Protecting our heritage, citizens and communities

The World Heritage Convention is at the forefront of heritage conservation and represents the technical processes of protection and management with limited community voice. While Article 5 of the Convention directs that heritage should have a role in the daily life of communities, to benefit people and the intergovernmental systems. There are limited roles in the World Heritage process that can be taken up by citizens and communities. As we look forward, the coming decades bring accelerated challenges with climate impacts, civil unrest, diasporas and more. The World Heritage system needs to be reframed to address these diverse challenges, and take up the opportunities to address the pressing issues of the 21st century, with heritage as a strong component of solutions at the community level.

This session is held online, and hosted from Palazzo Coppini, supported by the Fondazione Romualdo Del Bianco, Firenze (Italy).

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Welcome and moderation

Mizuko Ugo
Professor, Gakushuin Women’s College (Japan)

Tokie Brown
Architect and Entrepreneur at FOPCHEN (Nigeria/Japan)

Inauguration

Carlotta Del Bianco
President Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation

Alessia Bettini
Deputy Mayor of Florence

Patricia O’Donnell
President of OurWorldHeritage

Opening statements

Sneška Quaedvlieg–Mihailović
Secretary General of Europa Nostra

Gegê Leme Joseph
Sr. Program Manager at International Coalition of Sites of Conscience

Olukoya Obafemi
Brandenburg Technical University (Germany)

Bekeh Utietiang Ukelina
Director, Center for Gender and Intercultural Studies (CGIS)

Eugene Simonov
Coordinator of Rivers without Boundaries International Coalition (RwB)

Alec Marr
TTT Analytics

Laura Robinson
Focal Point of ICOMOS Our Common Dignity Rights Based Approaches

Panel discussion with commentary remarks by

Ave Paulus
Chair of ICOMOS Estonian Committee and leader of the ICOMOS Rights-based Focal Group

Ave Paulus (CV) is the president of ICOMOS Estonia, a member of ICOMOS Climate Change and Heritage, Rights-Based Approaches working groups, ISCCL-IFLA, ICLAFI, Theophilos and Water Heritage scientific committees. She is an expert member of the European Union OMC Group on Strengthening Cultural Heritage Resilience for Climate Change and the UNESCO panel on Climate Change and the World Heritage. She is a senior specialist for cultural heritage issues in the Environmental Board of Estonia and a Board member of Lahemaa and Alutaguse National Parks` Cooperation Councils. She has coordinated cooperation between heritage communities, states, and universities in more than 30 development projects concerning heritage research and management. She has master’s degrees from the Estonian Academy of Arts (heritage conservation and restoration) and Tartu University (semiotics and theory of culture). Her doctoral thesis (Tartu University) deals with community-based heritage management and cultural rights. Paulus has presented her research and practice results at national and international scientific events and publications.

Bekeh Ukelina, professor of history, is the Director of the Center for Gender and Intercultural Studies (CGIS) at the State University of New York, Cortland. His research areas are African development, global migrations, displacements, and African cultural heritage. Ukelina's primary research examines development as ideology-and state-directed interventions in Africa, south of the Sahara. It investigates ideologies that shape the planners and the planning processes and how these translate into actual practices and interventions. Bekeh is the Managing Editor of Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies and the President of the New York African Studies Association. He is an active member of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) where he leads the Task Team on localizing and nationalizing the SDGs and Cultural Heritage. Bekeh is also a member of the International Scientific Committee on Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites (ICIP).

Eugene Simonov is an environmental activist, journalist and researcher, focusing on empowerment of civil society to protect natural heritage across borders in Russia and US, Europe, China, Central Asia and Asia-Pacific. He is a coordinator of Rivers without Boundaries International Coalition (RwB), which was established in 2009 to address conservation of aquatic environment. Eugene also serves as expert of the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group (UWEC). He holds Master’s in Environmental Studies from Yale School of Environment (US) and Doctorate in Nature Conservation from Northeast Forestry University (PRC). For his efforts to protect Lake Baikal in 2014 Eugene was banned from returning to Mongolia and in 2021 inscribed on the List of Foreign Agents by the Government of Russia, and now he is pursuing PhD research at University of New South Wales in Canberra.

Gegê Leme Joseph is an architect and urbanist (FAUUSP–Brazil), set and production designer (AFDA, South Africa) and museologist (University of Leicester, UK). As Senior Program Manager, she oversees the Coalition’s activities in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and leads the Coalition’s Migration Museums Network. She moved to South Africa in 2003, where she collaborated on several flagship museum planning and implementation projects, as well as exhibitions and other experiences for heritage and culture re-signifying difficult pasts. She has served as consultant for museums and heritage initiatives in Latin America and Africa related to contested histories since 2009, focusing on social change, such as the Valongo Wharf in Rio de Janeiro. She develops independent research and writes for international publications in the museum field.

Mizuko Ugo, Ph.D. (Engineering), Architectural historian at Gakushuin Women’s College (Tokyo, Japan), she has been involved in cultural heritage conservation projects and research for European, Arab and Asian Countries at UNESCO and the Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties. Her current research focuses on built heritage conservation in war-affected areas.

Dr. Tokie is a Scientific Member of the Scientific Committee, Graduate Programme in Cultural Heritage Studies at the University of Nova Goricia, Slovenia. Co-Founder, Foundation for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage in Nigeria. An Expert/voting Member of the ISCCL and represents Nigeria on ICOMOS-IFLA. Dr. Tokie also works as a Heritage Architect and Cultural Economist with Merging Ecologies Studio which maintains a bespoke sustainable and heritage infused design development solutions in Africa.