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GHF's The Forum on Global Heritage in a Developing World: Focus on Asia in the News

On May 3, 2012 at the Asia Society in New York, GHF hosted "The Forum on Global Heritage in a Developing World: Focus on Asia," a discussion of development challenges facing Asia’s most important and endangered heritage sites. The day-long event featured a diverse program of speakers and panelists, and was well-attended by leading experts in conservation, international development, venture philanthropy, technology, travel, academia and media.

GHF Featured in Fox Business: Preserving History Through Cultural Tourism

September 2009

Global Heritage Fund’s Jeff Morgan was interviewed on Fox Business with Brian Sullivan on the potential for cultural tourism to help developing countries. GHF was invited onto the show as part of their G20 Meeting coverage.

FOX Business with Brian Sullivan

Show Transcript:

BS: Well the ol’ saying goes that ‘you can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you are from’.

Our next guest has put a unique twist on that theory and his business by preserving historical sites and trying to boost the economies of developing countries through cultural tourism.

Jeff Morgan is the founder of the Global Heritage Fund. We join him now - thank you very much for coming on the program. You are a guy who was working in Silicon Valley very successful….and took your knowledge of business putting it use by trying to save. Historical sites.—not doing it purely for altruistic—I mean this is about helping these economy - how do you do it?

JM: Well, it’s also about helping people that live in very poor countries. So, you have a billion dollar site sitting there that can bring in hundreds of millions of dollars to a developing country like Guatemala that is devastated and has an economy in ruins and the big bright spot is these heritage sites like Tikal which brings in 400 million dollars a year. So this is the way that they can build their national pride and help the people in the country. And it doesn’t destroy the environment like mining and you know a lot of these other - logging – etc.

BS: Bagets and Bordeaux aside, I mean you and I before talked during the commercial break we were talking about France and now so many Americans go to France…..You’re trying to make sort of – More Paris around the world by making these places not only known but also more accessible I presume, and well a little safer as some people might feel nervous going to Tikal in a Guatemalan jungle.

JM: That’s right, the key is capacity building - of the governments and the local communities so that the they get it. A lot of times they don’t understand that these sites are very fragile that they can disappear if you put three million tourists on a 3000 year old city. It will disappear very quickly and we’re in this global crisis now where you have tourism exploding looting out of control. In these sites you’ve got uncontrolled development pressures so they’re basically bulldozing a lot of these ancient sites and it’s all happening on our watch, while we’re here.

BS: When you’re looking to raise money for your organization, you know people want to see retur. They want to say, okay Jeff, what have you done? So he worked in China and you’ve done some work in Vietnam. What types of changes have you seen at those locations that the Global Heritage Fund has invested in?

JM: Well, we’ve been working for seven years so we’re just getting off the block. So far, we put in about fifteen million dollars. More importantly is we’ve gotten the local people and the business people in these countries to match us. So in Guatemala, three million dollars—a group of ten companies came together. Wal-Mart, Citibank….. all these guys….. to help save their most important site. We hope we can turn this on and set a model.

For a dynamic private sector, foundations and corporations, and NGOs like us must be working together to solve this crisis.

BS: Does GHF work at any domestic locations? Obviously, they’re not nearly as old as some of the projects that you worked on but- are there any in the States that you might be looking at.?

JM: No - that’s the National Park Service, and we got a great one here. There are a lot of places [with major sites] that are two dollar a day places. The goal of our fund is working in economies where growing rice is their only option. And where it’s desperate. A lot of these places they’re taking the stones off the sites to build houses and the sites are being looted or they’re being bulldozed over for agriculture. So it is those economies where we work.

BS: What are a couple of your dream projects right now around the world?

JM: One of our newest nomination that’s in Colombia stabilized under Uribe is a site called Ciudad Perdida, or Lost City. In Guatemala is our biggest project and that’s got the largest pyramid in the world. In China, the remote heritage is China’s richest places. We can help the remote provinces especially with a new model.

BS: And if you can figure out what happened the Mayans let us know - one of the world’s greatest mysteries. Right—thanks so much, you do great work. I appreciate it.”