For centuries, farmers, herders, fishers and forest people have sculpted our land to create agricultural systems of exceptional aesthetic beauty preserving biodiversity and creating resilient ecosystems and a valuable cultural heritage.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will celebrate these Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), this year.
Fourteen new agricultural heritage sites from China, Egypt, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Sri Lanka will be designated during an award ceremony that will bring together high-level officials.
In 2017, the FAO designated a typical Sri Lankan agrarian system, the “Illanga Gammana”, or Cascaded Tank-Village System (CTVS) in the Dry Zone, for its inscription and recognition into the FAO List of GIAHS. The Cascaded Tank-Village System in Sri Lanka will be recognized at the International Forum and Award ceremony for new GIAHS sites on April 19, in Rome, Italy. All newly designated sites will be awarded certificates and country representatives will present their traditional agriculture systems. With the new sites, there will be a total of 50 globally recognised agricultural heritage systems in 20 countries. The participants will share their country experiences and representatives of international organizations, including the UNESCO World Heritage Center, will talk about the ecological, as well as touristic and economic value of these ancestral agricultural systems, during the Forum.