Ifugao government launched a local and international campaign to draw volunteers to help restore the terraces, after Typhoons “Pedring” and “Quiel” worsened years of erosion.

The Ifugao Cultural Heritage Office (ICHO) of the provincial government reported that landslides had washed away 102,663 cubic meters of soil from terrace farms that fed people of 13 towns.

Supported by volunteers from various agencies like the Department of Agriculture (DA) and private companies, farmers began restoring the terraces at the start of 2012.

ICHO executive Maribelle Bimohya said the cooperative work has restored half of the damaged terraces in time for this year’s planting season and the government is reviewing how the donations and a P20-million fund released by the DA had been spent.

According to a briefing paper supplied by the DA Cordillera office, the agency committed to restore 7,000 cubic meters of eroded stone walls and rehabilitate 2.5 kilometers of irrigation systems that served 158 terrace paddies in Banaue. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon