For the Kankanaey-Igorot indigenous people of the Philippines, closing off their community to the outside world is an annual tradition known as ubaya — a time of rest before or after the fields are prepared for planting and harvesting.

Now, this traditional ritual could be crucial to ensuring the community’s survival, according to Minnie Degawan, a member of the Kankanaey-Igorot Indigenous peoples and the director of the Indigenous and Traditional People Program at Conservation International.

Excluded from most national COVID-19 response measures and government relief packages , many Indigenous groups worldwide are forced to enact their own form of quarantine through practices such as ubaya , Degawan writes in a recent article for Cultural Survival, a U.S.-based indigenous non-profit.…