Feature

UNESCO chooses China for Heritage Training Institute

Mohammad Shahidul Islam

UNESCO has chosen China as the first country to erect its World Heritage Institute of Training and Research - Asia Pacific (WHITR-AP) under the World Heritage Center (WHC). It has been decided recently that WHITR-AP will be set up in three reputed Chinese universities. The major function of WHITR-AP in China is to harmonize the activities of the WHC by providing capacity building and research programs at the regional level in Asia Pacific. It is also intended to boost international co-operation on the conservation of the world's cultural and natural heritage within Asia and the Pacific region. The training institute aims to strengthen implementation of the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention.

Operating from three sub-centers based at Tongji University in Shanghai, Peking University in Beijing and Suzhou University in Suzhou, China will be the first country to have such an important institute in Asia and the Pacific Region. Tongji University will be in charge of training in the protection of cultural heritage, while Peking University in Beijing for training in the protection of natural heritage, and Suzhou University in Suzhou for training in the protection of endangered craftsmanship. Moreover, WHITR-AP will organize conferences and symposiums, set up a wide-ranging database, and circulate research information through its publications, both at the regional and international levels.

Three support organizations, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) for the protection of natural heritage, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) for the protection of cultural heritage, and the International Center for the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) for the Restoration of cultural heritage sites make up support organizations under the WHC of UNESCO.

WHITR-AP will be the fourth organization under the WHC to provide a link between its Asian and foreign counterparts in its three support organizations, as well as many non-profitable organizations with similar aims which come under the WHC.

UNESCO enlists 174 properties from Asia Pacific as World Heritage sites under the WHC, including 35 in China. Latest additions to the list from Asia Pacific takes account of the Sydney Opera House and Jeju Volcano Islands and lava tubes in Korea. It hopes, the new institute will play an active role in conserving and protecting UNESCO Heritage properties of the region for generations to come.

(The writer is UNESCO Heritage guide trainer in Bangladesh)