World Heritage – linking cultural and biological diversity

Paper for the US/ICOMOS Symposium

Learning from World Heritage

By Dr. Mechtild Rössler

Chief, Europe & North America
UNESCO World Heritage Centre
7, place de Fontenoy
75352 Paris 07 SP, France
Tel: + 33 -(0) 1 45 68 18 91
Fax: + 33 -(0) 1 45 68 55 70
e-mail: m.rossler@unesco.org
web-page: http://whc.unesco.org

Abstract
The World Heritage Convention (1972) is a unique international legal instrument,
protection both natural and cultural sites of outstanding universal value. The
definition of World Heritage has evolved considerably over the past 30 years. World
Heritage is no longer limited to strict nature protection and the monumental heritage
of the world. The diversity of living cultural places, natural sacred sites and cultural
landscapes are now included on the World Heritage List. The landmark decision in
1992 to include cultural landscapes has enhanced the recognition of outstanding
linkages between nature and culture, people and places and between the intangible
and the tangible. It also provided a new focus on the key areas of tomorrows crops.
At the same time innovations were introduced with the acceptance of traditional
custodianship and customary land tenure in World Heritage protection. These
developments both on the conceptual and operational levels have shown the
stewardship role of World Heritage conservation with far-reaching impact for other
conservation instruments.

With 176 States Parties and 754 (582 cultural, 149 natural and 23 mixed) properties
from a total of 128 countries on the World Heritage List, the Convention became a
key legal instrument in heritage conservation and plays an important role in
promoting the recognition and management of heritage in many regions of the world.
It’s implementation has a considerable effect on many other programmes and projects
beyond the World Heritage sites. The Convention is now accompanied by other
UNESCO Conventions, including for intangible heritage (2003) and underwater
cultural heritage (2002) as well as preparatory work for a Convention on cultural
diversity.

The inscription of Tongariro National Park (New Zealand) as the first cultural
landscape on the World Heritage List for the spiritual links of the Maori people with
their environment proved that UNESCO's World Heritage Convention is pioneering
new approaches to the protection of the planet's cultural and natural diversity. The
paper discusses the new challenges, which have emerged with the broadened
definition of heritage and the links between nature and culture, making an important
contribution to sustainable development.
Introduction

The 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural
Heritage, in short World Heritage Convention is a unique international instrument that
recognizes and protects both outstanding cultural and natural heritage. Although the
World Heritage Convention’s definition of heritage provided a pioneering approach
for linking nature and culture, it took a long time for the recognition of the interaction
between people and their environment, in particular cultural landscapes.

Natural and Cultural Heritage

The Convention defines cultural heritage as “monuments, groups of buildings and

sites”, whereas natural heritage was described as “natural features consisting of
physical and biological formations or groups of such formations, which are of
outstanding universal value from the aesthetic or scientific point of view; geological
and physiographical formations and precisely delineated areas which constitute the
habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value
from the point of view of science or conservation; natural sites or precisely delineated
natural areas of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science,
conservation or natural beauty.” (UNESCO 1972)

“Mixed” sites, which would fall under both natural and cultural heritage, were
covered as “combined works of nature and man”. It is interesting to note that very few
mixed sites, only 23, were inscribed in the 30 years of practice of the Convention,
whereas 582 cultural and 149 natural properties from a total of 128 countries are now
included on the World Heritage List. This result may also be due to the different
approaches of the advisory bodies IUCN and ICOMOS in evaluating these properties.
In the new Operational Guidelines (operational on 1 March 2004) the cultural and
natural heritage criteria are merged and among the consequences may well be that
heritage recognition and protection may be more integrated in the future.

