Marie-Noël Tournoux, WHITR-AP

ISCCL Expert Member, France

I participated in the 48th session of the World Heritage Committee as a member of staff at WHITR-AP Shanghai, UNESCO Category 2 Centre, where I followed several discussions and initiatives related to cultural landscapes, urban heritage and the relationship between urban and rural territories.

Over the past several years, WHITR-AP has been working to promote large-scale, heritage-led territorial approaches, with particular attention to the links between culture and nature, tangible and intangible heritage values, and the relationships between urban and rural areas. This work is closely connected to the promotion and operationalisation of the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach, while also recognising the importance of cultural landscapes as living and evolving territories.

One initiative we highlighted during 48COM was the Urban-Rural Heritage Conservation in Higher Education Institutions (UHC-HEI) international network, launched by WHITR-AP in 2023. The network seeks to rethink educational practices around urban-rural heritage conservation and to encourage collaboration between academia, international organisations and professional networks. Its members include institutions and organisations from across Africa, the Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, North America and Latin America. ICOMOS committees and forums, as well as IFLA, are among the organisations participating in this global network.

We also organised a side event on 22 July, where WHITR-AP launched the Heritage Hub: Urban-Rural Heritage Conservation and Sustainable Development. Initiated by WHITR-AP in collaboration with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, UN-Habitat and the Heritopolis Society, the project explores the relationship between heritage and the contemporary metropolis, with particular attention to the urban-rural continuum. While much of this work focuses on living landscapes, the approach can also be adapted to other types of heritage according to the specific characteristics of each territory.

The discussions at 48COM also raised broader questions for the ISCCL community. The continued emphasis on the Nairobi Document and Priority Africa provides an opportunity to think critically about how we understand values, attributes and the management of change, particularly in large-scale World Heritage properties and cultural landscapes. There is considerable scope to explore how urban-rural relationships, Indigenous Peoples’ engagement and the identification of heritage values might inform future approaches to cultural landscape conservation and management.

At the same time, these discussions need to remain firmly grounded in the statutory framework of the World Heritage Convention. There is an exciting opportunity to rethink and expand our approaches to values and management, but this should not come at the expense of the Convention’s established framework. The challenge, therefore, is to find ways of encouraging innovation while avoiding ambiguity or approaches that become detached from the principles and mechanisms of the Convention.

These questions could provide fertile ground for further discussion within ISCCL, bringing together theory and practice around the identification, acknowledgement, conservation and management of heritage values. A future ISCCL working discussion or report could explore these issues, drawing on existing research and practice while also identifying areas where greater clarity is needed.

The evolution of the World Heritage Committee itself also deserves continued reflection. The discussions at 48COM highlighted both the opportunities and challenges facing the Convention, reinforcing the importance of informed professional engagement and of maintaining space for critical, constructive dialogue within the World Heritage community.