The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras are authentic in form, character, and function as a direct result of the 2000 year-old and continuously maintained regime that balances climatic, geographical, ecological, agronomic, ethnographic, religious, social, economic, political and other factors. Through ritual practices, chants and symbols which emphasize ecological balance, the Ifugao community has maintained the intactness of the terraces’ traditional management system over this long period of time, ensuring the authenticity of both the original landscape engineering and the traditional wet-rice agriculture. Once this balance is disturbed the whole system begins to collapse, but so long as they all operate together harmoniously, as they have over two millennia, the authenticity is total.