This is long so delete if you're not interested.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/travel/15journeys.html?pagewanted=all
Preservation: Sure, It's a Good Thing, but..
By SETH KUGEL
Published: January 15, 2006
OFF a lazy plaza in the historic center of Izamal, Mexico, across the
street from a Franciscan monastery built in 1561 on top of a Maya
pyramid, a small market putters along. Behind open arches painted golden
yellow like every other colonial building in town, poor quality T-shirts
cover the walls, their silly English slogans clearly targeted at local
residents, as are the avocados and chirimoyas sold by an older woman nearby.
But squint a little, and it's easy to imagine a different future for
this small Yucatán town. The bargain "No Problem" and "Sport Attitude"
jerseys morph into crisp, overpriced Izamal T-shirts; the woman is still
there, but selling knickknacks to tourists who've just toured the
pyramids or the monastery, El Convento de San Antonio de Padua, with its
nearly two-acre atrium. Then they will head off to picturesque hotels
that do not yet exist.
If municipal officials have their way, Izamal, or at least the convent,
will be designated the eight-hundred-and-somethingth Unesco World
Heritage site, and that new tableau will be all but ensured.
The phrase Unesco World Heritage site has been crossing from the lips of
travel agents and popping up more and more on travel Web sites. That's
no coincidence: the list has grown steadily from the first 12 in 1978 to
812 today, and includes everything from the Statue of Liberty, the Taj
Mahal and Angkor Wat to the Wooden Churches of Southern Little Poland
and the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape in Mongolia.
But as the list expands each year, many, including Unesco staff members,
are left wondering: is this rapid growth watering down the list's
meaning? And by drawing both tourism and development that's often left
unchecked, can the honor do as much harm as good to those places so
anointed?
Although Mexico devotes more resources to the World Heritage efforts
than many countries, the Yucatán provides lessons in what can happen
after a site makes the list. Mexico's most emblematic site is probably
the ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá, which by the time it was
inscribed was already overrun with tourists on day trips from Cancún,
three hours to the east. The numbers grew after nomination, with peak
months bringing more than 5,000 visitors a day, according to Yucatán
government statistics.
Standing before Chichén Itzá's iconic Kukulcan pyramid is still
stunning, to be sure, but watching the line of tour buses spewing forth
American tourists outside is just as remarkable. Visitors emerge with
stickers on their shirts identifying their bus numbers. Cheery guides
with set scripts shepherd them through the gate, where they are given
official admission wristbands.
Beyond the gates, souvenir hawkers are well trained. One regular,
Ermenegildo Kahum Kem, knows how to say, "Nothing for your
mother-in-law?" in five languages.
Unesco's manifesto sounded simple enough: It set up a World Heritage
Convention in 1972 to protect cultural and natural sites of "outstanding
universal value." The convention established a World Heritage Committee,
a rotating group of 15 (now 21) nations, and a World Heritage Fund to
provide oversight, technical assistance and loans. The World Heritage
Center in Paris oversees the program, and the committee annually decides
on new designations.
It has become clear, though, that for many sites, getting on the list
might be more an end goal than the beginning of conservation efforts.
Once the four- to five-year nomination process is over, Unesco generally
doesn't provide funds or technical assistance from its 35-person staff
(plus consultants), nor regular monitoring to ensure that the ambitious
plans come to fruition.
"Countries found out that while they didn't get money from Unesco, they
did get recognition, and recognition results in tourism," said Bonnie
Burnham, the president of the New York-based World Monuments Fund, a
nonprofit group that assists in preserving and protecting historic
sites. "It's not a secret that this is one of the primary benefits of
World Heritage listing."
"The minute it goes on the list, it goes into Lonely Planet, Fodor's,
Frommers," said Jeff Morgan, executive director of the Global Heritage
Fund, a Palo Alto-based group that maintains its own, smaller list, and
runs preservation and restoration projects in developing countries. "The
list means nothing in terms of protection."
He added, "What Unesco has not done well is get a system in place" to
have a sustained presence at most sites.
In Lijiang, China, where his group has been working to preserve the
ancient houses and culture of the Naxi people, he said that soon after
its nomination to the list in 1997, Lijiang was beleaguered by development.
"They had no zoning, no planning," Mr. Morgan said. "Suddenly the first
tourist hotels went in." Soon, he said, there was so much building,
"it's not interesting anymore."
The official mission statement of the World Heritage Center does not
mention tourism or economic development.
"We don't see the World Heritage list as aimed to enhance tourism," said
Alessandro Balsamo, the Unesco official who oversees the inscription
process. "It means to preserve a specific site for the next generation,
to give the concerned state party the means, through international
cooperation, to conserve the sites."
Mr. Balsamo questions how effectively the World Heritage Center can
monitor the ever-growing list, let alone provide technical assistance,
with an annual operating budget of around $4 million. The organization
does not even have an up-to-date list of contacts for all 812 sites, he
said.
Of course, an obvious first step would be to stop naming new sites (24
were added this summer, including the Ottoman town in Gjirokastra,
Albania, and the Shiretoko Peninsula in Japan). But diplomats on the
World Heritage Committee seeking to add their own countries' entrants
simply won't have it, according to Dr. Francisco Javier López Morales,
who until recently ran the Mexican government's World Heritage program.
"From a realistic, pragmatic point of view," he said, "I can't see the
scenario in which the number of annual inscriptions could be reduced."
