Ways+to+protect+and+preserve+UNESCO+Cultural+Heritage+sites.


 * toc **
 * Forum **: Economic and Social Council
 * Issue **: Measures to protect and preserve the UNESCO Cultural Heritage sites
 * Student ** **Officer**: YeEun Kim
 * Position **: Chair of the Economic and Social Council

=**Introduction **= A cultural heritage site is a location or site chosen by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that is of great importance in preserving valuable cultures, including monuments, groups of buildings, and archaeological sites (“World Heritage”). They are significant in various areas—art, history, culture, and religion, for example. One of the few ways traces and records of history have been left with us is cultural heritage sites. However, events in history have caused some of these cultural heritage sites to be destroyed. For example, the Library of Alexandria in Egypt was destroyed by a fire, and the Colossus of Rhodes in Greece collapsed after an earthquake (“Egypt”). Because of these occurrences, our ways of remembering our past and preserving our culture have been slowly fading away. Soon after the United Nations (UN) was formed, several countries emphasized the importance of maintaining and preserving each country’s cultural history. In 1964, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) created a worldwide campaign to begin to preserve valuable cultural heritage sites. UNESCO drafted a treaty with the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) that proposed to save cultural heritage (“Introducing UNESCO”). Although UN member states and UNESCO have shown efforts to preserve cultural heritage sites, there are so many cultural heritage sites that so many are being destroyed rapidly (“World Heritage”). It is crucial that solutions are made so that all cultural heritage sites are preserved, and all cultural heritage are preserved for each country (“ UNESCO World Heritage Centre”).

=**Key Organizations **= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">The main parties involved in solving this issue are UNESCO and ICOMOS. UNESCO is generally an organization that works in various areas—it creates “the conditions for dialogue among civilizations, cultures, and peoples, based upon respect for commonly shared values” (“Introducing UNESCO”). Specifically in working to prevent damages to cultural heritage sites, the World Heritage Committee is a part of UNESCO that meets every year to deal with issues related to preserving cultures (“ <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">The World Heritage Committee <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">”). ICOMOS is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that “works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places” (“Introducing ICOMOS”). It runs based on the 1964 International Charter on the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites. This NGO is made up of individual experts, including architects, archaeologists, and historians who meet together to efficiently restore heritage sites and to prevent any damage (“Introducing ICOMOS”).

=**<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Causes and Possible Solutions **= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">These cultural heritage sites have been ruined in different ways. Some of them have been damaged due to armed conflicts. Although member states have shown a considerable amount of effort and attention towards preserving these sites, armies have destroyed their opponents’ monuments such as museums while in war. For example, the Preah Vihear temple in Cambodia was damaged in 2011 during a Thai-Cambodian border fight ( <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Cambodia: Heritage Site Damaged in Border Fighting”) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">In order to prevent damaged caused by armed conflicts, the UN can send out its troops, Peacekeepers, to protect heritage sites during war, so that armies from each country would not damage the sites as much. Also, because the damage of these cultural heritage sites are usually unintentional, instead of coming up with solutions to prevent damage, there should be solutions that effectively help repair each cultural site in the future. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Some other cultural heritage sites are ruined in ways we cannot control. One way is through natural disasters. Because of occurrences such as earthquakes and tsunamis, a great number of heritage sites have been damaged (“ <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Protecting Cultural Heritage Sites from Earthquake Damage.”). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">For instance, Chilean heritage sites have been ruined because of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that occurred in 2010. Some include the Historic Quarter of the Seaport City of Valparaiso and Sewell Mining Town, which were designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2003 and 2006 respectively ( <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Damage to Chilean Heritage Sites Evaluated after Earthquake”) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">The only practical way to solve this issue would be to figure out ways to ensure that the infrastructure of heritage sites or monuments is sturdy enough so that they can withstand natural disasters. Relocating the sites may also be a possible solution if the infrastructure cannot be altered. However, delegates should also keep in mind that it would be useful to come up with ways to repair the cultural heritage sites efficiently, as we cannot control natural disasters (“ <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Protecting Cultural Heritage Sites from Earthquake Damage.”). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">In addition, cultural heritage sites may be harmed due to chemical transformation. Because the cultural sites stand for a long amount of time, it is inevitable that they transform in some chemical way. Adding onto these chemical transformations, human activities have also contributed to the changes occurring in cultural heritage sites (“Tangible Cultural Heritage”). In order to solve this aspect of the issue, it is important to know that chemical transformations normally happen because of the urban development in today’s world, since old monuments are exposed to foreign substances that are different from what was used in the past. It is especially crucial for heritage sites that are now used as museums where many people enter because of the exposure to strong lighting. Cultural sites used as tourist attractions would be protected more effectively if they were to be covered in a layer of protection from strong lighting.

=**<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Works Cited **= <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"Cambodia: Heritage Site Damaged in Border Fighting." //The Telegraph//. The Telegraph, 7 Feb. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">2011. Web. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk>. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"Damage to Chilean Heritage Sites Evaluated after Earthquake." //UNESCO World Heritage// //<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Centre //<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. <http://whc.unesco.org/en/>. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"Egypt." //- UNESCO World Heritage Centre//. Web. 17 Mar. 2012. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"><http://whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/eg>. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"Introducing ICOMOS." Web. 17 Mar. 2012. <http://www.icomos.org/en/>. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"Introducing UNESCO." Web. 16 Mar. 2012. <http://www.unesco.org/>. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"Protecting Cultural Heritage Sites from Earthquake Damage." //Past Horizons Archaeology News//. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Web. 16 Mar. 2012. <http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/>. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"Tangible Cultural Heritage." Web. 18 Mar. 2012. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"><http://www.unesco.org/new/en/cairo/culture/tangible-cultural-heritage/>. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"The World Heritage Committee." //UNESCO World Heritage Centre//. Web. 17 Mar. 2012. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"><http://whc.unesco.org/en/comittee>. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"UNESCO World Heritage Centre." //UNESCO World Heritage Centre//. Web. 17 Mar. 2012. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"><http://whc.unesco.org/en>. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"World Heritage." //UNESCO Centre//. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. <http://whc.unesco.org/en/about/>.