The Protected Landscape Approach - Centre for Mediterranean ...

The Protected Landscape Approach: Linking Nature, Culture and Community
with the sound of monsoon rain falling heavily on the iron roofing. Totally unsuited to its
environment and hostile to its natural surroundings, the new house is a symbol of modernity. It
is a shining symbol of progress that everyone wants. It disregards everything traditional. It
shows having crossed over into the 21 st century. The new house is symbolic of the principal
issue at hand of finding a solution to maintaining what still remains relevant of cultural
traditions while moving society towards modernity.
Residents of cultural landscapes and heritage zones deserve to enjoy the full range of 21 st
century benefits. The difficult issue that still goes unanswered is how to find a method to
provide those benefits in a manner that sustains both traditional culture and its distinctive
landscape. The local culture must determine its own path in moving towards the future as
quickly as possible while maintaining one foot firmly in its past, a demanding challenge that
must be handled with extreme care. There are no precedents to follow for this process. Each
culture proceeds at a pace of its own that is determined by the complex issues that each
individual culture must identify and settle.
The experience of two continuing cultural landscapes in the Philippines illustrates the
challenges of balancing tradition and progress, and the importance of keeping local com -
munities engaged in sustaining and protecting their landscapes. This chapter reviews two of the
most outstanding continuing cultural landscapes in the Philippines: the Rice Terraces of the
Philippine Cordilleras and the Batanes Protected Landscape and Seascape. The Rice Terraces
of the Philippine Cordilleras was nominated to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994 and
inscribed in 1995. The Batanes Protected Landscape and Seascape was nominated to the World
Heritage List ten years later in 2004. Comparing the nomination strategies for the two sites
shows the evolution of a more mature approach not only towards the preparation of the site for
World Heritage nomination, but also towards eliciting community involvement in custodian -
ship and site management that is more attuned to local traditions and expectations.
Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras
The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras were inscribed as the first continuing cultural
landscape on the World Heritage List in 1995 with the justification that the site is “an
outstanding example of living cultural landscapes. They (the terraces) illustrate traditional
techniques and a remarkable harmony between humankind and the natural environment.” 1 In
2001 the property was the first cultural landscape to be inscribed on the “World Heritage In
Danger” list, and this has led to renewed efforts to sustain and protect this landscape.
Records show that rice has been cultivated in Asia for 7,000 years. During that long period,
culture and cultivation have interwoven with each other. The rice-growing landscape interlocks
agriculture, environment, and cultural practices that sustain traditional methods of site manage -
ment. Instead of blending into the landscape, rice cultivation sculpts the landscape to suit the
crop’s needs, creating an unmistakable landscape pattern. The paddy landscape is un question -
ably a cultural landscape, the unifying visual and cultural icon that ties Southeast Asian
countries together in the rice culture that they share.
1
UNESCO World Heritage Committee, Report of the 19 th Session of the Committee, Berlin, 1955
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