Address by Mr Federico Mayor. Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

Transcription

1 DG/95/28 Original: English Address by Mr Federico Mayor Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the Third International Symposium of the World Heritage Cities Bergen, 28 June 1995

2 Mr Chairman, Mr Minister of the Environment, Mr President of the Organization of World Heritage Cities, Distinguished Mayors of World Heritage Cities, Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen, Two years ago I had the pleasure of being present in Fez at the official launching of the Organization of World Heritage Cities (OWHC). I am delighted to be with you again today in another beautiful city, whose living past is preserved in the site of Bryggen, protected under UNESCO's World Heritage Convention. It is appropriate that this third International Symposium, devoted to the subject of communication between the members of the OWHC, should be taking place in Bergen. The history of Bergen - medieval maritime trading centre and subsequently part of the Hanseatic League's commercial empire - is bound up with intercultural communication and exchange. It is moreover the home town of Edvard Grieg, whose music speaks to peoples of all cultures while remaining the distillation of the spirit of Norway. My last visit to this city was two years ago on the occasion of the 40th Bergen International Festival, which coincided with the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Grieg's birth. By hosting this conference, the citizens of Bergen and their municipal administration under the dedicated leadership of Mayor Bengt Martin Olsen and his collaborators, notably Mr Audun Oiestad and Ms Siri Myrvoll, have demonstrated once again their sense of hospitality and communication - which is part of a larger national tradition of sharing and solidarity. Communication in the service of World Heritage preservation was also the message of UNESCO's first World Heritage Youth Forum and its Exhibit of Cities with World Heritage Sites, both of which were honoured by your presence yesterday. Intercultural communication is in fact the main theme and purpose of the entire project "Young People's Participation in World Heritage Preservation and Promotion", of which the Forum is but one part. Launched last year with very modest means, but employing the network of UNESCO's Associated Schools Project, it has aroused enthusiasm in all parts of the world. We are therefore planning to develop it as a new six-year programme - one in which, I hope, all your cities will eventually participate.

3 2 Before saying a few words about your organization, its potential as a "World Heritage communicator" and its co-operation with UNESCO, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the Government of Norway, the Norwegian National Commission for UNESCO and the City of Bergen for hosting what is in fact a triple event: the conference of the Organization of the World Heritage Cities, the UNESCO World Heritage Youth Forum and UNESCO's World Heritage Exhibit. Norway's readiness to undertake such a complex venture, bringing together municipal decision-makers and experts from some eighty cities from all regions of the world as well as students and teachers from some thirty-three countries, is a further mark of its support for international causes, its commitment to intercultural co-operation, its dedication to peace and, last but not least, its profound concern for children and young people. My thanks likewise go to all of you, representatives of the World Heritage Cities - and, in particular, to Mr Jean-Paul L'Allier, President of the OWHC, the Organization's Board of Directors, its Secretary-General and his team - for your inexhaustible enthusiasm and tireless efforts to develop a real spirit of solidarity and co-operation among World Heritage Cities. Nothing is more powerful - close as it is to ordinary people - than a network of mayors to pass on to everybody, everyday, the values intrinsic to our common dream. UNESCO needs and is grateful for friends such as you. Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Your President has made the point eloquently : through its Charter, your Organization is committed to the cause of peace, tolerance, respect for cultural difference and international solidarity. Its cause, in a word, is UNESCO's cause. How could it be otherwise given the message your historic cities communicate over time and space? They tell us that culture in all its manifestations is continuity but also invention; they are an invitation to creativity, which is synonymous with openness. At the same time, they signal across all frontiers that we are united by what distinguishes us; that - in the words of Rabindranath Tagore - "individuality is precious because only through it can we realize the universal". The notion of universality enshrined in the world heritage concept is a paradigm for the promotion of a genuine cultural pluralism.

