China to help on the preservation of rice terraces

by Vency D. Bulayungan

LAGAWE, Ifugao — The Ifugao Culture Heritage Office (ICHO) here will enter into a Memorandum of Undertaking with the China Great Wall Society of China on the World Heritage Protection and Sustainable Development.

Sharon Sarol, outgoing ICHO Officer said that the signing of the MOU will expand mutual understanding and friendly exchanges between people of China and the Philippines.

“The undertaking will establish a cultural exchange program which implementation shall primarily involve the direct participation of the actual stakeholders of the world heritage sites and their immediate partners in sustainable development, including their associations and local government units,” Sarol said.

Geared towards uplifting the economic situation of the heritage owners, Sarol said that exchange of delegations including relevant experts, scholars and leaders of the world heritage sites in the Philippines and China and to share best practices in the protection of each others world heritage sites and promotion of sustainable development will boost tourism in both countries.

Within the framework of the agreement between the National Commission for culture and the Arts (NCCA) of the Philippines and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China, the ICHO has come up with this agreement due to the following concerns raised by heritage owners here as follows; the produce of the farmers is not enough to sustain the daily needs of their families; the heritage owners claim that they do not gain anything from the tourism side of the rice terraces, and they do not want to pass on the responsibility to maintain the rice terraces to their kids because they want them to go to school.

“These are some concerns which the farmers voiced out during our regular meetings with them,” Sarol said.

Sarol disclosed that since the China Great Wall Society, a government institution responsible for the restoration of the Great Wall of China reported that they have the same plight with the Rice terraces here the ICHO and the said institution can come up with strategies on how to save the two wonders of the world while taking into consideration the economic plight of the people maintaining it.

She added that about six kilometers of the Great Wall of China has been destroyed by the people. “According to the China Great Wall Society, the people made used of the bricks in constructing their houses or their pigpens.

“The said MOU will not go contrary with other agreements done at the national level,” Sarol said. The management of the said program will be easier if the heritage site owners are being organized she added.

The heritage sites in the province are the municipalities of Banaue, Hungduan, Kiangan and Mayoyao. (PIA-Ifugao)