The Convention became a key legal instrument in heritage conservation, both cultural
and natural. It plays an important role in promoting the recognition of new heritage
concepts, protection and effective management in many regions of the world, as I will
outline here in more detail:

Linking Nature and Culture: cultural landscapes

Interestingly enough, the interaction of people and their environment was covered
until 1992 under the natural criteria for World Heritage and this definition was
removed after the Caracas World Parks Congress (Titchen 1995). At the same time,
in 1992, cultural landscapes were introduced into the Operational Guidelines, which
provided a new and innovative approach towards linking culture and nature: The
World Heritage Committee adopted three categories of cultural landscapes as
qualifying for World Heritage status: (i) clearly defined landscapes designed and
created intentionally by man; (ii) organically evolved landscapes, which can be either
relict landscapes or continuing landscapes; and (iii) associative cultural landscapes.

In 1993 Tongariro National Park (New Zealand) became the first property to be
inscribed on the World Heritage List under the revised cultural criteria and cultural
landscapes categories. The Committee recognized that these mountains have cultural
and religious significance for the Maori people and represent the spiritual links
between this community and its natural environment. It was the first time that a
natural World Heritage site received international recognition for its intangible
cultural values. This decision illustrates the broadening of heritage definitions to
include non-material, intangible cultural heritage values. Among the diverse aspects
of future heritage preservation is the acknowledgement of spiritual values associated
with historical monuments, cultural landscapes or natural features. This includes the
necessity of documenting such traditions including rituals, belief systems and oral
traditions, and the transmission to young people in order to preserve them in a living
form underpinning people’s cultural identity. (Rossler, 2003)

The impact of the inclusion of cultural landscapes for the implementation of the
World Heritage Convention was considerable in many ways:
- The category of the associative cultural landscape has been crucial in the
recognition of intangible values and for the heritage of local communities and
indigenous people;
 - The importance of protecting biological diversity by maintaining cultural
diversity within cultural landscapes was recognized ;

- The inscription of sites as cultural landscapes on the World Heritage List had
prime effects on the interpretation, presentation, and management of the
properties.

Many cultural landscapes have been nominated and inscribed (35 by 2003 from all
regions of the world) on the World Heritage List since the 1992 landmark decision.
Often they are associative cultural landscapes, or sacred sites, which may be physical
entities or mental images embedded in a people's spirituality, cultural tradition, and
practice. The recent publications of the Ferrara meeting (UNESCO 2003b) and the
study by Peter Fowler (2003) also show the importance of agricultural landscapes for
the survival of humankind. Parallel, a project was developed by FAO on Globally
Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), which focuses on outstanding
agricultural systems and case studies including World Heritage cultural landscapes,
such as Cinque Terre (Italy).

The Cinque Terre (Italy): “Many of the agricultural heritage landscapes of the world
are threatened both by the failure of traditional ways to maintain production in a
world of changing interests and needs, and the demands of mass tourism, whose
impacts threaten the very qualities that attract tourists. The Cinque Terre, a World
Heritage cultural landscape, exemplifies these dilemmas, but also offers hope that
even in the most difficult situations, solutions may be at hand” (Stovel/De Marco,
2003). The unique and diverse cultural land- and seascape, of wine growing terraces
and fishing villages was maintained over centuries. Since 1970s terraces have been
abandoned and the impacts on this complex system, including collapses of dry
stonewalls and landslides, have been severe. The World Heritage inscription gave a
boost to the recognition of the people’s pride in their heritage and territorial identity
as well as to tourism and local produce. It brought direct economic benefits to the
people and attracted international funding such as from the World Monuments Fund
for terraces restoration and re-use. Subsequently, a national park was created which
covers most (but not all) of the World Heritage cultural landscape.

