The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras

In the mountains of northern Luzon, in the Philippines, steep hillsides have been shaped into thousands of narrow, flat steps. These are the rice terraces of the Ifugao people. Some of them lie more than 1,500 meters above sea level, and in 1995 they were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The terraces are watered by an irrigation system that depends on the forests above them. Rainwater collected by these forests is guided downhill through a network of channels and bamboo pipes, flowing from one terrace to the next. For this reason, the Ifugao have traditionally protected the forests, since cutting them down would also destroy their water supply.

For many years, it was widely believed that the terraces were about two thousand years old. Recent research, however, has challenged this view. Using radiocarbon dating, archaeologists found that many of the terraces were probably built only about four hundred years ago, around the time Spanish colonizers arrived in the region. Some researchers propose that people moved into the mountains to escape Spanish control and built the terraces to grow food in their new home.