What is A World Heritage Site?

Well, someone has been doing their homework!

The Big Question:

What is a World Heritage Site, and does the accolade make a difference?
By Paul Vallely The Independent Friday, 7 November 2008

Why are we asking this now?

A United Nations team is about to visit Bath to decide whether the city still deserves the accolade of a World Heritage Site. There are 28 such sites in Britain but Bath is the only entire city to be listed.

But the heritage police are worried. They originally called Bath "a city that is harmonious and logical, in concord with its natural environment and extremely beautiful". But now they fear this might be spoiled by a new development to which the city council's planning committee has given outline permission. It will add 2,200 houses with shops, a school and a park right next to the River Avon. Some of the buildings are nine storeys high.

Enthusiasts for the scheme attack those who would keep Bath as "a city in aspic" and worry that the whole project may be at risk if the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), which grants world heritage status, disapproves.

What kind of places are given the accolade?

Anything from a city to an individual building, monument, area, forest, mountain, desert or lake. There are currently 878 world heritage sites which include 678 listed for cultural reasons and 174 lauded as wonders of nature. These include the Great Barrier Reef, the Serengeti Desert, the Pyramids of Giza, the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, Mount Kenya, Edinburgh's Old and New Towns, Hadrian's Wall, Stonehenge, Memphis and its Necropolis, Persepolis, the Palace of Westminster, the centre of St Petersburg, the Banaue rice terraces in the Philippines and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station in Mumbai. The country with the biggest number of sites is Italy, which has 43.

Great Barrier Reef

How did the idea begin?

In 1954, the desert valley containing the twin Abu Simbel temples – which were carved out of a mountainside in southern Egypt in the 13th century BC on the orders of the Pharaoh Ramesses II – were about to be flooded by the building of the Aswan Dam. Frustrated by the Egyptian government's lack of action to protect the ancient buildings, Unesco launched a worldwide campaign that saved the temples by relocating them to higher ground at a cost of $80m, half of it collected from 50 countries.
The project was such a success that Unesco campaigns followed to save Venice and the ruins of one of the world's earliest urban settlements, Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan's Indus Valley, as well as the largest Buddhist structure in existence, the Borobodur temple compounds in Java, Indonesia.

Who decides whether heritage status is granted?

The Unesco World Heritage Committee, which is elected by nation states every four years. It meets once a year to choose the world's natural or human-made wonders in the greatest need of protection. Any country is eligible to send in a list of nominees for protection.
This year, the committee met in Quebec City, Canada, and added an extra 27 places across the globe to its list of "endangered species". Among them were more than 100 monumental tombs at Al-Hijr in Saudi Arabia, built by the Nabataean people between the first century BC and AD100. Another was the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, where one billion butterflies overwinter each year. The committee also added the island of Surtsey, which appeared 20 miles south of Iceland as a result of volcanic eruptions between 1963 and 1967, and is a pristine natural laboratory for the study of plant and animal colonisation.

What are the criteria for inclusion in the list?

Each site must meet at least one of 10 criteria. They must represent a "masterpiece of human creative genius", be "an important interchange of human values" or "bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to civilisation" past or present. Or they can be an outstanding example of a type of building or settlement which illustrates a significant stage in human history. They can "contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance", or be outstanding examples of major stages of Earth's history or ecological and biological processes in evolution. Sites can also house threatened species "of outstanding universal value".

How political is the choice?

Well, just nine per cent of the world heritage sites are in Africa and seven per cent in Arab countries, compared with 50 per cent in Europe and North America. This does suggest a certain cultural bias, but there are other political considerations. The US, whose government saw Unesco as a stalking horse for Communist and Third World countries to attack the West throughout the 1980s and 1990s, has refused to propose any new heritage sites since 1995. In that year, plans to open a gold mine near Yellowstone Park in Wyoming got the area placed on Unesco's "world heritage in danger" list. Conservatives in Washington decided that the scheme was an undercover attempt to subvert America's rights to govern itself and to destroy the fabric of US sovereignty.

Have there been any other controversies surrounding the scheme?

Pressure groups use world heritage status as a lever in political battles. In Australia, a group of Aborigines teamed up with environmentalists in a dispute over a uranium mine in the middle of the Kakadu National Park, a World Heritage Site which is home to hundreds of species of wildlife and is one of the country's oldest places of human occupation, dating back 60,000 years. Unesco called on ministers in Canberra to put a stop to the mining project, but the government hit backing, saying Unesco's report contained errors of fact, law, science and logic.
There was a similar row over a controversial hydroelectric dam project in La Amistad International Park, a world heritage-designated site which straddles Panama and Costa Rica and is Central America's largest and most diverse virgin rainforest.