Natural sacred sites and places to protect biodiversity

In the natural heritage field, local and indigenous knowledge, sacred places and
traditional skills were discovered as tool for the protection of both the natural
environment and cultural diversity. UNESCO organized already in 1999 an
international symposium on Natural Sacred Sites. The current UNESCO project
“Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in a Global Society” (LINKS) reflects
this trend. More recently, a UNESCO-Man and the Biosphere (MAB) workshop
(Kunming, China, February 2003) led to the creation of an “International Network on
Sacred Natural Sites for Biodiversity Conservation” in which scientists, conservation
experts and custodians of sacred natural sites collaborate to study and exchange
information on the recognition and management of such sites for enhanced
environmental conservation. These are only two examples of the implementation of
this new approach. The WCPA Task Force on Non-Material Values, is a crucial
forum to discuss these concepts and this workshop can really bring us a step further in
discussing the practical aspects of the many facets of traditional protection and the
non-material values of protected areas, including spiritual, cultural and social values,
cultural identity, artistic and aesthetic values as well as the contribution of protected
areas for peace (Rössler 2003).

The Quadisha Valley (Lebanon) is an interesting example of a site nominated as a

natural property as the “Cedar Forest of Lebanon”, but was not recommended by
IUCN due to its small size and integrity issues. Subsequently it was presented as a
cultural landscape and inscribed in 1998 as a monastic settlements landscape of the
valley. The sacred cedars of Lebanon are already referred to in the Bible. The site has
currently no protected area status and is located between two nature Reserves (Hosrsh
Ehden and Tannourine Nature Reserves). A local association works towards better
protection of the site and the World Heritage Committee in June 2003 requested better
legal protection, management coordination, establishment of a nature reserve and
management plan.

Cultural sacred sites – cultural diversity

“In sacred architecture, humans attempt to bring themselves closer to the divine by
creating a special space to hold this powerful and precious contact.”(Humphrey,
Vitebsky, 2003, 8) Many World Heritage sites around the world are sacred places,
ranging from Stonehenge to Borobudur, from Jerusalem to the shrines of Nara and the
Kasubi Tombs in Uganda. However, we need to integrate the sacred and social
dimensions into the interpretation and transmission to future generations of our World
Heritage, and not only the outstanding architecture. This will contribute to a new
understanding of the diverse interactions between people and their environment and
culture’s relationship with the divine.
Tangible and Intangible

The World Heritage Convention deals with tangible heritage, but embodies intangible
values both for natural and cultural heritage. For natural heritage the concept of
“natural beauty” which is reflected in one of the four natural criteria for the inclusion
on the World Heritage List is clearly illustrating intangible values: ““contain[s]
superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic
importance ...” (UNESCO 2002). Similarly the last criterion of the 6 cultural criteria
is the intangible association (vi) “with events or living traditions, ideas or with
beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance”.
However, the World Heritage Committee was struggling with the exclusive use of the
intangible values and stated that it “ considers that this criterion should justify
inclusion on the list in exceptional circumstances and in conjunction with other
criteria cultural or natural.” Only in 2003 this approach changed, which will allow
for a new drive for the recognition of intangible values of natural sites, for example.
At the same time UNESCO adopted a new Convention: the Convention for the
Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Paris, 17 October 2003.

The first cultural landscape from Africa, Surkur Cultural Landscape (Nigeria),
represents a case of traditional management and customary law. The Sukur Cultural
Landscape encompasses the Hidi’s stone henge palace (i.e. the dwelling place of the
spirito-political paramountcy), dominating the villages below, the terraced fields and
their sacred symbols with stone paved walkways linking the low land to the graduated
plateaus. The landscape also features unique architectural elements, stone corrals for
feeding domestic stock, grave yards, stone gates as well as vernacular stone settlement
clusters with homestead farms, all in the midst of rare species of flora and fauna. It is
a remarkably intact physical expression of a society and its spiritual and material
culture

Traditional protection and management systems: managing cultural and

biological diversity

With the inclusion of cultural landscape categories in 1992, the World Heritage
Committee recognized traditional management systems, customary law and long-
established customary techniques to protect the cultural and natural heritage. Through
these protection systems World Heritage sites contribute to sustainable local and
regional development.

