News

First stage kickoff of Food and Tourism for Mountain Development program

24.06.2019

The Mountain Partnership Secretariat (MPS), Slow Food and the Philippines’ Department of Tourism-Cordillera Administrative Region (DoT–CAR) have jointly developed a pilot program called “Food & Tourism for Mountain Development”. The first stage of the project commenced last month with an intensive food biodiversity mapping exercise which taught what foods (and their sources) remain within the traditional life and knowledge system of local communities.

Besides being essential for the health of a community and ecosystem, robust and vibrant food systems generate income from tourism. Slow Food Travel, rather than being a project specifically focused on boosting tourism, is based on the understanding that national and international tourism can act as a leverage for achieving strengthened livelihoods for smallholder farmers, enhancing rural development and aiding the fight against rural depopulation, and preserving agricultural biodiversity.

The majority of tourists, both international and domestic, travel to the Cordillera to visit one of the five clusters of the Ifugao Rice Terraces, which are United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage sites. They are a reflection of the depth of the Ifugao ethnic group, a minority community that has occupied the mountains for centuries.

However, due to modernization, the site was placed on the list of endangered UNESCO World Heritage Sites: more than 25 percent of the declared terraces have been abandoned and deteriorated. Since then, strong efforts from local and national governments and other institutions have been made to remedy the situation. However, one of the main reasons for the terraces' continued deterioration is that their value for the locals is now primarily in tourism rather than the rice being a necessary food source.

The Food & Tourism for Mountain Development program intends to rectify this situation and promote sustainable tourism in the area. The initiative launched by the MPS, Slow Food and DoT–CAR is meant to act as an important source of knowledge in order to develop best practices and solutions linked to the protection and valorization of sustainable production systems, bio-cultural diversity and innovative mechanisms needed to re-internalize positive externalities while ensuring more robust rural livelihoods.

Read more

News and photo by Slow Food