Working Group on Cultural Heritage and Sacred Sites

More on Cultural heritage, sacred sites and the link to human rights

Cultures and worldviews are deeply intertwined and this is clearly emphasised in UNESCO's work, especially related to cultural sites and their work with intangible heritage. It is important to note that religious World Heritage properties do also include those sacred to traditional communities and other beliefs and that such sites can often include sacred landscapes (Kii Mountain Range), sacred lakes (Lake Baikal), Sacred Forests (Mijikenda Kaya Forests) and that these sacred natural sites also comprise sites of a religious and sacred nature, often belonging to different faiths or beliefs and often both (Kii Mountain Range) and that there is often overwhelming evidence of intangible cultural heritage related to these sites that also requires protecting. Such sites are often in protected areas si there is not only the aspect of protected area management but also the management related to the ultural, sacred and religious dimension. Linked to these are related human rights aspects that also apply to religious and indigenous communities.

It is not only a sensitivity to the cultural and historical context, to the spirit of a place that needs to be integrated, at such sites but as culture is a living process these sites also need to reflect their contemporary dimension and management needs to take this into account, be this related to cathedrals and their use or to a sacred forest, its daily use and rituals enacted in them and the use made of the natural resources, e.g. when and how to cut the trees.

Dialogue is therefore a pre-requisite between the various stakeholder related to religious sites and the various issues related to these: site managers, resoration experts, protected area managers, lineage holders and custodians of the sacred traditions,  their cultural and intangible heritages, festivals and celebrations, pilgrimages, access to sites, sustainable visitor numbers, possible rules for access and for behaviour of visitors, ownersip/guardianship of land are just some examples of the challenges to be encountered.

Land is an important issue as it often has historic, cultural and hagiographic meaning. The challenge is not always that there is insufficient co-operation, the fact is that often the world views are different, e.g. restoration of Buddhist built heritage is most often done by monks as the Buddha left accurate information on how this should be done; protected area managers often lack a traditional upbringing, come from a different religious background, hold different world views and are often not familiar with the religious views or traditional customs of the land they are to 'manage'.

Any legal framework today needs to take into account the human rights dimension as a great number of UNESCO members states have ratified the various conventions, treaties etc. A human rights dimension needs to be part of the training of specialists related to World Heritage sites, to managers of nature sites.It can be stated that many member states have specific policies regarding religious properties which they have developed in coordination with national or local authorities and the experts. But this might not be enough, as in the above example there is clearly a need to coordinate matters with the religious community, as they happen to be the experts. This requires an expansion of our current thinking on expertise. Too often indigenous and local communities are dismissed as experts while they have demonstrated to the world that they manage to keep a sustainable and bio-diverse environment and high cultural diversity. The same can be said for their sacred sites. If these still exist after millennia it is because the religious communities themselves were the managers and had an interest to protect such sites keep them alive.

All natural sites have cultural components and many also have sacred ones. It is not either natural or cultural or religious, often all converge and are founf together in one site. The historic element is also important, e.g. Pechersk Lavra, where all themes come together and create a site that is an important symbol of nationhood. This sense of nationhood is also very relevant to indigenous and traditional communities where land, culture, sacred tradtions  are part of the social cohesion that creates an identity, their sense of nationhood.

The above example shows the importance of cultural heritage and cultural diversity related to spirituality, the link to the environment and the human rights dimension. In this area there is a close cooperation with the NGO Committee on the Environment.

Talk given on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns at the International Seminar on the Role of Religious Communities in the Management of the World Heritage Properties in Kyiv, Ukraine, 2-5 November 2010