4 3 We greatly welcome your support for UNESCO's goals and your commitment - in the words of your Charter - to "undertake initiatives aimed at achieving international solidarity with a view to promoting and sharing the Organization's objectives with respect to research, training and the exchange of knowledge in the field of conservation in World Heritage Cities and to assisting these cities to carry out such initiatives." With a view to the forthcoming session of the General Conference, I recently submitted to the governments of the 182 Member States of UNESCO the draft of a new Medium-Term Strategy for the period 1996 to It contains a paragraph (129) that will be of particular interest to you as representatives of World Heritage Cities. It states: "Preservation of the world heritage is such a vast undertaking that, in the long run, it can only be successful if there is active participation by local communities. New approaches must be developed in the areas of conservation and site maintenance, drawing on local traditions, techniques and knowledge. The local community, and its young people in particular, need to be made aware of the value of the property to be safeguarded - genuine 'heritage education' using both formal and informal means of education, needs to be developed. UNESCO will be working on this, in close collaboration with interested non-governmental organizations and the various 'heritage towns' networks already in place." A few years ago, speaking in Santa Fe on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, I stated that the task of safeguarding the world's cultural and natural heritage is an inherently challenging one. The challenge is that of promoting awareness of the importance of preserving an inheritance whose loss is irreparable for precisely the reason that its value is unquantifiable. It is that of mobilizing support - including the essential financial backing - for an undertaking that yields relatively few tangible "returns" to set against the all too tangible threats to which the heritage is subject. This challenge, Ladies and Gentlemen - representatives of World Heritage Cities - can be met by an organization such as UNESCO only if you and the citizens you represent mobilize to this end your creative imagination and all other means at your disposal. In this as in so many areas of endeavour, action at the local level it is vital to the achievement of relevant and long-lasting results. More and more, it is becoming apparent that the goals of the United Nations can only be realised if the "peoples of the United Nations" - in whose names those goals are affirmed

5 4 in the UN Charter - are effectively mobilized in their pursuit. The success of the World Heritage Convention depends ultimately on the responses of local populations. It depends on the citizens of your cities, and through you all the other cities of the world, committing themselves to the preservation of our common heritage. Implementation of the World Heritage Convention calls for democracy in action. As I recently wrote, and as you are well placed to know, "democracy is an active thing. It requires, particularly in matters of environment and development, many acts and gestures by private citizens, much feeling and commitment in order to carry through the very profound changes that we will have to pursue in establishing a better equilibrium with nature and a better equilibrium between the wealthy countries and the poor." This was of course the idea so persuasively expressed some years ago in Our Common Future by the World Commission on Environment and Development chaired by Norway's distinguished Prime Minister, Ms Gro Harlem Brundtland. The farreaching processes of globalization that are effectively limiting the powers of national governments and accelerating the transformation of every individual into a citizen of the world only increase the need for the democratic involvement of individuals and organizations - non-governmental, private and voluntary - in the shaping of our common future. Democracy means people shaping events rather than events shaping people. Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, UNESCO, as you know, has a relatively modest budget. From its creation, it was never meant to be a funding agency, but rather an intellectual forum dedicated to the development of international co-operation through thousands of professional and other networks in the fields of education, natural and human sciences, culture and communication with which the Organization works daily. Its force lies in the ability to mobilize these networks and, as an intergovernmental organization, to induce political leaders at the highest level to adopt measures consistent with the worldwide promotion of "international peace and (...) the common welfare of mankind." We must, upstream, mobilize action downstream. The World Heritage Convention, as you know, relies heavily on the services rendered by several important professional

