Climate change presents new threat to Philippines’ UNESCO rice terraces | Climate Crisis

Ifugao, Philippines – At first mild, the village of Batad begins to stir to life beneath the towering cliffs surrounding its amphitheatre-like rice terraces, a UNESCO World Heritage Website.

Apu Penneng, an Ifugao elder who owns one of many village’s largest tracts of ricefields, struts with youthful confidence alongside a slender and steep path on this highland group 1,100 metres (3,608ft) above sea stage.

Wearing a conventional loincloth, scarf and headgear, he’s heading for the Tanig, an elaborate morning ritual earlier than the harvest begins. At a courtyard subsequent to rows of huts, dozens of village ladies additionally collect for the Bullogan chi Munbotoh, the procession to the harvest website.

Towards the glow of the rising solar, the centuries-old terraces lastly are available full view as if cascading from the sky. The fields of Tinawon rice grains, moist from the drizzle the evening earlier than, glimmer like morsels of gold prepared for choosing.

However the in any other case majestic panorama is punctuated by the sight of collapsed earth and boulders, proper in the midst of the terraces.

In November final yr, Super Typhoon Fung-wong triggered a landslide that killed two locals and demolished one of many centuries-old canals irrigating the rice paddies. About 2.2 hectares (5.4 acres) of rice fields had been broken, affecting 150 farmers.

“It was the worst we’ve seen right here,” Apu Penneng calmly stated, as he pointed to a deforested patch of land above the terraces. From afar, it seemed prefer it had been slashed with a large blade.

The wreckage has been an unwelcome reminder for villagers of the damaging nature of utmost climate circumstances, which have been growing in frequency lately.

Batad was additionally struck with landslides in 2011, 2023 and 2025. With the rising risk of this yr’s Tremendous El Nino, a local weather phenomenon that will increase international temperatures and drives extra excessive climate and rainfall patterns, the Ifugao folks fear about extra harm to return.

Internationally, 80 p.c of UNESCO’s World Heritage Websites are going through climate-induced stress, in keeping with an August 2025 research revealed within the scientific journal Nature.

The research discovered that UNESCO websites in low and middle-income international locations obtain the least conservation help, making them much more weak to harsh weather conditions. It added that in tropical monsoon areas, these circumstances embrace record-breaking heatwaves, prolonged droughts and sudden drenching rainfall – very like what struck Batad in November 2025.

“Local weather change is admittedly aggravating the scenario on the bottom,” stated lawyer Marlon Martin, head of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Motion (SITMO).

For the rice terraces to remain intact and steady, the soil wants to keep up a sure stage of moisture year-round. However due to latest bouts of dry spells, deep cracks have developed, making the terraces liable to erosion, stated Martin.

“When sudden bursts of rain happen, the water would seep into the cracks too abruptly, leading to erosion” and even soil collapse, he added, warning that the Tremendous El Nino may solely imply extra hassle forward.

In response to Steve Baccay, head of Ifugao’s Provincial Agriculture and Surroundings Workplace, an equal of $500,000 is required for the restoration work in Batad following final November’s landslide.

For the reason that catastrophe, Batad residents themselves have come collectively just a few instances to do voluntary communal work referred to as bachang to repair the demolished irrigation canal.

The social welfare and labour departments have additionally prolonged emergency meals and money help to affected farmers. Nevertheless, extra nationwide authorities support is unlikely till the subsequent fiscal yr.

Local weather change is nothing new, and for hundreds of years folks in Ifugao have tailored to the modifications utilizing Indigenous engineering methods to guard the terraces, stated Martin. However for Batad to resist extra frequent and extra excessive climate, nationwide intervention is required, he added.

For Batad village chief Romeo Heppog and his household, the rice terraces usually are not only a supply of their livelihood, however a part of their identification and their lifestyle.

Organising the annual rice harvest pageant is his approach of honouring their ancestors and renewing their “sacred oath” to protect the terraces for the generations to return, he stated.

On the Tanig pre-harvest sacred ritual, Heppog watches carefully alongside Apu Penneng as Apu Purchase-a Nadyug, Batad’s chief Indigenous priest often known as Mumbaki, leads the harvest rituals, together with the pouring and consuming of recent rice wine.

Hunched on the bottom subsequent to a pair of wood Bulul, which embody invisible non secular beings of the Ifugaos, the octogenarian Apu Purchase-a Nadyug recites verses in search of blessings and safety for the harvest.

With the assistance of one other village elder, Apu Penneng then leads the slaughter of chickens as a symbolic providing to Ifugao ancestors and the non secular beings.

In one of many remaining acts of the hour-long sacred ritual, Mumbaki Apu Purchase-a Nadyug then scrutinises the center of the hen, and pronounces one other yr of “bountiful harvest”.

Apu Penneng and Heppog then lead the banging of gongs signifying merriment and the beginning of the joyful harvest.

For a second, the troubles of the villagers of Batad are drowned out by the loud rhythmic sound that has been handed from era to era.

Apu Penneng then proceeds to his ricefield for the harvest.  Amid the uncertainties for his group, his face beams with delight as he gazes on the panoramic view of Batad.

From a distance, the two,702 metres (8,865ft) Mount Amuyao, the nation’s tenth highest peak, towers over Batad, as if guarding it from the threats of nature.

“We’ll get by means of this,” stated Apu Penneng.