Leading historians, archaeologists and conservation specialists from eight neighboring countries have joined their Peruvian counterparts in Cusco this week to draw up a South American heritage action plan 2015-2020. The aim is to to define conservation strategies to be applied in each country and focus on certain priorities that will improve compliance with the World Heritage Convention, signed in 1972.
The delegates include the specialists and government officials from Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Kishore Rao, director of Unesco’s World Heritage Centre, opened the meetings with the Minister of Culture, Diana Alvarez-Calderón, and the head of the Latin America and Caribbean unit of the Centre, Cesar Moreno.
The discussions include sub-regional conservation strategies, cross-cutting and inter-institutional management of data, as well as sustainable tourism. Details are also being covered on risk management, impact assessment, and pilot projects, in compliance with a decision made at the World Heritage committee’s meeting in June last year in Doha, Qatar. The action plan drawn up this week will be presented to the 39th session of the committee, to be held this June in Bonn.
The Peruvian team is led by the deputy minister of Cultural Heritage, Juan Pablo de la Puente, and by the Culture Ministry’s director for Cusco, Ricardo Ruiz-Caro. The delegates include and government officials from Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.
