Dr. Kishore Rao, Director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre since 2011, sees no dichotomy between nature and culture. “Each is a creation and reflection of the other,” he says. In fact, Dr. Rao’s work in the last 30 years has always had a connection with the implementation of the 1972 World Heritage Convention which today ensures the conservation of 1007 sites world-wide. Since 1976, he has worked for the Government of India in the Ministry of Environment and Forests, as well as in different States of the Union. From 1999 to 2005, he worked with The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as Head of its Ecosystems and Livelihoods Group for the Asia Region. As Deputy Director of the World Heritage Centre of UNESCO, he was specifically responsible for leading the Centre’s work on natural heritage. He spoke to The Hindu at the recently concluded 38th Session of the World Heritage Committee held in Doha, Qatar.
Conservation vs development was a phrase that was oft repeated during the Committee meeting. Do you have a magic mantra to reconcile the two?
I don’t think anybody wants just conservation or just development at the cost of one or the other. It’s essentially about how to reconcile the merits of development with the needs of conservation. We have been highlighting this. In fact, sustainable development was particularly chosen as the theme of the 40th anniversary of the Convention as the strategic direction the Convention had to take in future years. Globally, the World Heritage Committee has asked us to also prepare a policy on World Heritage and sustainable development. On a practical and implementation side, it is something that has to be explored on a site by site level; each site will have its own specificity as to how much development it can sustain and how much conservation it needs. The two are really one concept.
How challenging is it to work with so many countries, mentalities and cultures.
First, it is such a diverse range of countries, from developed to developing, north to south, small island states to land-locked ones. Then there’s the issue of diversity of the natural and cultural heritage contained in these countries which also have different administration systems, capacities and levels of awareness. The challenges are the same that exist in any other aspect of interacting with these countries.
More and more sites go up on the list but often-times one sees they could be managed better. What is your opinion regarding quality vs quantity?
Undoubtedly management is important but I don’t like the issue of numbers. The Convention is not about imposing any ceiling on the List. The key requirement is for sites to meet the criteria of Outstanding Universal Value. Of course, the more the number of sites, the more the requirements to ensure they are well managed and the more the benefits to the community and local economy. It’s not about numbers.
As compared to 779 cultural sites, there are only 197 natural sites on the List. Being a nature man yourself, does that bother you?
Again it’s not about numbers. Look at size of natural sites like Phoenix Islands Protected Area which is 40 million hectares .There is a structured classification system of the world’s bio-geographic regions and in each of these zones there are sub-units looked at by specialists who say that there are different kinds of representative values that these zones contain. A detailed global Gap analysis has been carried out. Once that is well represented, there is not a question of numbers. IUCN has talked about 300 odd sites being on the List; once that is represented there won’t be anymore . Getting into a numbers game doesn’t make any sense.
There is very little awareness of the world heritage concept which has at its core a profound philosophy; the nature-culture connection and the idea of unity in diversity. Why doesn’t the World Heritage Centre insist that there be more interpretive material at World Heritage Sites to raise public awareness?
Public education and awareness-raising are a very strong part of our communication programme. You know the 5 Cs: credibility, conservation, capacity-building, communication and community. Presenting the sites is very much a part of the Convention; the Operational Guidelines tell you how to raise awareness for World Heritage. States Parties to the Convention and heritage managers must take it forward with implementation.
Even though politicking doesn’t lie within your remit, you are caught in a political brouhaha between Israel, the US and Palestine. Also this year, one more Palestinian site has been inscribed on the World Heritage List in danger. How are you coping?
This is something that has impacted UNESCO as a whole and not just World Heritage. Because Palestine has been admitted as a member of UNESCO, there are two laws in the US that prohibit them from contributing their dues to any UN body or international organisation that has a relationship or admits Palestine as a member; it’s not as though the US doesn’t want to pay their dues. As a result, we’ve had to sustain a 22% cut in our budgets and we are trying to cope. We are reforming and restructuring the Secretariat and mobilising extra budgetary resources.
Sounds like an uphill climb. Speaking of which throughout the meeting we heard the phrase ‘upstream process’. Could you elaborate?
It’s an initiative that I launched in 2009 to precisely to help countries that don’t have the capacity to prepare nominations. We have put in place a system whereby the Secretariat and advisory bodies provide technical expertise and assistance to help countries identify potential sites for nomination, find out whether they express Outstanding Universal Value and bring them up to a level where the robustness of those nominations helps them pass through the process of getting inscribed on the List. We all need to work together; this is an effort of international cooperation.
You have been responsible for the implementation of the 1972 World Heritage Convention from the perspective of a State Party, an Advisory Body (IUCN), and the Secretariat (UNESCO) over the past 30 years. Which perspective has been most interesting?
Each had its own experience and specificities but having progressed through all enables me to see things from points of view of these three key players. I am pleased to have made the transition from implementer to advisor to the Secretariat.
Were you responsible for any of the Indian sites to go up on the List?
We prepared the nominations in 1983 for Keoladeo National Park and Manas Wildlife Sanctuary.
You’ve said all World Heritage Sites are your babies but do you feel a flush of pride when an Indian site goes up on the list?
Not necessarily. For me it’s the same. It’s World Heritage irrespective of what country it belongs to.
