Description

Described as a living cultural landscape, the Ifugao Rice Terraces (IRT) successfully harmonizes the physical, socio cultural, economic, religious, political and environmental aspects of the Ifugao Province. However, factors such as soil erosion, poor maintenance, and out-migration of young Ifugaos contribute to the degrading condition of the landscape. To address these concerns of the IRT, the UP Open University, in partnership with Kanazawa University, Ifugao State University, Local Government of Ifugao implemented the Youth Capacity Building and Exchange Program toward Sustainable Development and Conservation of Ifugao Rice Terraces (#Y4IRT). The project aimed to link rural and urban youths and capacitate them towards sustainable development and IRT conservation. Building on the success of the project, the Contextualization of the Instructional Materials for the Training of Youths Toward Conservation of Ifugao Rice Terraces as a Satoyama Landscape was implemented with another collaborator -- UP Los Banos. Through this project, the 5 books produced on the IRT landscape through the #Y4IRT were translated into local Ifugao dialects -- Ifugao-Ayangan and Ifugao-Tuwali. The project recognized the unique cultural context of Ifugao as an indigenous community which necessitates the development of resources and materials that are contextualized to the local culture in order to maximize their effectiveness.