Dream-Travel

Rice terraces of Banaue

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rice terraces banaue

On the island Luzon in the north of the Philippines there are the famous rice terraces of Banaue. The masterpiece, which is also called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” was created more than 2000 years ago by the tribesmen of the Ifugao, farm people presumably coming from Indonesia. With bare hands and with primitive craft witnesses the case-hardened farmers had to build them like gigantic steps in the precipitous slopes of the up to 1,500-metre-high mountains. Besides, the work was complicated by the partial hard subsoil and the impassable area still, in addition. If one lined up, by the way, the walls of all terraces would reach round half an earth.

Rice terraces

Still today traditional rice kinds are cultivated on the small plots which are optimally adapted to the scenery. With the help of an ingenious irrigation system the plants are supplied with enough water. A net of canals, bamboo canes and ditches leads the water coming from the mountains first in the uppermost terraces. If a level has completely flooded, the excessive water runs by small recesses in the upper edge of the walls a step deeper et cetera. Because in the Ifugao province the highly productive species from the genetic labs have not asserted themselves yet, is harvested only once a year - from two to three harvests per year would be possible usually easily.

Banaue

In 1995 the UNESCO has appointed the rice terraces to the world cultural heritage. So belong to it beside the terraces of Banaue also of Batad, Mayoyao and Hapao. However, the growing of rice also loses on the Philippines more and more his economic importance and the younger generations of the mountain people have recognised that in the bigger towns more money is to be earned and slowly move away from the Ifugao to villages.

Banaue Terraces

The continuity of the rice terraces is thereby threatened, because the “steps to the sky”, as they are also called with pleasure by the locals, must be maintained every year with relatively high expenditure are managed, and be renewed partially even. The UNESCO committee has already reacted to it and in 13. December, 2001 the rice terraces in the Philippine Cordilleras as a threatened world heritage anew in the “red list” taken up to wake up the attention of the politically people responsible and the public interest in the protection of this world-important cultural heritage site.

Fog

Terraces

rice banaue