The monastery buildings of Kiev and the center of Lviv are in danger. “At risk of destruction” due to the Russian invasion, these sites were added to the UNESCO List of Human Heritage in Danger on Friday, September 15, at the 45th session of the World Heritage Committee in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. An inscription that the city of Venice, threatened by global warming and overtourism, once again escaped.
Today that list includes 56 sites, from the minaret and archaeological remains of Jam, Afghanistan, to the historic city of Zabid, Yemen.
Weakened by armed conflicts and wars, earthquakes and other natural disasters, but also environmental pollution, poaching, uncontrolled urbanization or the uncontrolled development of tourism, these places are the focus of particular attention.
Their inclusion on the list of World Heritage in Danger enables the World Heritage Committee, which meets annually, to provide immediate assistance to endangered properties within the framework of the World Heritage Fund.
War and global warming, criteria for “threat”
In the case of the Ukrainian sites, the 21 state representatives in the World Heritage Committee considered inclusion necessary. The St. Sophia Cathedral and the associated monastery buildings, the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, an important Orthodox monastery, as well as the entire historical center of the city of Lviv were thus placed on the list of endangered world cultural heritage.
“The optimal conditions are no longer present to fully guarantee the protection of the outstanding universal value of property threatened by the potential threats of war,” explains UNESCO, whose headquarters are in Paris. “Given the threat of direct attack, these locations are also vulnerable to the shock waves caused by the bombing of the two cities,” the organization’s press release said.
According to the 1972 Convention, a World Heritage property can be included on the List of World Heritage in Danger if the Committee concludes that its situation meets at least one of the criteria described in the “Operations”, a document that provides guidelines for the implementation World Heritage Convention.
Natural or culturally endangered sites may therefore be in a situation of “proven danger” when there are specific and identified imminent threats, or in a situation of “endangerment” when they are exposed to threats that have harmful effects on them could their world heritage value.
The second group of clergy officially inducted into the Ukrainian Armed Forces during a graduation ceremony at St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, Ukraine, June 23, 2023. © Andrew Kravchenko, AP
Cultural assets, the St. Sophia Cathedral of Kiev, the Pechersk Lavra of Kiev and the historical center of Lviv – as well as the historical center of Odessa since January last year – were added to the list due to “serious threats that have a detrimental impact on its essentials characteristics could have”. These threats correspond to the UNESCO criterion of “armed conflicts occurring or threatening to break out”.
In Ukraine, at least 248 sites have been damaged or destroyed as a result of the war, according to a UNESCO press release, which states that damage to the cultural sector has already cost 2.4 billion euros.
“In order to rebuild, but also to improve the situation, 6.9 billion dollars must be invested in the cultural sector of Ukraine over the next ten years,” warned last April the Director General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay on the sidelines of a working meeting with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
After registering Odessa, the UN agency wanted to strengthen its local actions, in particular to preserve and digitize the works, as well as to continue the protection of listed buildings at risk of bombing.
Last July, several buildings in central Odessa were hit, including the Transfiguration Cathedral, which was badly damaged by a Russian bombing raid.
“From the first days of the war, UNESCO stood with the Ukrainian people to help protect culture, heritage, education and the safety of journalists. These are the pillars of our humanity, our identity, the pillars of reconstruction and peace in the country,” emphasized Audrey Azoulay in April in front of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, which UNESCO described as “one of the most important monuments of architecture and monumental art of the early 11th century .Century” is viewed in Ukraine.
As a symbol of the “new Constantinople”, the capital of the Christian principality founded in the 11th century, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, in turn, contributed to the spread of Orthodox faith and thought on the European continent in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
Read also: The evacuation of icons from Kiev to the Louvre, an act of resistance of Ukrainian culture
For example, for natural sites that are in a situation of “demonstrated danger,” their listing may be justified by “a serious alteration to the natural beauty or scientific interest of the property, caused, for example, by human habitation,” or even “a serious decline in the population of endangered species that the property in question was legally established to protect.”
A “state of danger” occurs when the site is “subject to serious threats that could have adverse effects on its essential features.” These threats include a change in the legal status that protected it, an armed conflict, or even “threatening impacts of climatic, geological or other environmental factors.”
Last July, UNESCO experts recommended adding Venice to the list of World Heritage in Danger, believing that Italian authorities need to step up efforts to secure the “City of the Doges” and the lagoon surrounding it.
According to the United Nations cultural agency, the Serenissima is at risk of “irreversible” damage due to a number of problems, particularly climate change and mass tourism, two scourges regularly mentioned in these discussions.
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Visitors and tourists crowd near the Grand Canal during Venice Carnival on February 11, 2023. © Miguel Medina, AFP
Urge states to act
“The further development [de Venise]“The impacts of climate change and mass tourism threaten to irreversibly alter the outstanding universal value of property,” noted the World Heritage Center, a branch of UNESCO. Examples cited by the agency include sea level rise and other “extreme weather events.”
As was the case two years before, the “City of the Doges” narrowly escaped.
While the World Heritage Committee noted that the site still faces major challenges and called on Italy to continue protecting the site, it still decided against listing it on the list of sites in danger. “This decision takes into account UNESCO’s progress in recent days, in particular the establishment of a system to manage visitor flows from 2024,” a diplomat told AFP.
While the project had been put on hold for months, Venice finally decided to introduce a five-euro tax from 2024 that tourists visiting the city for a day will have to pay. A measure aimed at deterring some of the visitors who flood the city and its canals every day.
But Venice is not out of the woods yet. “The Committee reiterated its concern about the significant challenges that remain to be overcome for the proper conservation of the area, particularly related to mass tourism, development projects and climate change. He believes further progress needs to be made.”
An advisory mission from the World Heritage Center must also be invited by Italy, which is obliged to “submit a report by February 1, 2024 so that the conservation status of the site can be re-examined during the 46th session of the Committee in the summer of 2024”.
Last chance or disgrace
As UNESCO specifies, the inclusion of a site on the List of World Heritage in Danger “enables the Committee to provide immediate support to the property in danger under the World Heritage Fund.”
Everything must then be done to restore the site’s values and thus allow its removal from the list as quickly as possible.
A list that is not perceived equally by everyone involved. If, in fact, some countries themselves apply for the registration of a site in order to attract international attention and obtain expert help in solving the problem, others, on the other hand, want to avoid such registration, which they perceive as a disgrace and disgrace.
On September 15, just as UNESCO had announced that Venice had escaped classification, Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiulano was quick to hail “a victory for Italy and common sense.”
A reaction in particular to the environmental NGO Italia Nostra, whose president of the Venetian section welcomed the report by UNESCO experts who advocated the classification of Venice on the list of cultural heritage in danger. “Finally!” she replied, hoping that such registration would force the Italian government to take radical measures.
“The designation of a site as a World Heritage Site in Danger should not be viewed as a sanction,” reminds the UN agency, as it is rather a “system established to respond effectively to the needs of specific conservation requirements.”
In fact, if a site loses the characteristics that earned it inclusion on the World Heritage List and the State to which it belongs fails to fulfill its protection and conservation obligations, the Committee may decide to remove it from the UNESCO World Heritage List to delete. A decision that this time clearly undermines the reputation of the place.