What are the benefits?

Listed places receive extra media attention and tourists. That brings extra money in addition to cash from Unesco's preservation fund, though only developing countries can apply for the grants. Britain contributes £130,000 to the fund every year but gets nothing back, although world heritage status can attract extra funding from the national lottery and the private sector.
Publicity can help. Two 150ft statues of Buddha carved into a mountain in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan in the 6th century, and which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, have received more than $4m from Unesco to help with the re-sculpting of the damaged stones.

And the disadvantages?

Listed places receive extra media attention and tourists. The higher profile that listing brings can draw an influx of visitors that poorer countries cannot handle. Fore example, the Angkor Wat temples in Cambodia, the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu in Peru have all seen massive increases in tourism. Sometimes listing does more harm than good and upsets the delicate balance between promoting places and preserving them.

Does it help to have World Heritage status?
Yes...
* It brings extra funds to poor countries to help conserve places of universal value
* It draws attention to the world's most neglected treasures and places of historic interest or natural beauty
* It can save places from total destruction by natural or human forces

No...
* It brings in floods of extra tourists whose footprint can do more harm than good
* It can have the effect of preserving a living place in aspic and stifling innovation
* It can undermine a country's right to make decisions about its own heritage
Related Articles
Development puts Bath's UN heritage status at risk

Well its happening elsewhere, the blatent disregard for having World Heritage Status. The beautiful city of Bath is under threat of losing their status, at the hands of Property Developers Crest Nicolson whose PR firm appears to be none other than infamous PPS who are the spindoctors for Caltongate Developers, Mountgrange see PPSClientsRead the Icomosobjection to the Bath plans. It all sounds depressingly familiar doesn`t it? Unesco are the body responsible for World Heritage Sites. bathpreservationtrust and bathheritagewatchdog are doing their best to protect their citys` heritage.Here its the EdinburghWorldHeritageTrust and the CockburnAssociation along with concerned citizens.

Lesson no.2 in World Heritage Status

Today the UNESCO delegation are in the city of Bath BBC News and the lesson for all of us here in Edinburgh today is looking at what makes Edinburgh worthy of her World Heritage Status.

The World Heritage Committee ,

1. Having examined Documents WHC-08/32.COM/8B.Add and WHC- 08/32.COM/INF.8B1.Add,

2. Adopts the following Statement of Significance for the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh, United Kingdom:

Edinburgh has Outstanding Universal Values (OUVs) for the following reasons-

1. The remarkable juxtaposition of two clearly articulated urban planning phenomena. The contrast between the organic medieval Old Town and the planned Georgian New Town provides a clarity of urban structure unrivalled in Europe. The juxtaposition of these two distinctive townscapes, each of exceptional historic and architectural interest, which are linked across the landscape divide, the "great area" of Sir Walter Scott's Waverley Valley, by the urban viaduct, North Bridge, and by the Mound, creates the outstanding urban landscape.

2. The Old Town stretches along a high ridge from the Castle on its dramatically situated rock down to the Palace of Holyrood. Its form reflects the burgage plots of the Canongate, founded as an "abbatial burgh" dependent on the Abbey of Holyrood, and the national tradition of building tall on the narrow "tofts" or plots separated by lanes or "closes" which created some of the world's tallest buildings of their age, the dramatic, robust, and distinctive tenement buildings. It contains many 16th and 17th century merchants' and nobles' houses such as the early 17th century restored mansion house of Gladstone's Land which rises to six storeys, and important early public buildings such as the Canongate Tolbooth and St Giles Cathedral.

3. The Old Town is characterized by the survival of the little-altered medieval "fishbone" street pattern of narrow closes, wynds, and courts leading off the spine formed by the High Street, the broadest, longest street in the Old Town, with a sense of enclosed space derived from its width, the height of the buildings lining it, and the small scale of any breaks between them.

4. The New Town, constructed between 1767 and 1890 as a collection of seven new towns on the glacial plain to the north of the Old Town, is framed and articulated by an uncommonly high concentration of planned ensembles of ashlar-faced, world-class, neo-classical buildings, associated with renowned architects, including John and Robert Adam, Sir William Chambers, and William Playfair. Contained and integrated with the townscape are gardens, designed to take full advantage of the topography, while forming an extensive system of private and public open spaces. The New Town is integrated with large green spaces. It covers a very large area, is consistent to an unrivalled degree, and survives virtually intact.

5. Some of the finest public and commercial monuments of the New-classical revival in Europe survive in the city, reflecting its continuing status as the capital of Scotland since 1437, and a major centre of thought and learning in the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, with its close cultural and political links with mainland Europe.

