On December 6, 2024, the UCLA College Division of Sciences and the Université Internationale de Rabat (UIR) established the Asia-Africa-America Center for Culture, Environment, Society, and Sustainability (ACCESS) to coordinate community-engaged research in mountain regions affected by drought, immigration, and aging. ACCESS integrates landscape archaeology, historical ecology, cultural geography, and environmental science with remote sensing, GIS, and ethnography, linking documentation and analysis to policy design through stakeholder workshops and pilot initiatives that foreground traditional ecological knowledge.
ACCESS follows a five-year plan. Year one centers on preliminary studies, baseline data collection, and stakeholder engagement. Years two and three expand into extended fieldwork and archaeological investigation, alongside the development of draft policies and pilot programs. Years four and five prioritize refinement, capacity building, and dissemination to support durable outcomes. The goal is to generate actionable strategies that sustain livelihoods, conserve cultural and ecological heritage, and strengthen regional resilience.
Anti-Atlas village in Morocco. Photo courtesy of Aomar Boum.
In late April and early May 2025, an initial field survey for the Highland Ecology of Morocco project has been successfully completed, marking a productive start to this collaborative initiative between the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Université Internationale de Rabat (UIR). Focused on two key locations in the Anti-Atlas Mountains, this preliminary investigation provided essential baseline data to inform the development of our comprehensive research design. Integrating archaeological, paleoenvironmental, and ethnographic approaches, the project sought to contribute to broader discussions on resilience, climate variability, and cultural responses in montane environments. This initial survey will lay the groundwork for future phases of research and field training in the provinces of Tata, Tiznit, Chtouka Ait Baha, and Taroudannt, with the goal of fostering sustained international collaboration and interdisciplinary inquiry in North African mountain ecologies.
Stephen Acabado (UCLA Anthropology, UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies, fourth from the left) and Aomar Boum (UCLA Anthropology, UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, third from the right) with the local UIR team in Morocco. Photo courtesy of Aomar Boum.
To advance these aims, UIR and UCLA’s Centers for Southeast Asian Studies and Near Eastern Studies will co-host the Landscapes in Transition conference in Rabat in March 2026. The meeting brings together archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, historians, environmental scientists, and community practitioners to examine how long-term human-environment relations have shaped terraced agroecosystems and other cultural landscapes, with particular attention to Morocco’s Anti-Atlas region. The conference builds on a multi-year collaboration investigating terrace systems and mountain ecologies through comparative and transdisciplinary methods. UCLA's Stephen Acabado’s research on the Ifugao Terraces in the Philippines and Abdellatif Bencherifa’s work on the Atlas Mountains in Morocco provide reference points for analyzing terrace construction, maintenance, and change over time.
Terraces in the Anti-Atlas are notable for their scale, human engineering, and integration of water, soil, and vegetation management in an arid environment. Many remained in use through the 1970s, and some continue to support subsistence production. Formal archaeological chronologies are still emerging, yet the breadth and persistence of these systems indicate deep historical courses. This evidence invites a reconsideration of standard development models that tie intensification primarily to population pressure. Alternative accounts emphasize risk management, stewardship of scarce resources, maintenance of territorial presence, and community cohesion, highlighting social and ecological logics that extend beyond simple economic explanations. The conference addresses current pressures on mountain and oasis communities, including outmigration, demographic aging, shifting technologies and aspirations, land abandonment, and climate change. Material infrastructures deteriorate when fields are left fallow, and intangible heritage weakens when intergenerational transmission declines.