Thinking about World Heritage

I have been corresponding with James R., a colleague, about UNESCO's World Heritage program. He got me to thinking about world heritage in the context of Rio + 20 and its focus on environment, society, economy and culture. I have long thought that we too often celebrate sites created as imperial ostentation as our heritage. Think of the pyramids of Egypt as the result of absolute monarchy, obsessive religiosity, huge amounts of human labor that could better have been used in other pursuits, and extreme inequality of wealth; why would we celebrate that?

We might better seek sites to celebrate as world heritage that:

• come from democratic rather than authoritarian political systems;
• are modest rather than ostentatious;
• are not only environmentally sustainable but reflect a love of the land and nature;
• are enjoyed by the majority rather than a thin elite sector of the population;
• are authentic to the living culture that they serve.

I was thinking that Canyon de Chelly and its link with the Navajo nation. It combines many of these factors, but high rates of diabetes and alcohol related deaths suggest that the Navajos face significantly worse health conditions, as well as low income and perhaps worse housing than the average person in Arizona. It seems to me that a site to be considered worthy of celebration it should be one in which inhabitants prosper at least in health and physical wellbeing.

Sustainable development implies change, yet we seek to preserve cultural heritage. The Navajo nation appears to me to do quite well in choosing aspects of its cultural heritage to maintain while adopting changes that its people feel are worthwhile.

I suggest that we seek sites that are not static, but that adopt novel elements that are consistent with heritage and improve that heritage for the future.

I wonder about the Martin Guitar factory. It has produced guitars loved by musicians and the public for more than a century. Workers in the factory practice a fine craft, and as far as I understand work in a great facility and generally stay for an entire working lifetime.

Half a century ago I lived in the student coop at Cloyne Court. Built in 1904, and designed by the architect who laid out the Berkeley campus design, the building does in fact have architectural merit. More than that, it is the largest facility of the largest student coop in the United States. It has been home to many thousands of students who lived in a democratic system while studying in one of America's great universities. That seems to me worth celebrating.

Incidentally, the national park movement began in the United States and I see it as not only preserving our heritage of the natural world, but also as a gem of our cultural heritage. American culture has produced a number of people who fought hard to preserve Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Everglades, as well as a public and political leaders who would support the movement. It is not incidental that the first national parks were created in the United States, nor that the United States played a key role in making the national park movement international.