Cultural heritage encompasses a wide range of physical objects, monuments and sites as well as social practices, art forms, beliefs and other non-material elements that contribute to the identity of societies and peoples. These include tango and flamenco, Viennese coffee house culture, traditional craftsmanship, Chinese shadow puppetry, Vedic chanting, the Mediterranean diet and Kabuki theatre.
It also encompasses architecture, archaeological remains and ruins, and natural landscapes. The World Heritage Committee, established by the UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, lists over 1,100 cultural and natural sites that are considered important to humanity. These sites are usually places of historical interest, as well as possessing artistic, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological significance.
These cultural heritage “assets” require care and attention. They are prone to weathering and decay, which requires the right amount of investment and the right kind of expertise to ensure that they can be restored and preserved for generations to come. It can be hard to balance these needs with the competing demands for public funding, particularly in poor countries that need to invest heavily in education, health and infrastructure.
The loss of cultural heritage during armed conflict or disaster is especially devastating, as the irreplaceable historic cities of Aleppo and Mosul have demonstrated. The work of the Blue Shield is founded on the belief that cultural heritage – whether tangible or intangible – is one of the fundamental expressions of unique communities, and that protecting this cultural heritage is a human right.
It is now possible to take a more holistic approach to protecting heritage, moving beyond the idea of simply safeguarding physical items from destruction to incorporating it into an active process of renewal and preservation. This is the approach that UNESCO takes in the field of intangible cultural heritage, where it recognises that intangible heritage is not static, but constantly created and recreated by communities in response to their religious, political and sociocultural environment, and that this process must be respected.
UNESCO also recognises that a living heritage must sometimes evolve in order to remain viable, and that it is essential for intangible cultural heritage to be understood as an element of global interconnectedness. To this end, it encourages a holistic approach to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, which embraces the values of mutual respect and openness that are enshrined in its UNESCO Convention.
UNESCO also promotes the idea that cultural heritage can be a tool for sustainable development, by providing communities with an opportunity to enhance their sense of identity and pride in their cultural traditions, whilst strengthening ties between different cultures through knowledge exchange. In this way, a richer and more inclusive cultural heritage can be created, and in turn, this can help to foster peace and understanding between peoples. This is an approach that is in line with the philosophy of the UNESCO Charter for Cultural Diversity, adopted in 2005.