6. The successive planned extensions from the first New Town, and the high quality of the architecture, set standards for Scotland and beyond, and exerted a major influence on the development of urban architecture and town planning throughout Europe.

7. The dramatic topography of the Old Town combined with the planned alignments of key buildings in both the Old and the New Town, results in spectacular views and panoramas and an iconic skyline.

8. The renewal and revival of the Old Town in the late 19th century, and the adaptation of the distinctive Baronial style of building for use in an urban environment, influenced the development of conservation policies for urban environments.

9. Edinburgh retains most of its significant buildings and spaces in better condition than most other historic cities of comparable value.

The property was inscribed under the following criteria:

Criteria (ii) Exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time....on developments in architecture....monumental arts, town planning or landscape design.

The successive planned expansions of the New Town, and the high quality of its architecture, set standards for Scotland and beyond, and exerted a major influence on the development of urban architecture and town planning throughout Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Criterion (iv)Be an outstanding example of a type of building or architectural ensemble whcih illustrates a significant stage in human history.

: The Old and New Towns together form a dramatic reflection of significant changes in European urban planning, from the inward-looking, defensive, wall medieval city of royal palaces, abbeys, and organically developed small burgage plots in the Old Town, through the expansive format Enlightenment planning of the 18th and 19th centuries in the New Town, to the 19th century rediscovery and revival of the Old Town with its adaptation of a distinctive Baronial style of architecture in an urban setting.

3. Recommends that assessment for statements of authenticity and integrity / statements of protection and management should be postponed to the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee (2009) awaiting adoption of a methodology and an agreed format for Statements of Outstanding Universal Value for inscribed properties.

See More on UNESCO website.


Read what ICOMOS UK thinks the risks are from Caltongate to the OUVs of the World Heritage Site in Edinburgh

A Lesson in World Heritage Status

Its time to swot up, as the UNESCO DELEGATION is visiting the capital next Thursday and Friday....

see www.eh8.org.uk for more details on visit.

The UK Government has signed the World Heritage Convention.

The UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) recommends potential World Heritage Sites to the World Heritage Committee via the World Heritage Centre.

WH Committee oversees nominations and state of sites, WH Centre is its body

The UK Government is a state party having signed the WH convention, DCMS being the relevant body.

Historic Scotland (on behalf of the Scottish Government) reports to DCMS which reports to the World Heritage Committee

UNESCO UK

MORE HERE

What is a World Heritage Site

Management Plan for Old & New Town World Heritage Site

ICOMOS UK Official Advisor on WH Sites

Historic Scotland

Scottish Government Reports on Caltongate make interesting reading.

It becomes clear from reading them, what role Historic Scotland has played - the reports keep citing Historic Scotland as the government's advisers 'not objecting' and saying that the development will not affect World Heritage status - well, they know differently now.

The report also states -"Historic Scotland had also sought to ensure there was a clear economic case to justify the demolition of the Canongate Venture building, which was in reasonable condition. Independent assessment of that business case commissioned by Historic Scotland, has agreed that the loss of that listed building is justified by the public benefit arising from the development. Following the revisions to the plans which have addressed their concerns, Historic Scotland consider the scheme to be acceptable."

Historic Scotland & Caltongate

The reports also say several times there are no issues of 'national importance' which indicates that the government planners don't know the role of the 'state party' in the World Heritage legislation.

In the same government document it says -

"The Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland,

The Canongate Community Forum,

The Cockburn Association,

The Edinburgh Old Town Association,

The Edinburgh World Heritage Trust,

The Old Town Community Council

and the Royal Park Terrace and Spring Gardens Residents' Association

are amongst those who have criticised the proposals due to these impacts"

Gosh thats not many then??

That same report goes on to say

" Architecture and Design Scotland while not commenting on the building designs in detail, commended the mixed use approach of the development and made suggestions on materials and design approach. • Scottish Enterprise and Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce support the development."

Remember this from Caltongate UNESCO`s biggest worry

"The pro-active role of the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce in promoting the development Caltongate Developer Manish Chande is head of the Chamber`s property portfolio group and in the past in The Evening News Ron Hewitt of Chambers Roots For Caltongate "

Also they say in one letter that the pend to the hotel is at ground level only -though the latest scheme took the opening up into the first floor?

It is obvious that everyone has a lot of revision to do, and probably should admit their mistakes and get together around a table and sort out the mess.

Edinburgh and her World Class Heritage should be seen as the Jewel in her crown and the everlasting key to economic success for the city, not as an albatross around her neck, as her own council, Historic Scotland and the Scottish Government appear to believe.

Or it could become the sad story to tell our grandchildren of how we killed

the goose that laid the golden egg.