Reframing Cultural Site Conservation Through Living Traditions: Evidence from Lamanok Cultural Landscape in Anda, Bohol, Philippines

Procopio Resabal, Jr.*, Athena Garcia-Vitor, and Rachelle Lacea

This paper presents ongoing community-based conservation work at the Lamanok Cultural Landscape in Anda, Bohol, Philippines, undertaken within the framework of Project Pagbulig, an emergency safeguarding initiative responding to increasing environmental, developmental and visitation pressures on the site. Located along the Anda Peninsula facing the Canigao Channel, Lamanok is a limestone karst formation with burial caves, wooden boat coffins, earthenware ceramics, and hematite rock art associated with early Boholano communities. Rather than treating Lamanok solely as an archaeological complex, this initiative approaches it as a living sacred landscape where cosmological beliefs and ritual practices continue to shape community engagement with heritage. Local understandings of ancestral (ginikanan) and guardian spirits (dili ingon nato) and the role of tamba’an (ritual healers) function as culturally embedded regulatory systems. These belief structures guide behavior within sacred caves, reinforce respect for burial spaces and rock art, and support seasonal restrictions and resource-use practices that align with ecological cycles. At the landscape scale, these practices complement marine conservation efforts in the adjacent protected waters, where regard for habitat protection and traditional ecological knowledge reinforce biodiversity stewardship.This approach repositions conservation not as an externally imposed regulatory framework but as an extension of existing cultural governance systems. By foregrounding sacred values and intangible heritage, management strategies gain social legitimacy and intergenerational continuity. By reframing cultural site conservation through living traditions, the Lamanok Cultural Landscape offers a model for managing sacred archaeological sites in ways that are socially grounded, ecologically responsive, and resilient in the face of contemporary pressures.