Tag: Ifugao Rice Terraces

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ICOMOS Ph co-hosting Preserving Legacies: A Future for our Past & Climate Risk

Preserving Legacies is a global initiative supported by the National Geographic Society and funded by Manulife to address climate change. Climate change is the fastest growing threat to cultural – natural sites and the greatest danger to our planet’s most spectacular natural heritage today. One in three natural sites and one in six cultural heritage sites are threatened by climate change impacts like floods, droughts, and rising seas.

To safeguard cultural heritage, there is an urgent need to equip communities worldwide with the tools to accurately anticipate worsening and future climate impacts, and empower them with training to turn that scientific knowledge into action that will safeguard sites, support community adaptation, and plan for unavoidable loss and damage.

For the Preserving Legacies project, about eight sites globally are cadet sites; they have been chosen to fully engage in climate heritage training and a peer-to-peer learning experience. Site custodians from these sites will shadow the full process of pilot sites located at Jordan and the Philippines, including attending their workshops, to better prepare for their own assessments in 2024.

Two primary sites will go through a more robust program to link climate science and site conservation by enabling access to locally downscaled climate change models and organize a community-led workshop of the sites’ climate vulnerability as well as impacts on local communities. Petra, Jordan and the Ifugao Rice Terraces of the Philippines are the beneficiaries of the first program. 

The Preserving Legacies leg for the Climate Risk and Resilience at the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras conference was from October 11 and concluded October 13. Participants celebrated with the Kiangan rice harvest with eating, rituals, chants, and dancing, a site visit to the Nagacadan cluster of the Rice Terraces of the Cordilleras, presentations of the sites by farmers and local officials, lectures by Marlon Martin of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement (SITMo), a climate lecture by Dr. Ma Laurice Jamero, leader of the Resilience Collaboratory from the Manila Observatory, and roundtable discussions of the topics that were presented. 

With the knowledge base of both the international site custodians and local Ifugao community, the conference has put forth comparative analyses of climate change around the world, presented suggestions for increased adaptation capacities and mitigation strategies, and  recommendations for ways forwards for an environment that is sustainable and resilient.

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ICOMOS Webinar Series Episode 2: When Communities Engage – Tools for Community Participation in Heritage

This webinar discusses community engagement that is applicable to built heritage and landscapes, using perhaps the most abstract form of heritage that seems most removed from our lives – archaeology. 

To communities, the site is invisible until digging begins, and relics unearthed are from so long ago that few can relate to it. Explore these archaeologists’ stories in their journeys to empower local communities to own their archaeological heritage. Work includes public consultations, community discussions, collaborative research and interpretation, and on-ground educational activities as methods that lead to better public learning and heritage protection. 

ICOMOS Webinar Series Episode 2: When Communities Engage – Tools for Community Participation in Heritage
7 July 2020 (Tuesday) | 10AM Philippine Standard Time

The webinar will focus on providing answers to two main questions:  

  • How does archaeology improve the lives of communities that live in and around these precious cultural sites?  
  • What are the tools and approaches in archaeology that are used for learning and public engagement and are these tools still valid given the pandemic?   

SPEAKERS

Dr. Stephen Acabado is an ICOMOS Philippines member and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His archaeological investigations in Ifugao, Northern Philippines dispute the commonly held theory that the Cordillera Rice Terraces are at least 2,000 years old. Dr. Acabado directs the Bicol and Ifugao Archaeological Projects and co-directs the Taiwan Indigenous Landscape and History Project at UCLA. He is a strong advocate of an engaged archaeology where descendant communities are involved in the research process.

Mr. Marlon Martin was born and raised among the Ifugao community. He heads SITMo, the Save Ifugao Terraces Movement,  non-profit heritage conservation organization. He works with local and international academic and conservation organizations   in the pursuit of indigenous studies integration and inclusion in the formal school curricula. Along with Acabado, he established the first community-led Ifugao Indigenous Peoples Education Center, the first in the region. 

Dr. Rasmi Shoocongdej  is a Professor of Archaeology and a director of the graduate program at the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, and with an MA-Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan. Rasmi’s areas of interest include  the collaborative approach between archaeology and ethnic communities, archaeological heritage management, World War II archaeology and decolonizing archaeology.  She has been working intensively on public outreach to the general public and academic communities  on cultural heritages and the role of archaeology in contemporary society.

REACTORS

There will also be 2 reactors who will be providing their perspectives on the topic:

  • Malaya Ragragio, faculty member of the Department of Social Sciences at the University of the Philippines, Mindanao  
  • Angelus Maria Sales, Core Operations Head – External from TAO-Pilipinas, Inc.

MODERATOR

Ms. Kate Lim is an ICOMOS Philippines member who is a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Geographical Sciences, Freie Universitat Berlin. She is also an archaeologist and a development worker who sits as a board member in the Artists’ Welfare Project, Inc., Kapisanan ng mga Arkeologist sa Pilipinas, and Tuklas Pilipinas Society. Her current research involves risk assessment and conservation of maritime and underwater heritage sites in the Philippines given various human activities and coastal hazards. 

DETAILS

The webinar, “When Communities Engage – Tools for Community Participation in Heritage”, is scheduled this Tuesday, July 7, 2020 – 10 am (Philippine Standard Time).  