6 5 networks, particularly those recognized by the Convention as its advisory bodies: the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and the Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). The network which you are developing is regarded by me personally and by the Secretariat as equally important for at least two reasons. Firstly, with your help the World Heritage Committee, and all of UNESCO, should understand better the needs and problems which are specific to your cities as "guardians" of World Heritage properties. Secondly, as indicated earlier, it is through your network, and by linking your network to other UNESCO networks in the fields of culture, education, sciences and communication, that we can best reach millions - even hundreds of millions - of people whose mobilization in favour of World Heritage preservation is of crucial importance. The development of a specialized World Heritage Cities databank, already mentioned by Mr L'Allier as a project initiated in the past year by the Secretariat of the OWHC in collaboration with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and other partners, is of fundamental importance in this regard. It is seen as an important potential component of the Integrated Global World Heritage Information Network which will be devised in September at the Experts Meeting on World Heritage Information Management, convened by UNESCO's World Heritage Centre. The meeting will be attended by the representatives of ICCROM, ICOMOS, IUCN, ICOM, and a number of other specialized organizations, including your own. We are all conscious that the new information technologies such as electronic mail, INTERNET, and geographic information systems offer extraordinary - and increasingly cheap possibilities for strengthening partnerships between site managers, relevant organizations, potential investors/donors and the public. This potential, however, remains as yet dispersed and largely unused. How it can be exploited, from the UNESCO and the WHC perspective, will be explored during this symposium by my collaborators. They will also discuss with you a number of specific projects, such as UNESCO's coordination of the restoration of the Old Towns of Vilnius, Timbuktu, Fez, Cartagena, Dubrovnik, to mention only some examples. For my part, I would invite you to consider during your deliberations in Bergen the possible advantages of developing jointly with UNESCO's World Heritage Centre a series of networks which, integrated into a common system, could more effectively cater to the specific needs of cultural regions and/or

7 6 subregions. Such networks could, for instance, provide links among cities with World Heritage sites whose architecture bears the imprint of the Mediterranean cultures, or those that share the characteristics of Northern Europe, of South America, of the Caribbean, the Islamic cities, or those of East and Central Europe in transition from command to market economies. While World Heritage sites in the different regions share many management and other problems, they also have area-specific needs. This was clearly indicated in the request addressed to me by the participants in the international symposium "Protection and Management of UNESCO World Heritage in East-Central Europe", convened in September 1993 by three Polish World Heritage cities, Cracow, Warsaw and Zamosc, in co-operation with UNESCO. It is for this reason that I place great hopes in the setting up, on a pilot basis, with the Norwegian Government and in consultation with the Governments of other Nordic countries, of a UNESCO World Heritage Office in Norway. The purpose of this Office is to enhance the implementation of the Convention in Northern Europe through co-operation with governmental and nongovernmental institutions, site managers, various associations and all other interested partners - with particular reference to increasing the effectiveness of the periodic monitoring of the sites. Mr Chairman, Dear Friends, In the land of Henrik Ibsen, may I reiterate my firm belief that a genuine culture of democracy and peace can only flourish if it has strong local roots. This was surely Ibsen's essential message in his great and much debated drama Enemy of the People. As I wrote in my recent book The New Page, "profiles in courage are drawn most sharply when we see examples of men and women who confront the fears and prejudices shared by their friends and neighbours and who summon them to live up to higher principles. Local acts of ethical leadership bolster the possibility of a national and international 'politics of principle'." Our watchword must be: Build peace in the minds of men! Reject intolerance and foster non-violence and love! For a strong advocate of a culture of peace, it is a great comfort to know that you are helping to anchor a spirit of intercultural understanding in the hearts and minds of the citizens living in World Heritage Cities. To cross the great divide from a culture

8 7 of war rooted in coercion, violence and injustice and move toward a culture of peace based on dialogue and sharing will require immense efforts. Your commitment to the local protection of the heritage - in accordance with article 5 of the World Heritage Convention - is of great value in itself. Your determination at the same time to promote the spirit of the Convention is perhaps of greater importance still. As I never tire of repeating, the most precious monuments of all are the children who will carry forward the human adventure into a new millennium. Our supreme task therefore is to help create the culture of peace in which they will survive and prosper. Let me conclude by wishing each and every one of you success in these efforts, and by expressing my hope and belief that the Organization of World Heritage Cities will become a powerful force for the protection of the heritage in the promotion of a culture of peace. We have the key, as the President has indicated in his address : it is to look together towards the future.