Ziro Valley’s Apatani paddy fields seek UNESCO recognition
The Apatani system of wet-rice cultivation, with its finger-planting and fish-in-field tradition, is up for world heritage status.
The Apatani people of the Ziro valley cultivate rice in a system so precise it has been compared to engineering: terraced fields, a community water-sharing code, and finger-planting that allows three crops a year.
The fields, which also rear fish among the paddy, are now on India’s tentative list for UNESCO’s cultural landscape designation.
Recognition would bring tourists and funding — and a new set of pressures. ‘We want the world to see us,’ a village elder said, ‘without the world remaking us.’