SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS
- Role and Mandate of World Heritage Site Managers:
- Matching the scope and breadth of managers’ work to available resources: clearly defining their role and aligning their soft and hard capabilities with the needs of each site.
- Empowering managers in decision-making: acting as coordinators and decision-makers, influencing lawmaking, and serving as a link between stakeholders.
- Global Contribution of Managers: raising awareness in civil society and advocating for sustainable development, climate change, and other global issues.
- Developing managers’ capacities and participating in national and international exchanges is important and will further prevent the common isolation felt by managers.
- Defining common and specific roles and competencies for managers and recognizing them in UNESCO’s operational guidelines. Defining the range of competencies required for effective site management.
2. Climate Change Challenges:
- Mitigating the impact of climate change on heritage sites requires an interdisciplinary approach, including reducing energy consumption, promoting sustainable building practices, and adapting to changing environmental conditions.
- Raising public awareness, investing in research and education, and integrating cultural heritage into climate action strategies.
- Protecting heritage involves researching the effects of climate change, developing mitigation and adaptation strategies, and integrating these approaches into preventive conservation practices.
- Management must also address ecosystem changes that can lead to the loss of animal and plant species and affect natural values.
- Applying the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) model to World Heritage sites, determining what environmental impacts of “desirable” social activities are acceptable and determining management actions to ensure that activities remain restricted within the LACs.
3. Sustainable Tourism Opportunities:
- Utility of the tools and recommendations provided by the 1972 Convention, the World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme, and the ICOMOS International Charter for Cultural Heritage Tourism 2022
- The presentation and interpretation of World Heritage properties should enhance communication and awareness-raising with tools that respect authenticity and integrity, both through scientific research and experiential knowledge, raising awareness among society at large and among tourism stakeholders at the local level.
- Responsible visitor management requires indicators that allow for monitoring and modulating the overall carrying capacity (the physical, conservation-related, ecological, social, psychological, and managerial capacity, as well as the capacity of other services surrounding the property). Capacity building in this area is necessary, as well as training and support for experts to assist and advise on the practical application of these tools.
- Promotion should be based on heritage values and OUV and should not aim to attract a mass audience, but rather genuinely interested and respectful visitors, in order to enhance the experience. Participatory governance is tailored to each site and requires coordinating bodies to overcome restrictions in terms of jurisdiction and ownership. It must be inclusive but qualified, informed, and accountable.
- Participatory governance is tailored to each site and requires coordinating bodies to overcome restrictions in terms of jurisdiction and ownership. It must be inclusive but qualified, informed, and accountable.
4. Good and Bad Management Practices:
- The existence of a management system is key, and the management plan is a tool that must be based on integrative approaches.
- The management plan must be a practical, effective, and dynamic document that reviews governance/decision-making processes to facilitate policy formulation and implementation.
- Implementation of the MP requires the empowerment and training of stakeholders, in which political will is essential.
- Conservation: Between OUV and Development: World Heritage sites must be living places, and the IPE must be integrated into the design and planning phases of projects.
- World Heritage is perceived as an obstacle to development.
- Difficult coordination between different national development plans/strategies/applicable legislation.
- World Heritage emblem and logo.
- It is difficult to know how and when to use them, as the line between commercial and non-commercial use is sometimes very thin.
- The logo can enhance a sense of pride for local communities and raise awareness about the site and its importance.
- Monitoring: between strengths and weaknesses. The state of conservation of the property’s attributes versus daily management, which can be addressed with good indicators.
- Who supervises and who is responsible for data analysis?
- Difficulty collecting data and planning for the long term, overwhelmed by daily management.
- Management is often reactive rather than proactive/anticipatory.
5. Communication: Building Bridges and Raising Awareness
- Effective communication is essential for the safeguarding and sustainable management of World Heritage sites. A deep understanding of a site’s heritage values—both tangible and intangible—forms the foundation for meaningful communication.
- The benefits of collaboration and networking: A structured network of World Heritage site managers can foster the exchange of good practices in communication and interpretation, and in any other field.
- Greater awareness of the fundamental principles of the World Heritage Convention is needed, especially among decision-makers in local and national governments and heritage institutions.
- Stronger funding mechanisms to support communication work, along with capacity building in fundraising and resource mobilization.
- Improved staff training and professional development in communication, interpretation, and heritage presentation. Resource mobilization