La Laguna has participated this week in the city of Mérida in the events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, approved by the UN in 1972 to safeguard cultural heritage and natural heritage in the face of increasingly evident destruction threats. The institutional event, organized by the Group of World Heritage Cities of Spain (GCPHE), to which La Laguna belongs, and the Ministry of Culture and Sports, was attended by the Councilor for Historical Heritage, Elvira Jorge.
“World Heritage Cities are very aware of the challenges we face, and we want to work in a coordinated manner on policies that guarantee their conservation, their dissemination and their better knowledge for the future,” said Elvira Jorge, who recalls that the motto chosen by UNESCO for this 50th anniversary of the convention is ‘The next 50 years, World Heritage as a source of resilience, humanity and innovation for future generations’.
The National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida hosted the institutional act of celebration in Spain of the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, in which the Undersecretary of Culture and Sports of the Government of Spain, Eduardo Fernández Palomares, took part; the current permanent ambassador of Spain to UNESCO, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, the president of the Junta de Extremadura, Guillermo Fernández Vara, and the host, the mayor of Mérida, Antonio Rodríguez Osuna, as well as the president of the GCPHE and mayor of Salamanca, Carlos Garcia Carbayo.
The city council recalls in a statement that the act served as a preamble to the XVI Meeting of World Heritage Managers in Spain, a meeting that included prestigious authorities on the matter at a national and international level. The meeting served to take stock of the application of the World Heritage Convention, its achievements and its scope, but also to reflect on the challenges facing World Heritage sites today and those they will have to face in the middle and long term, such as climate change, the demographic challenge or the technological gap. Around topics such as sustainable development, planning tools and tourism management, this XVI Meeting brought together professionals and managers of natural and cultural World Heritage sites to encourage debate and encourage the exchange of experiences.
The headquarters of the Assembly of Extremadura has hosted the conference, which addressed in the first block the importance of world heritage and sustainable development, with the participation of Victoria E. Trasobares Ruiz, director of the Mudéjar Territory Association; by Ana Santorun Ardone, coordinator and director of the Tower of Hercules, by Manuel Marcos Ramón, municipal architect of the Department of Heritage of the Segovia City Council and by Marta Uriarte, managing director of the Bizkaia Bridge.
The conclusions include that “from the block related to sustainable development we can highlight the importance of facilitating meeting spaces in world heritage sites; create attractive platforms that facilitate the creation of links and rooting in the territory, especially with the young population, in order to later be able to carry out an adequate investigation at the foot of the territory and that can be adequately projected. It is important to identify the points of union and identity convergence in order to get the most out of it”.
wealth management
The second block dealt with planning and management tools in world heritage. The conclusions indicate that “the main tool we have are the management plans, which UNESCO obliges us to apply to world heritage sites, although today it is a pending task, since many of our partners do not yet have plans. We agree that they are very useful and necessary tools and that we have to work on it, since we must understand that the management plans that UNESCO sends us are aimed at protecting these world heritage assets and their universal value”.
With the participation of Cipriano Marín Cabrera, UNESCO consultant expert; Luis Lafuente Batanero, General Director of Cultural Heritage of the Madrid City Council and Miquel Àngel Maria Ballester, Vice President and Minister of Culture, Education, Youth and Sports of the Consell Insular de Menorca, the conclusions of the Conference emphasize that “the key concept is that these plans do not come to replace the existing legislation and planning, but rather help to coordinate all the people, actors and areas that participate in the usual management of world heritage sites with each other and it is necessary not to confuse the usual planning with the management plans.
It is also stated that “there are many different cases of world heritage assets, each one with a very different situation, and all of this must be included in the plan that will help internally coordinate all the resources, both economic and human, available to them. the administrations. These plans do not have to be complex documents but rather something light that is useful for administrations and their application on a day-to-day basis”.
The third session was focused on cultural tourism and world heritage and sustainable tourism, with the participation of Jordi Tresserras. President of ICOMOS Spain; Jesús Corroto, manager of the Toledo City Consortium and Javier García Turza, from the Association of Municipalities of the Camino De Santiago. The conclusions show that “there has been a convergence in the presentations by Jordi Tresserras and Jesus Corroto regarding public-private collaboration. In the case of the first, he highlighted the collaboration of historic centers and tourist platforms and, the second, he mentioned the projects to attract inhabitants to the historic centers, more specifically in the case of Toledo, but at the same time with reconversion plans in housing to keep those centers alive. Finally, Tresserras has also referred to digital nomads, a new type of tourism, and has explained the specific case of Mexico and how in some cases tourism is desirable to a certain extent”.