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MANILA - The Cordillera Rice Terraces is now out of the endangered list of world heritage sites, and Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon J. P. Paje wants to keep it that way. Paje, who is also the country’s Commissioner for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), said that the exclusion of the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras in the Unesco List of World Heritage in Danger, was a wake-up call for all Filipinos in caring and preserving not only the natural but also the cultural wonders. While expressing “the DENR’s jubilation along with the rest of the Filipino people” over the reinstatement, he said, however, that this did not mean “that everyone can afford to take it easy.” “The rice terraces are the most amazing representation of the harmonious relationship between our forefathers and nature. We cannot afford to take it easy in managing this 2,000 year old cultural heritage. Instead, we should step up our rehabilitation efforts and improve our conservation practices,” Paje stressed. He added that the reinstatement was just “an initial success in bolstering what has been considered a globally important living cultural landscape,” and proposed conservation measures such as limiting human settlements within the area and exempting it from agrarian reform. The environment chief cited plans by government, particularly the convergence agencies of the DENR, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Agrarian Reform, to offer community-based alternative livelihood to Ifugao farmers. He also mentioned the possible involvement of the Department of Public Works and Highways in improving roads and other infrastructure to help boost tourism in the area. The DENR has turned over P5 million as its initial assistance to the Ifugao provincial government for restorative activities that would be undertaken until the end 2012. These include repair and rehabilitation of damaged terrace walls, irrigation canals and other facilities. The rice terraces had been in the endangered list since 1995 due to its deteriorating landscape, attributed mainly to “a dying culture of traditional practices.” Restoration efforts also suffered a setback when typhoon Juaning hit the terraces in July 2011 and caused the collapse of a chunk off the Batad portion of the terraces. Paje and the Unesco National Commission of the Philippines (Natcom), led by its Secretary-General Virginia Miralao, led the expression of thanks to the World Heritage Committees and all those who worked and mobilized others to restore the terraces as well as documented and rehabilitated major irrigation systems in the site. Paje said that Miralao had kept him abreast of the terraces’ reinstatement into the list immediately after a Unesco session in St. Petersburg, Russia on June 26, 2012.
The Natcom has been responsible in harmonizing the work of the DENR, the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (Namria), the Department of Agriculture, and the National Commission for Culture and Arts in conserving the terraces, the DENR chief said.
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