This forms part of the project, “Heritage Practice amidst the Pandemic“, which is a series of online discussions that delves with opportunities to explore new ideas for the Philippine heritage practice.

ICOMOS Philippines would like to thank ICOMOS Thailand, Tuklas Pilipinas, Tao Pilipinas Inc., University of the Philippines Archaeological Studies Program, and Intramuros Administration for co-organizing the event with us.

Please register to the event here: forms.gle/G75UaVWSdbrzZvDy7

The webinar will be streamed on Facebook Live where the speakers will be able to get your questions and respond: www.facebook.com/icomosph

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Twinning program between Ifugao Rice Terraces and Cinque Terre bared

A twinning program between the Ifugao Rice Terraces and Cinque Terre, both UNESCO World Heritage Sites, has been initiated beginning with a study tour of Cinque Terre this coming May 11 to 20, 2009. UNACOM Secretary General Ambassador Preciosa Soliven, Governor Teodoro Baguilat, Jr. of Ifugao, Mayor Pablo M. Cuyahon of Hungduan, Ifugao and Archt. Joy Mananghaya of ICOMOS Philippines will join this study tour. The objective of the visit is to learn from the management and conservation approaches of this Italian cultural landscape, with the aim of applying some of their best practices to our own Ifugao Rice Terraces. Cinque Terre is a living cultural terraced landscape with vineyards and olives. It faces the same conservation and management challenges that our the rice terraces are facing.

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Protecting endangered traditional landscapes

International heritage luminaries are meeting in the Philippines for the first time from 2-8 December 2007. They are members of ICOMOS (International Council of Monuments and Sites), the official international organization of architects, landscape architects, urban planners, archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, tourism professionals, lawyers, and other professionals involved in the heritage conservation profession who are recognized as international leaders in the field.

Headquartered in Paris, ICOMOS is the international organization that regulates the worldwide conservation profession and is the only NGO accredited to advise the UNESCO World Heritage Committee on cultural heritage matters. Its Philippine members are prominently involved in conservation projects for the government or private sectors and are also members of the academe.

On 2-8 December the ICOMOS National Committee Philippines hosts the 2007 meeting of the ICOMOS International Committee on Vernacular Architecture (CIAV), to be held at the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Respected heritage specialists from Italy, Finland, France, Germany, Macedonia, United States, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Japan and Korea are joining their Philippine counterparts to meet on “Protecting Endangered Traditional Landscapes”, focusing on the current status of the 5 terrace clusters located in Ifugao province inscribed in the World Heritage in Danger List. The “In Danger” designation simply means that conservation measures for a site on the World Heritage List must be stepped up to prevent its rapid deterioration.

The experts will discuss conservation and the socio-economic issues that can support heritage conservation in countries like the Philippines. On the meeting agenda are:

a) The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras, a UNESCO-inscribed World Heritage Site, is endangered today because of physical deterioration but more importantly, the resident population who has always maintained the site is having difficulty bridging the task of preserving their heritage with 21st century lifestyle. Case studies will be presented showing steps taken by other international sites with similar issues.

(b) In countries like the Philippines preserving heritage is really a lost cause unless preservation becomes more relevant to its host communities through tying preservation in with development and income generation. Therefore methods have to be found to use heritage as a resource for income generation i.e through community tourism programs, craft development, or harnessing natural resources for sustainable development such as mini-hydroelectric plants, etc.

At this moment, physical repair of the terraces is necessary. However restoring the terraces and their walls must come together with establishment of cultural and economic opportunities that make terrace life more viable for the 21st century. Among the positive measures suggested by UNESCO, is the establishment of additional income-generating opportunities such as community-based cultural and eco tourism programs.

Therefore the meeting’s sub-theme is identifying methods to use the underutilized rice terraces heritage as a resource to increase present income levels. One program is the establishment of community-based tourism.

Conserving heritage has little relevance to most site residents who live from day to day in survival mode. Therefore ICOMOS aims to make them aware that among the values of heritage is its use (not exploitation) as a sustainable cultural and eco tourism resource. Therefore heritage must be preserved as a livelihood opportunity and also to provide community identity.

Successful community-based heritage projects in the Philippines will be presented such as the Freedom Trail that unites seaside towns in south Cebu province in a trail of conserved heritage and community-led tourism sponsored by the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, the heritage tourism project by the Bohol community, Taal heritage program, and the Save Ifugao Terraces Movement (SITMO) community development programs in Ifugao province. These success stories prove that the Filipino, contrary to popular opinion, has actually done well in conserving his heritage. The Philippine presentations will show that good community-oriented conservation work is being done in the country, proving that our heritage is not going down the drain like everyone else thinks.

Training of Philippine conservation practitioners is another objective of the meeting. Since conservation courses are not offered in Philippine universities, the presence of foreign colleagues is a rare opportunity for ICOMOS Philippine Committee members and other heritage professionals to widen their personal international networks and to upgrade professional. Most of the Philippine participants will be from the youth sector.

Institutions supporting the ICOMOS endeavor are the US Ambassadors’ Fund for Cultural Preservation, e8/TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), Fundación Santiago, Ayala Foundation, Ramón Aboitiz Foundation, Department of Tourism, and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).