World Heritage Day 2018: Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Tourism

Since 1982, the world has celebrated its heritage every year on April 18. Join us at Global Heritage Fund as we celebrate the strength and resiliency of our heritage as a source of identity, tradition, and pride.

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) has designated the “Heritage of Generations” as the theme for this year’s event. ICOMOS is calling on all of us to honor our youth as the standard bearers of our heritage and the future leaders in the fight for long-term, sustainable preservation of our past.

How can we empower our youth to be future leaders, preserving our historic sites and traditions? First, ICOMOS encourages us to encourage the transfer of knowledge and traditions from one generation to the next. The elders of our world are the bearers of our traditions, and they must protect and hand down their heritage to those who will come after them. This process of intergenerational transfer is at the core of our work here at Global Heritage Fund and a principle we seek to harness in our many projects around the world.

Second, we must empower our youth to become the next generation of heritage stewards. In our own work, we actively encourage young men and women to take pride in their past and seek to protect it for the future. At our former project site of Chavin de Huantar in Peru, we were proud to support the father-son duo of Alejandro and Alexander Espinoza. Starting as a field assistant, Alejandro rose to the position of Assistant Director at the site and his son, Alexander, is following in his footsteps as the first indigenous Chavino to attend university.

Although government agencies and organizations like Global Heritage Fund seek to protect the glories of our past, our work will always be a drop in the ocean compared to the daily acts of involved, passionate people. Heritage preservation is championed through local stewardship, like that of the Espinozas in Peru, which remains the firmest foundation stone of heritage conservation.

World Heritage Day 2018 provides us all an opportunity to engage with our past. More importantly, it encourages us to think deeply about how our heritage, how it has survived the tests of time and will remain with us many generations into the future.

How can you celebrate World Heritage Day? We’ve compiled a short list of ideas that will take you outside to celebrate the sights, sounds, and smells of heritage that are right in your backyard.

    1. Visit your local museum(s). Chances are you have a museum (or two!) nearby that hold a treasure trove of historical artifacts from the past. Whether representative of your town, state, country, or the world, these museums deserve your patronage – especially on World Heritage Day.
    2. Go to an inscribed heritage site. There are 1,073 places inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, allowing you to see support some of the world’s most outstanding places no matter where you are. And if you’re lucky enough to call Italy home, there are 53 sites for you to choose from.
    3. Pass down heritage to younger generations. Do you have children or grandchildren who would benefit from learning more about their heritage? Do you volunteer or work with people who you think would be interested in community histories? Take the time to sit down with younger folks and, in keeping with this year’s theme, pass down the living flame of our heritage to those who have not yet held it in their hands.
    4. Talk to your network about the importance of heritage. In our post on World Heritage Day from 2016, we talked about how heritage is all around us: “That fork you’re using to eat that spicy Thai food in front of your Apple computer during your daily lunch hour? Each one of those things would never have been possible without years of development. And yet, though these examples are legion in each and every culture, they’re taken for granted.” This year, take the time to reflect on the ubiquity and the importance of our cultural heritage and share these observations with interested parties.
    5. Plan a sustainable vacation. Thinking of going to Venice? Planning a jaunt to Angkor Wat? You might want to revisit those plans. These places are just a couple of the many sites severely impacted by overtourism, a serious issue that you can ameliorate by replacing your less sustainable trips with options off the beaten path. For example, if you’re still tempted by Angkor, there’s always GHF’s project site, Banteay Chhmar.

Warmest regards,

Stefaan Poortman
Chief Executive Officer
Global Heritage Fund