UNESCO Officials Urge Global Action to Protect World Heritage from Climate Change, Conflicts

By Shim Sun-ah

BUSAN, July 20 (Yonhap) -- Top UNESCO officials on Monday called for an urgent "global awakening" and collective preventive measures to safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage from the escalating threats of climate change and armed conflicts.

Speaking at a press conference in South Korea's southeastern city of Busan, the host city of the 48th session of the World Heritage Committee, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture Nayef Al-Fayez emphasized that the ongoing destruction of heritage sites places a heavy responsibility on the global community to come together for a solution.

He strongly called for prioritizing preventive measures over post-disaster repairs, noting that while physical damage can sometimes be fixed, the mental toll on affected societies is rarely possible to overcome.

"Fulfilling this responsibility is not the task of governments alone," he said during the media event at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center in Busan, some 330 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

"It is also the role of those who are living there, working there, and visiting those sites, that collectively we should work together to make sure that these wonderful places and sites are protected and maintained in the right manners."

Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Center, echoed this urgency, warning that global heritage is currently under an "unprecedented strain."

He outlined multiple interconnected threats, including increasingly extreme weather events, natural disasters, deliberate attacks and growing human pressures.

"In this context, the responsibility of the committee meeting in Busan is not only greater than ever, but it's also decisive in shaping the international community's position on these complex issues," he said. "Our expectation is that it must serve as a catalyst for a global awakening. We must inspire a renewed and concrete commitment to protect the heritage that we cherish so deeply."

Earlier in the day, the committee unanimously adopted the "Busan Declaration on World Heritage" calling for stronger international cooperation to tackle mounting threats to cultural and natural heritage worldwide.

Assomo described the declaration as a profound and clear message from the committee that "we should not stop protecting heritage, but to the contrary we should reinforce it."

This year's session of the World Heritage Committee began earlier in the day following its opening ceremony on Sunday. It is the first such meeting to be hosted by South Korea since the country joined the UNESCO World Heritage Convention in 1988. The 10-day session is set to run until next Wednesday.