On 31 July, the 44th session of the World Heritage Committee concluded in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, after completing its agenda, marking the second time that China has hosted the conference. As an important participant in the world heritage system, China is not only reflected in the application and protection of many world heritage sites, but also in gradually forming a legal plan for world heritage protection, and establishing an integrated and unique understanding of world heritage values.
What rule of law wisdom has China contributed to the protection of World Heritage sites? How to build a long-term mechanism for the protection of World Heritage Sites? Around these issues, a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily recently interviewed Lu Zhou, director of the National Heritage Center of Tsinghua University. At this World Heritage Conference, Lu Zhou was invited to participate in the side event on “Conservation and Sustainable Development of Urban Historic Landscapes”, and he was also the person in charge of the compilation team of the “Beijing Central Axis” inscription text.
The rule of law protects the world’s treasures
Continuously contribute Chinese wisdom
Reporter: In 1972, UNESCO held its 17th session in Paris and adopted the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, reaching an international consensus on the protection of world cultural and natural heritage. China acceded to the Convention in 1985. How do you view China’s legal guarantee for the protection and development of world heritage?
Lv Zhou: World Heritage has three basic pillars – first, it must conform to outstanding universal values; The second is to ensure the integrity of authenticity; The third is the state of protection, and the construction of the rule of law is a very important part of the state of protection.
World Heritage legislation requires a combination of two aspects. In terms of trends, more and more emphasis is placed on holism, the combination of nature and culture, the combination of material and immaterial. From the perspective of rule of law construction, China clearly recognizes this trend of protection development, and integrates these contents in legislation to form a more holistic legal framework for protection, which is an institutional innovation.
China has written the basic principles of ecological civilization construction and historical and cultural protection into the Constitution, promulgated more than 330 laws, regulations and normative documents at all levels, from the central to the local level, and established a relatively complete monitoring and research system for the protection and management of world heritage. At present, more than 11,800 nature reserves have been established, accounting for about 18% of the land area, and the construction of national cultural parks such as the Great Wall and the Grand Canal and the Yellow River cultural heritage corridor is being promoted.
Reporter: Suzhou in 2004 and Fuzhou in 2021, China has twice been the venue of the World Heritage Conference. In the past 17 years, how has China’s world heritage protection industry undergone changes?
Lv Zhou: In the past 17 years, China has not only entered the forefront of the world in terms of total heritage volume, but also caught up in many aspects such as heritage concept, global vision, heritage practice, protection methods and capabilities. From Suzhou to Fuzhou, the dialogue and coordination skills of Chinese heritage experts have also improved significantly.
The active participation of Chinese experts in this session of the World Heritage Conference has made important contributions to the development of the cause of world heritage protection.
The Assembly discussed the “pre-procedure” for declarations. The “pre-procedure” is designed to help States Parties review projects before submitting formal nominations, improve the level of nominations by States Parties, and increase the success rate of declarations. Chinese experts believe that this agenda should be supported and wisdom contributed, as this can help most States Parties to better articulate the value of heritage.
The “Beijing Central Axis” was inscribed
Simultaneous promotion of protection regulations
Reporter: At the side event of the World Heritage Conference on “Conservation and Sustainable Development of Urban Historic Landscapes”, the protection management and research results of the “Beijing Central Axis” have become a hot spot of concern for all parties. What lessons does the overall protection of Beijing’s old city provide for the preservation of the world’s urban historic landscapes?
Lv Zhou: Guided by the application of the “Beijing Central Axis”, the protection practice of Beijing’s old city is highly consistent with the concept and method of urban historical landscape protection advocated and called by UNESCO, and will also promote further exploration of urban historical landscape protection in Beijing.
In 2011, UNESCO adopted the Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscapes, which points out the direction for further protection of historic cities. It calls for a holistic view of all aspects of the city, not just historic buildings in isolation, but also broader environmental elements, including community elements, human participation and sustainable development.
China is very far ahead in this regard. As early as 2006, China issued many relevant laws and regulations, including measures for the protection and management of world heritage, application methods, inspection methods, etc., and the Great Wall and the Grand Canal have their own protection and management regulations. Generally speaking, from the perspective of cultural heritage, China is at the forefront of the rule of law in the world.
Quanzhou, which has recently been inscribed on the World Heritage Protection List, also passed the Quanzhou Heritage Protection Regulations a few years ago. We are now working on the application of the “Beijing Central Axis”, and we are also working on relevant protection regulations.
How can the overall protection of Beijing’s old city be formed? We noticed that the central axis is a very important “backbone” that connects many historic districts together to form an overall understanding of the old town. In the conservation process, we also took special account of the surrounding mountains and water systems, and their relationship with the old city of Beijing.
At present, the protection practice of Beijing’s old city, guided by the application of the “Beijing Central Axis”, is highly consistent with the concept and method of urban historical landscape protection advocated by UNESCO, and provides a “Beijing model” for the protection of historical urban landscapes in the world.
Many challenges cannot be ignored
Long-term mechanisms need to be improved urgently
Reporter: The complex situation facing the protection of World Heritage is an important topic of common concern to the participants of this World Heritage Conference. What do you think are the main challenges facing World Heritage conservation today?
Lu Zhou: At present, we are mainly facing the contradiction between the protection and development of world heritage in cities, and the new threat brought by climate change to world heritage protection.
The Fuzhou Declaration adopted at this session of the World Heritage Committee speaks of many new challenges to be addressed in the future. For example, climate change will affect the protection of World Heritage sites – Tibet used to be very arid, but now that rainfall has increased, the heritage form that used to adapt to arid areas will now face new problems; Rising sea levels will affect migratory bird habitats in Yancheng tidal flats; Many wooden buildings will also face new termite problems; The recent extreme weather in places such as Zhengzhou, Henan Province, will also have an impact on heritage protection.
At the same time, the development of tourism is also a challenge. Many heritage sites are now saying they want to strictly control the number of visitors.
World Heritage sites themselves are irreproducible and irreparable once damaged. Therefore, we should emphasize high-quality development, improve the level of cultural heritage value transmission, and let more people understand the value of heritage.
The Fuzhou Declaration adopted by the World Heritage Conference proposes to promote heritage education. This does not mean cultivating professionals, but to talk about the significance of World Heritage and its outstanding universal value among the whole people. At a time when there is a gap in this area, it is very important to permeate World Heritage education into primary schools so that students can learn from an early age about the value of the heritage of their own location.
Reporter: How do you think we should use the rule of law to establish and improve a long-term mechanism?
Lu Zhou: China has incorporated the protection of world heritage into its national strategy and built a relatively complete world heritage protection, management and monitoring system. In terms of responsibility implementation, China has corresponding cultural relics protection units and its own responsibility management agency, and responsibilities can be implemented in detail; In terms of trading, there are also corresponding laws and regulations, although there are now more scattered cultural relics in society, but they will not cause major problems; In terms of combating and preventing crimes against cultural relics, at present, due to the weakening of punishments, the deterrence of criminals will also be relatively weakened, which may be a potential risk.
In the future, we should focus on strengthening the study of core provisions such as human, financial, and material security, institutional innovation, and sound mechanisms for the protection and utilization of cultural and natural heritage, and have fewer principled, macroscopic, and outline provisions, and more substantive, concrete, and operable provisions, so that the provisions of laws and regulations are clear, specific, and effective, and the management rules and regulations are broken.
□ Zhao Li, reporter of this newspaper
□ Xie Yihong, an intern of this newspaper