There was a recent agreement to limit annual nominations and changes to
the size or status of sites to 45, but that will do little more than
prevent acceleration; in only four years since 1978 has the number
actually exceeded 45.
Izamal is smack in the middle of a World Heritage hotbed, the Yucatán
peninsula, where five sites have been inscribed: the Sian Ka'an
Biospheric Reserve (1987); the pre-Columbian cities of Chichén Itzá
(1988) and Uxmal (1996); the colonial city of Campeche (1999); and the
ruins of Calakmul (2002), still under excavation.
"By becoming World Heritage, we'll have more investors," Izamal's
assistant director of tourism, Edgar Díaz, said. "Upon having more
investors, we'll have more tourist infrastructure. That way, there would
be greater tourism promotion, and you could have an economic influx that
is what the people need to support their families."
In Mexico, sites like Chichén Itzá seem under control and decently
staffed, which can't be said of Unesco sites across much of the world.
Tito Dupret, a Belgian who with his wife has photographed about 120
World Heritage sites for his Web site, www.world-heritage-tour.org, has
been dismayed in his treks through Asia.
"I've seen so many sites that use World Heritage as a tourism logo," he
said. "One day, they get the logo, so they double the entry fee and
build an airport next to it."
He recalled being horrified at what had become of the Jiuzhaigou Valley,
a natural reserve in Sichuan Province, China. "The entire valley is
spoiled by mass tourism."
In 2001, the World Heritage Center established its first sustainable
tourism program, and hired an American, Art Pedersen, to run it; it has
since received $5.5 million from the United Nations Foundation to
support its work. (That's $6,773 per site.) Mr. Pedersen produced a
tourism management manual for the sites, and assists the center's
regional officers.
He also oversees several on-the-ground projects to mitigate threats, and
is pushing for a comprehensive tourism plan to be required before
inscription. "Particularly in our developing country sites, it needs to
be institutionalized," he said.
The World Heritage Center has actively been seeking more private
partners; the United Nations Foundation, founded by Ted Turner in 1998,
has become its greatest outside source of funds. In August, Expedia Inc.
announced an effort to raise money for and awareness of World Heritage
sites.
But it seems the primary problem facing the World Heritage Center is
that its oversight mechanisms are nearly all carrot, and hardly any
stick. The monitoring process largely is done by local governments,
which report every six years.
No site has ever been removed from the list, although threats have been
issued to some, including the Galápagos Islands. The center does
maintain a World Heritage in Danger list, though generally the country
itself must agree to putting the site on it.
One place where the process seems to have gone well is Campeche, a
lovely colonial city a few hours southwest of Izamal. Campeche was a
shabby economic backwater for years before state and local officials -
working with a booster committee of prominent private citizens - began a
nomination effort that including everything from attracting conservation
conferences to networking with Unesco officials to fixing and painting
historic facades.
In December 1999, at the W.H.C.'s annual conference, the Historic
Fortified Town of Campeche was inscribed. Back home, a rapt citizenry
greeted the announcement with joy, some taking to the streets, honking
their horns and waving Mexican flags.
Although those behind the drive clearly understood the World Heritage
mission, the main force was still economic. "My idea was that Campeche,
so that it could generate the tourism it deserved, had to be known on an
international level," said Jaime Ruíz, one of the main architects of the
process.
According to state statistics, visits to Campeche has increased every
year since it was nominated, rising 39 percent from 1999 to 2004;
receipts from tourism almost doubled in those years; and the number of
available hotel rooms increased 45 percent.
Campeche has done everything it can to milk its status. "World Heritage"
is plastered all over tourism literature; a kiosk in the central plaza
proclaims "Campeche: Patrimonio de la Humanidad" ("Campeche: World
Heritage Site"), as do all 44 wrought-iron benches in the square.
So far, Campeche still feels authentic; even what seem like touristy
shops selling T-shirts, guayaberas and jewelry attract local customers.
And residents like 31 year-old Gloria Polanco, who works for a local
cosmetics company, are pleased that the honor seems to have generated
jobs and provided opportunities for the city's youth.
"It lets us get to know other cultures, other customs, other ideas," she
said, as she waited for a bus in front of tourist shops on the edge of
the main square. "Just the mere fact that people ask us 'where is
such-and-such park or hotel?' allows us to interact."
Mr. Pedersen, the Unesco tourism official, said there was no solid
evidence that World Heritage nomination leads to an increase of tourism.
The circumstantial evidence, however, is strong. The nomination of
Calakmul in 2002 literally put it on the map.
In the 2000 edition of Lonely Planet's Yucatán guide, the introductory
map shows 14 highlights of the peninsula, and Calakmul is not one. But
in the August 2003 edition, Edzna and Tulum, two non-World Heritage
ruins, were removed, and Calakmul was in. The text on Calakmul was
expanded from a half-page to a page and a half.
Calakmul is a delightful place, at least for now. It is hours away from
the nearest city, and the winding, one-lane 37-mile road from the
highway to the ruins is so empty that fauna have taken it over. The view
from atop the largest structures, where spiders spin webs across
doorways without fear of destruction, is stunning; the endless
surrounding jungle is unspoiled by the panorama of radio towers you see
from the Kukulcan pyramid in Chichén Itzá.
But it's already getting attention. Lori Markson, a professor at the
University of California, Berkeley, was the only American tourist
visiting Calakmul one day last August. "I know it's going to be the next
big thing," she said.
She may be right: from January through November of 2005, 15,643 visitors
entered, compared with just 8,962 in the same period in 2001, the year
before it was inscribed.
--
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