WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING THE INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES

Learning about Indigenous communities is the most critical part of learning about
human history. It’s about telling us the story of our life or the history of mankind, because
these indigenous people living in the indigenous communities are the ones who lived ahead
of us, or they are our ancestors. For example, in the Philippines, Indigenous people have
lived here for thousands of years and continue to practice their traditional practices, beliefs,
and so on. But these indigenous people are human too. They do have rights that need to be
respected. They also have a culture that needs to be recognized equally by each one of us.

Studying Indigenous communities can broaden our ideas or open new doors for
ideas in our minds about these people who have lived for thousands of years. Studying them
can give us some ideas on how these people live their everyday lives. To know what kinds of
traditions, cultures, and beliefs they have. So we have the idea of how to respect them by
not just ignoring them, because we lowland and highland people are living in the same
country, so we need to unite and respect each other, recognize each other equally and
support each other.

WHY ARE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IMPORTANT TO THE NATURE AND CULTURE

Indigenous people have been living for several thousand years, and along with it,
they’re still protecting their land from anyone and preserving the beauty of nature. In this era
of modernization, the life of nature is slowly decreasing because of the innovations that
people are making by building infrastructures such as modern houses like subdivisions or
villages, tall buildings, bridges that connect many different regions, and more innovations
that are slowly affecting the beauty of nature by destroying it just for the sake of
modernization. But it’s not too late for nature to recover because we still have indigenous
people who proudly and still protect the land they’re living on, which is in the forest or
mountains. They swore to protect it no matter what, because this is their home and a source
of life for them.

Indigenous people have been living for thousands of years, and they still continue
their traditional practices, culture, and even beliefs. Just like how they protect their
homeland, they also give attention to their sacred practices as a sign of respect for their
ancestors and for themselves.

Indigenous people are important to me personally because they inspire me to protect

the land on which I live and the nature that I enjoy seeing every day. Even if I'm not a
pure-blood Filipino or an indigenous person, there’s still an urge inside me that I have the
great responsibility to preserve nature and its beauty against these absurd innovations and
to stop destroying nature for the sake of modernization. Indigenous people taught me how to
love nature and give importance to it. And the same goes for our different cultures.
Indigenous people help me to give respect and remember the culture that my community
has.. Even if they didn’t really teach me personally, the way they live is the one who taught
me.