Article 11 of the Carpathian Convention requires Parties to pursue policies aiming at preservation and promotion of the cultural heritage. The Convention explicitly mentions the need for preserving and promoting the traditional knowledge of the local people, local goods, arts and handicrafts, traditional architecture, land-use patterns, local breeds of domestic animals and cultivated plant varieties.
However, throughout the first years of the Convention implementation the Working Group on cultural heritage and traditional knowledge established at the 1st Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP1) met only once (on 27-28 August 2007 in Venice).
In 2012 under the project "Carpathians Unite - mechanism for consultation and cooperation for the implementation of the Carpathian Convention" a national Working Group on cultural heritage was established on the Polish side. Also in 2012 the first proposal for a new thematic protocol to the Framework Carpathian Convention was drafted by the project leader - UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre, and submitted for regional consultations with the representatives of cultural institutions, academia, local communities, NGOs, and folk artists of the Polish Carpathians, active in the above mentioned Working Group.
Later the draft of the proposed Protocol was subject to discussion by the Carpathian Convention Working Group on cultural heritage and traditional knowledge, during its two meetings organized in Poland under the "Carpathians Unite” project, in cooperation with the Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention: in May 2013 in Krynica, where the meeting participants, during an ad-hoc organized site visit, managed to see several wooden churches in the area (one of them inscribed a month later to the UNESCO World Heritage List, more information: Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region in Poland and Ukraine).
(more information on the meeting in Krynica at the Convention website)
and in September 2013 in Orelec, where the meeting venue was the interior of the antique wooden former Greek Catholic church built approx. 1740, cleaned up and prepared specially for this WG meeting under the local community initiative. (more information on the meeting in Orelec at the Convention website)
Photos: Małgorzata Fedas, Ekopsychology Association; Zbigniew Niewiadomski, UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre
The thematic scope of the proposed Protocol on Cultural Heritage includes:
In March 2014 the Carpathian Convention Working Group on cultural heritage and traditional knowledge met again, at the invitation of the Government of the Slovak Republic, with the intention to discuss and possibly finalize the proposed Protocol. Instead, a Road Map to achieve the objectives of the Art. 11 of the Carpathian Convention was adopted during the WG meeting in Bratislava.
The High Level Summit during the 4th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP4) on 26 September 2014 in Mikulov adopted the Ministerial Declaration on Cultural Heritage in the Carpathians acknowledging “the progress achieved so far towards the development of the draft Protocol on cultural heritage, and the ongoing work by the Working Group on Cultural Heritage and Traditional Knowledge preparing the ground for the future development and implementation of the Protocol”.
The Conference of the Parties:
