World heritage meeting urges better protection of heritage

The 40th session of the World Heritage Committee, now underway in Istanbul, on Monday called for more efforts to fight against damages being done to heritage sites worldwide.

The meeting adopted a declaration voicing "serious concern" about the destruction of cultural heritage sites around the globe, in particular growing deliberate attacks on them.

Since 2014, the Islamic State group has been deliberately destroying cultural heritages in Syria, Iraq and Libya, targeting various places of worship and historical artifacts.

The declaration said the members of the committee were also "deeply distressed" by the increase in illegal excavations, looting and illicit trafficking of artifacts.

The negative impact of other factors on heritage properties, like climate change, environmental hazards and increasing social and economic pressure, was recognized as well in the document.

Reaffirming the commitment made at its last session in Bonn, Germany in 2015 to strengthen the international protection of cultural and natural heritage, the committee's members called for "innovative and effective" solutions from all states parties as well as their integration of heritage protection into policy-making processes and security strategies.

"The UNESCO has created considerable pressure on the shoulders of international community, especially at the political level, in preventing the illegal trafficking of cultural heritage," Francesco Bandarin, assistant director general of the UN cultural agency, said at a press conference.

He stressed, however, that the agency does not have all the tools needed to counter illegal trafficking.

He drew attention to the fact that 95 percent of the objects found in markets around the world are not stolen but rather illegally excavated.

As organized crime rings are behind the chain of trafficking the artifacts from the excavation sites to markets in may parts of the world, "anyone can actually buy Syrian, Iraqi or Malian heritage from these markets," said Bandarin.

"If you believe in heritage preservation, if you believe in the heritage as a component of social life, you have to support us," he added. "We should multiply our efforts."

Nabi Avci, Turkey's minister of culture and tourism, noted that illegal trafficking in cultural relics has become an important means of financing for terrorist groups.

"Terrorists have established the biggest ever illegal market where they sell the world cultural relics," he said at the press conference.

Avci called on the international community to show greater solidarity in countering the destruction of cultural heritage properties in war zones.

At its 11-day Istanbul session, the World Heritage Committee under the UNESCO will also review the nominations of 27 new sites to the prestigious World Heritage List.

Previously the number stood at 29, but Thailand and Croatia had withdrawn their nominations, said Mechtild Rossler, director of the World Heritage Center.

"In some cases when the recommendation of the advisory bodies is not positive, then the state party prefers to withdraw to make their sites better," she told reporters.

As of now, the World Heritage List has 1,031 sites in more than 160 countries.

The heritage committee will also examine the state of 156 sites already on the heritage list and the List of World Heritage in Danger.

Some 2,500 people from around the world are participating in the annual session of the heritage committee, which was formed in 1977 to enforce the World Heritage Convention and manage the heritage list created based on the convention. Endit