Safeguarding Endangered Cultural Heritage Sites in the Developing World

Safeguarding Endangered Cultural Heritage Sites in the Developing World Global Heritage Fund About Global Heritage Fund Global Heritage Fund (GHF) is an international conservancy whose mission is to protect, preserve, and sustain the most significant and endangered cultural heritage sites in the developing world. GHF utilizes our 360-degree Preservation by Design® methodology of community-based planning, science, development, and partnerships to enable long-term preservation and development of global heritage sites. In 2010, we launched Global Heritage Network (GHN), an early warning and threat monitoring system using state-of-the-art satellite imaging technology to enable collaboration between international experts and local conservation leaders to identify and mitigate man-made threats. Since 2002, GHF has invested over $20 million and secured $18 million in co-funding for 16 global heritage sites to ensure their sustainable preservation and responsible development. Contents 5 Foreword 6 Executive Summary 13 A Silent Crisis: Our Global Heritage in Peril 17 Why Heritage Matters 19 The State of Global Heritage 29 The Global Heritage Opportunity 37 Balancing Preservation and Development 43 The Way Forward 46 Recommendations 62 Appendices 66 The Editorial Committee 68 Acknowledgments 68 Online Resources © 2010 Global Heritage Fund Saving Our Vanishing Heritage: Safeguarding Endangered Cultural Heritage Sites in the Developing World Global Heritage Fund Palo Alto, California USA +1.650.325.7520 www.globalheritagefund.org Sponsor: Cover: Local women from Anagundi wash their clothes in the river next to the archaeological sites of Hampi, India. Photo: Sourav Dev Vanishing begins a global campaign to save the most important and endangered heritage sites in the developing world. The abandoned Half Church of Ani, Turkey was whitewashed with industrial paint and left to collapse. Foreword Saving Our Vanishing Heritage explores the chal- GHF surveyed over 1,600 accounts published between lenges facing our most significant and endangered 2000 and 2009 concerning the state of conservation archaeological and heritage sites in the developing of hundreds of major sites in the developing world. world—and what we can do to save them—before The full compendium of articles and reports reviewed they are lost forever. is available online in a database searchable at: www.globalheritagefund.org/vanishing. Our focus on the developing world is driven by the large number of important cultural heritage sites In this report, GHF considered sites with the highest which exist in regions with little capacity to safe- potential for responsible development critical for the guard their existence. In the first decade of the 21st sustained preservation of the site. GHF considers century, we have lost or seriously impaired hundreds the scientific conservation of a site and its potential of our most precious historic sites—the physical for responsible development during our design and record of our human civilization. planning process resulting in an integrated master plan and strategy that goes well beyond traditional Vanishing surveys over 500 global heritage sites and monument based approaches to preservation. This highlights the accelerating threats facing these cul- report represents the first attempt to quantify the tural treasures. Many have survived thousands of value of heritage sites as global economic resources years, only to be lost in this generation—on our watch. to help achieve the UN Millennium Development Vanishing was conceived by Global Heritage Fund, Goals (MDGs). an international conservancy that has worked for Vanishing focuses on significant global heritage nearly a decade to protect and preserve the most sites that have high potential for future tourism significant and endangered cultural heritage sites in and responsible development, but the report’s the developing world. findings and recommendations can and should With the critical review of 24 leading experts working be extended to other realms of heritage preser- in heritage conservation and international develop- vation. Global heritage sites generate extremely ment, this report surveys hundreds of endangered high economic asset values, with some worth global heritage sites and strives to identify those billions of dollars a year. These sites can help to most in need of immediate intervention, and what the greatly diversify local economies beyond tourism global community can do to save them. and sustenance agriculture reducing dependency and alleviating poverty. Our primary goals of this report are: Vanishing begins a global campaign to save the 1. to raise critically needed global awareness most important and endangered heritage sites in the 2. to identify innovative technologies and solutions developing world. 3. to increase funding through private-public How we as a global community act—or fail to act— partnerships in the coming years will determine if we save our Vanishing’s findings strongly suggest that the demise global heritage and can realize the untapped eco- of our most significant cultural heritage sites has nomic opportunity these precious sites offer for become a global crisis, on par with environmental global development in the world's lowest-income destruction. communities and countries. Please join us. Jeff Morgan, Executive Director Global Heritage Fund October 19, 2010 Palo Alto, California 5 Executive Summary Our heritage sites have survived Saving Our Vanishing Heritage brings new urgency thousands of years. If we don’t act and focus to our global heritage in peril. now, many will be lost in this Vanishing was developed in collaboration with an generation—on our watch. Editorial Committee comprised of 24 leading experts in heritage conservation and international development from leading universities, preservation groups, Saving Our Vanishing Heritage is a critical call to international agencies, and the private sector. action alerting the international community on the need to focus precious investment on global heritage Key findings show that: conservation, a strategy that has proven to be one of • More than 200 global heritage sites are at risk the most effective and targeted ways to help allevi- and in need of immediate intervention to stem ate poverty by creating long-term jobs, income, and irreparable loss and destruction. Of these, 40 to 50 recurring investment in developing countries. are in need of immediate emergency rescue and Vanishing found that of the approximately 500 global only a handful are considered stable. heritage sites in 100 of the lowest-income countries • The years spanning 2000 to 2009 have been of the world—places where the per capita income highly destructive—one of the most damaging is less than $3 to $5 a day—over 200 are facing decades in recent history except for periods of irreversible loss and damage today. The trend of major war and conflict. loss is accelerating due to the simultaneous man- made threats of development pressures, unsustain- • Five man-made threats are the cause of able tourism, insufficient management, looting, and 90 percent of the loss and destruction of global war and conflict. Fewer than 80 of these sites are heritage sites. UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The rest are without • The global community can reverse this international recognition. escalating crisis through satellite-based site The unfavorable imbalance in the UNESCO World monitoring, proper planning and training, Heritage List against the developing world is a key performance-based management, scientific reason for lack of corresponding funding and assis- conservation, community-based development, tance to enable preservation and protection of sites and private-public partnerships—all within our in these countries. While Italy and Spain have 44 and reach and requiring minimal investment. 41 cultural UNESCO World Heritage designations, • Skyrocketing international and domestic mass respectively, Peru—with 4,000 years of history and tourism is one of the most destructive forces hundreds of important cultural sites—has only nine. facing our global heritage sites, and few Guatemala, the cradle of Mayan civilization with developing countries are equipped to manage the world’s largest pyramids and ancient cities, has the numbers. just three. • Global heritage sites should be recognized as a core asset in the achievement of UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to alleviate poverty on this planet; they are the necessary economic engines for local and regional development. • Many countries have made great progress and can act as examples of best practices and solutions for other developing nations. 6 “Over the past decade, we have seen a welcome new trend evolving, mainly in developing countries. I am speaking about culture as an economic driver: a creator of jobs and revenues; a means of making poverty eradication strategies relevant and more effective at the local level.” UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova global HEritagE SitES Destroyed rescue Needed at risk Stable Global Heritage Sites in the Developing World: Around the world, there are more than 500 major archaeological and cultural heritage sites in developing Countries of the World by Economic Status countries and regions where per capita income is under US $3-5 a day. Fewer than 80 of these heritage Developing world countries include sites are designated UNESCO World Heritage, leaving low income ($975 or less), and hundreds of others without international recognition lower middle income

Load more