UNESCO Regional Meeting for Caribbean SIDS on National Heritage Laws
The National Parks Authority hosted the UNESCO Regional Meeting for Caribbean SIDS on National Heritage Lawson the 22nd-24th of October 2024 in Nelson’s Dockyard National Park. The UNESCO sponsored program brought delegates from across the English-speaking Caribbean region and Suriname to discuss the state of heritage protections and legislation in their respective counties.
The workshop featured Professor Craig Forrest from the University of Queensland, Australia and one of the original drafters of the Model Law on Underwater Cultural Heritage Protection, and Dr. Ulrike Guerin from UNESCO’s Secretariat for implementation of the 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.
The meeting was organized and supported by the UNESCO Office for the Caribbean based in Kingston, Jamaica, which was represented by Yuri Peshkov.
The delegates consisted of heritage and legal professionals, from Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent & the Grenadines and Suriname. The group spent three days reviewing the model legislation and a draft version of Antigua and Barbuda’s Cultural Heritage (Protection) Bill.
The discussions ranged from how to protect tangible heritage, empower private owners to maintain their heritage structures, and create national inventories of heritage sites.
Additional discussions were held on how to measure the economic value of protecting heritage, on the value of heritage tourism, and commercial models for sustainably and responsibly using heritage sites to support employment and wealth creation. There was a general consensus among the attendees that heritage should be a driver of economic sustainability.
The delegates were also treated to tours of the UNESCO World Heritage Site and Nelson’s Dockyard National Park as well as discussions about how Antigua and Barbuda’s National Park provided a model for balancing heritage management while fostering economic growth.
Parks Commissioner Mrs. Ann Marie Martin challenged the attendees with thinking about heritage protection holistically, incorporating sustainable financing, supporting traditional knowledge and skills, and creating spaces for communities to flourish culturally and economically.
The attendees completed the workshop energized to bring the knowledge back to their respective countries to not only push for heritage legislation, but also reinvigorated after seeing the protection model of Nelson’s Dockyard National Park.
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