For 2,000 years the mountains of Ifugao province in the Philippines have been carefully cultivated with a seemingly endless series of terraced fields that climb thousands of feet.
The Ifugao Rice Terraces, which follow the natural contours of the mountains, only enhance the region’s rugged natural beauty. They also epitomize a harmonic, sustainable relationship between humans and their environment. These fields, and the knowledge to farm and sustain them, have been passed down from generation to generation for centuries.
The structures' original builders used stone and mud walls to carefully carve and construct terraces that could hold flooded pond fields for the cultivation of rice. They also established a system to water these plots by harvesting water from mountaintop forests. These incredible engineering feats were done by hand as was (and is) the farming itself.
The rice terraces have long been central to the survival of the Ifugao peoples but they also occupy a central importance within their culture. Entire communities cooperate on cyclical, seasonal systems of planting, pest control, and harvest, which are tied to lunar cycles and sometimes accompanied with religious rituals.