Cultural landscapes are particularly vulnerable to social, economic and environmental

changes. The maintenance of the fabric of societies, traditional knowledge and
indigenous practices are vital to their survival. In many cases, cultural landscapes and
sacred natural sites are of vital importance to the protection of intangible values and
heritage. World Heritage cultural landscapes and sacred properties can be models in
effective landscape management, excellence in conservation practices and innovation
in legislative protection. They are places where we can learn about the relation
between people, nature and ecosystems and how this shapes culture, identity and
enriches cultural, and in some cases, biological diversity.

The Philippines Rice Terraces (Philippines) were included in the World Heritage
List in 1995 and represent another agricultural landscape of unique scenic value of
steep and small terraces. It represents a unique interaction between people and their
natural environment. It was included on the World Heritage in danger list despite
efforts to safeguard the property by the Banaue Rice Terraces Task Force (BRTTF)
and Ifugao Terraces Commission (ITC), as the BRTTF lacks full Government support
and needs more resources, greater independence and an assurance of permanence.
About 25-30% of the terraces are now abandoned, which has led to damage to some of
the walls. This has arisen because parts of the irrigation system have been neglected,
which in turn is due to people leaving the area. Most of the site is privately owned
and traditionally managed.

Conclusions

The immense and forward looking development in the interpretation of the World
Heritage Convention represents only the beginning of a recognition of the complexity
of nature-culture interactions and the wealth of intangible values in relation to
protected areas, and in particular to sites of outstanding universal value. There will be
many challenges in the identification, recognition, and protection of the intrinsic links
between natural and cultural heritage, people and their environment and the tangible
and the intangible values. An inclusive approach – both within UNESCO and with
other institutions and organizations - is crucial for the designation and management of
sites of outstanding universal value, for the benefit of the people living in and around
these sites, the conservation community, and humanity as a whole.
World Heritage stewardship can promote diverse cultural and natural values relevant
for protected areas globally. The variety of sites on the List demonstrates already that
a great diversity of outstanding natural heritage sacred sites and cultural landscapes
exist throughout the world. These combined works of nature and humankind express a
long and intimate relationship between peoples and their natural environment.
Powerful beliefs, traditions and spiritual relationship of people with nature can
contribute to global heritage conservation and in particular to add to a new dimension
in linking culture and nature.

Recommendations
I would like to conclude with some specific recommendations for the future following
from my deliberations:
(i) encourage the development of specific guidelines and case studies of
excellence on conservation practices and sustainable land use at cultural
landscapes;
(ii) support the effective management and legal/traditional protection mechanisms
for cultural landscapes particularly in Africa, the Pacific, the Arab States, the
Andean sub-region, the Caribbean, central Asia and south-east Asia; and,
(iii) enhance the identification of the interaction between people and the
environment and encouraging nominations of World Heritage cultural
landscapes from underrepresented regions and themes identified as gaps on the
World Heritage List (e.g. agricultural landscapes, water and civilisation,
sacred sites);
(iv) raise awareness for the importance of nature-culture interaction through
education and capacity building programmes and through the UNESCO
project on linking cultural and biological diversity;
(v) encourage the re-interpretation of the existing World Heritage properties to
enhance the understanding of the multifaceted and diverse human relations to
nature and the universe in collaboration with both IUCN and ICOMOS.
(vi) disseminate the results of the Ferrara workshop (2002) and the study by Peter
Fowler (2003) to raise awareness within the professional networks to raise
standards in preparing tentative lists, nominations and project development, as
well as in evaluations and reactive monitoring.
The participants of the international workshop “Cultural Landscapes – the challenges
of conservation” at the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the World Heritage
Convention concluded in Ferrara (Italy, November 2002): “Cultural landscape
management and conservation processes bring people together in caring for their
collective identity and heritage, and provide a shared local vision within a global
context. Local communities need therefore to be involved in every aspect of the
identification, planning and management of the areas, as they are the most effective
guardians of the landscape heritage. The outstanding landscapes are selected
examples, which could offer stewardship, models in effective management and
excellence in conservation practices”.

Thank you for listening.

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