This month-long capacity building activity involved 19 participants from 11 countries and showcased the many important experiences had managing heritage places in the region, including urban and protected areas, cultural landscapes, and archaeological sites.
Delivered by our ICCROM-IUCN World Heritage Leadership (WHL) programme with support from the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Promoting People-Centred Approaches to the Conservation of Nature and Culture, also known as PNC22 LAC, was held online from 2 to 28 February 2022, with participants and resource people meeting three times a week.
Joining from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Puerto Rico, the participants learned more about place-based and people-centred approaches to the management of heritage places, including World Heritage properties. They were also introduced to upcoming resources being prepared by the WHL programme in cooperation with ICOMOS and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
Participants shared with colleagues and resource people the work they do in managing their heritage places in cooperation with Indigenous and local communities and other stakeholders. A team of 23 resource people, of which 16 were from the LAC region, contributed additional experiences and case studies from Argentina, Belize, Guatemala, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico.
In attendance were four institutional observers representing the National Institute of Anthropology (INAH) and the Regional World Heritage Institute in Zacatecas, Mexico. The participation of institutions is key for developing regional capacity building activities and strengthening cooperation around implementing the World Heritage Convention in the LAC region.
During the course, participants applied tools and knowledge from the Enhancing Our Heritage 2.0 toolkit, the Guidance and Toolkit for Impact Assessment in a World Heritage context and the Manual for Managing World Heritage. These resources will be published this year and will continue to be widely disseminated in courses and capacity building activities organized by WHL.
In coming months, the organizing team will work with participants to share their inspiring regional case studies as solutions on the PANORAMA Nature-Culture portal.
More about People-Nature-Culture
People-Nature-Culture is the flagship course on heritage management by the World Heritage Leadership Programme, a partnership between ICCROM, IUCN, and the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and the Environment, in collaboration with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS.
PNC22 LAC was jointly organized by the WHL programme, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre through the Latin America and the Caribbean Unit, and the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea. Since 2019, the Cultural Heritage Administration of the Republic of Korea has been the activity partner supporting all PNC courses and will host the PNC Forum in late 2022.