Ifugao Province in the Cordillera mountainous range of the Philippines is famous for its unique and steeply contoured rice terraces, cultivated below the Muyong forests, that has been a major tourist attraction in the northern Philippines. Apart from tourism, the Muyong provides numerous ecosystem services including water supply, firewood, soil erosion prevention, food, medicinal value, biodiversity conservation, and cultural values and knowledge. The inhabitants of Ifugao have developed a globally recognized forest management strategy, the Muyong system, that is intimately linked to the culture and livelihoods of the Ifugao people. Due to this deep connection of rice terraces with indigenous culture and mountain ecology, the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.
Nearly 15% of the world's population call mountain ecosystems their home. Although they cover around 27% of the earth’s land surface, mountains host about half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. The FAO estimates that mountain ecosystems provide fresh water for everyday life for more than half of humanity, about four billion people. Other ecosystem services provided by mountains include food, medicine, climate and air quality regulation, soil protection, hydropower generation, agriculture, rangeland production and forestry.
Most of the world’s mountain chains, from the Andes in South America to the Pamir mountains in Afghanistan and Tajikistan are home to indigenous peoples and local communities, whose livelihood strategies, food systems and cultural identities are intimately connected to the mountain environments in which they live (The Mountain Partnership and FAO, 2015). Yet the contributions of indigenous and local mountain communities in the conservation of mountain ecosystems are often trivialized and sometimes misunderstood. In commemoration of the International Mountain Day celebrated every 11th December, we honour and celebrate the environmental stewardship of many mountain communities.
As is the case in Ifugao, many indigenous and local mountain communities have developed effective strategies based on their knowledge to sustainably conserve mountain ecosystems. For instance, the Andean communities in Parque de la Papa (Potato Park), a biocultural territory in the highest mountains of Peru, developed a complex concept, Sumaq Causay, a holistic vision of living in harmony with nature in which to satisfy their needs, people should work together with Mother Earth, based on the idea of Avni (reciprocity). The Parque de la Papa, known for having the highest diversity of potatoes in the world, is dedicated to the conservation of indigenous and local communities’ heritage and their deep traditional knowledge on food systems. As Yolanda Lopez noted, the communities are proud of their Ayllu system, a network of extended families, which is a typical traditional form of community in the Andes. The Ayllu system is a mirror of their interconnected way of living with their natural surroundings, where the mountains or Apus, in the Andean cosmovision, are considered authorities and scientific partners.
Over 7,000 miles east of Peru, Mount Mulanje in Malawi holds high cultural significance for its people. According to UNESCO, ancestral spirits are believed to reside in the Mountain. These spiritual sites are now used as shrines for traditional rites such as praying for rain. It is also widely believed that if one gets hungry while in the mountain forests, spirits will always provide food, under certain unknown conditionalities.
Many indigenous and local mountain communities are critical stakeholders to ensure healthy mountain ecosystems. However, many of them face numerous challenges including fire, encroachment, deforestation, land use change, mining, loss of indigenous and local knowledge, and human rights violation including forceful eviction.
Sustainable mountain tourism, this year’s theme for International Mountain Day, can support the conservation of mountain ecosystems services and empower mountain communities by providing alternative livelihoods. It can also help raise awareness, better understand and appreciate indigenous and local mountain communities’ cultures, knowledge, and worldviews. Mountain destinations account for around 15-20% of global tourism. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has strongly impacted the tourism industry, visits to open spaces and nature destinations have increased providing a new opportunity to promote more sustainable and low impact tourism that can help conserve mountain biodiversity and protect its spiritual heritage and cultural diversity.
The next time you plan your hiking trip, consider indigenous mountain peoples’ territories; it may be a pleasant, educative and thought-provoking experience.
Article by the BES-NET ILK Support Unit team, UNESCO LINKS
Credits:
• Photograph 2: Potato varieties that are found in the Parque de la Papa area (Yolanda López Maldonado, 2019) • Photograph 1: Indigenous and local communities oversee mobilizing the indigenous knowledge and technologies, based on their own worldviews, philosophies, and practices (Yolanda López Maldonado, 2019) • Photograph 3: Indigenous and local communities, experts on biodiversity conservation (Yolanda López Maldonado, 2019) • Photograph 4: Rodan Rome Tongohan, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons