Commemorative Serial Events for the 50th Anniversary of the World Heritage Convention opened in the Summer Palace on November 26. The events were hosted by the Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau and Beijing Municipal Administration Center of Parks, and organized by the Administration Office of the Summer Palace. They were held both online and offline under the theme of "The Next Fifty Years: Challenges and Chances for World Heritage".
As the final session of the series of commemorations, it has drawn much attention with a wide range of topics. Representatives from UNESCO Beijing Office, Culture Unit of UNESCO Bangkok, Beijing world cultural heritage protection organizations, bureaus of culture and tourism where heritage sites are located, and experts on cultural heritage conservation attended the event online.
At the event, Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau released the "World Heritage in Beijing" brochure, which was the first time that Beijing promoted its world heritage branded as "World Heritage in Beijing". With handpicked photos, the brochure brings out the infinite beauty and glamour of the world heritage intuitively, highlights the outstanding universal value of each heritage vividly, and pays tribute to all those who have shown interest in, loved and protected Beijing's world heritage over the years.
Beijing has seven world heritage sites now, the most in China. Since 1987, Beijing has been enhancing its heritage management and interpretation in line with standards of world heritage preservation, thus forming a cultural heritage preservation system with Beijing's characteristics including diversified players, investments and value. In his speech, Professor Xia Zehan, a representative of the UNESCO Beijing Office, fully recognized Beijing's efforts in world heritage preservation and had high hopes for relevant work in the future.
New achievements have been made in Beijing's heritage protection over the past years. Chen Tongbin, chief planner of China Architectural Design and Research Institute and honorary director of the Institute of Architectural History, presented the final result of his three-year research on the major topic "Research on the Heritage Value of the Overall Protection of the Capital’s Core Zone" undertaken by Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau. In addition, Tang Yuyang, former executive vice president of Architectural Heritage Research Institute of Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, detailed the innovative exploration and success in preserving the Great Wall.
An initiative to establish the Beijing World Heritage Conservation and Management Alliance was launched. Heralded as the new starting point for the protection of world heritage sites in Beijing in the next 50 years, it proposed "five principles", not only to pursue innovative development by enhancing the attraction of world heritage sites in Beijing, showcasing the conservation outcomes, and learning from each other in terms of value recognition and cultural inheritance, but also to develop a "Beijing model" for an integrated community of world heritage and harmony between the preservation of the historical and cultural sites in Beijing and urban social development.
Ms Huang Ruohong from Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation, expressed her wish to continuously support Beijing's heritage preservation in her video speech. Since 2021, the Foundation has donated 30 million yuan as heritage preservation funds to the conservation of Beijing's Great Wall, the protection and renovation of the Guozijian, and the Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards, among others.
Mr Jing Feng, chief of the Culture Unit, UNESCO Bangkok, announced the results of the 2022 Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation, which commended individuals and organizations that have made great efforts and contributions to heritage conservation and renovation in the Asia-Pacific region. Of the 13 awarded projects from six countries, four were from China, including the Nantian Buddhist Temple in Fujian, West Guizhou Lilong Neighborhood in Shanghai, M30 Integrated Infrastructure for Power Supply and Waste Collection in Macao SAR, and Xiaoxihu Block in Nanjing. In 2021, through the agency of Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau, a five-year strategic cooperation was reached between UNESCO and the Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation to support UNESCO's review and promotion of the Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation in the 2021-2025 period, enhance relevant training and exchanges, and advance cultural heritage conservation in the Asia-Pacific region together.
The International Symposium on Cultural Heritage, co-organized by the Secretariat of the Asian Academy for Heritage Management under UNESCO and the Beijing Cultural Relics Protection Association, was held on the same day, where experts on heritage conservation from different countries were invited to discuss topics like sustainable development of heritage. In the future, Beijing will seek closer ties and interaction with international heritage organizations, embrace international cultural exchanges based on heritage cooperation, and take world heritage as a bridge to promote in-depth mutual learning between civilizations.
