This week, the New York Times lays out exactly what is right - and what is wrong - about Unesco World Heritage Site recognition. Lay aside the quibbles about the 2003 recognition of "intangible" heritage to be protected, and stick to the recognition of unique cultural sites like the Angkor temples and the Melaka's shophouses. Unesco World Heritage recognition may go some way in protecting the site for posterity, but may also contribute to destroying it.
"The dark side, of course, is consumption," said Francesco Bandarin, assistant director-general of Unesco and head of its World Heritage Center, speaking of the consumerism that so often surrounds heritage sites. "And consumption and preservation do not go together." If a site is "within an hour of a harbor," he added, "it becomes inundated by a flood of tourism and geysers of money."Angkor, long isolated by war and the Khmer Rouge, he said, now has 200 hotels nearby.
"This is a big problem now," Mr. Bandarin said. "The tourism industry has a lot of power in many poor countries but a short-term vision."
Southeast Asia has plenty of Unesco Heritage sites of its own, and despite the best efforts of the local authorities to protect their properties, some give-and-take is going on. The balance swings towards greater preservation when the locals feel invested in the heritage site in their midst.
The problem begins when the locals (whether through simple shortsightedness or great need) see their heritage site as a cash cow, and try to cash in on tourism without a long-term plan to develop both their site and the tourism it brings.
Sometimes the very act of naming a site as a Unesco Heritage site creates political complications that threaten to destroy it utterly, as with the case of Preah Vihear, located in contested territory between Cambodia and Vietnam.
I've written about Southeast Asia's Unesco Heritage Sites before; you can read about individual Heritage Sites like Candi Prambanan and Borobudur in Indonesia; Hoi An Old Town and Hue Citadel in Vietnam; and Intramuros in the Philippines.
Image © Mike Aquino, licensed to About.com.
Branded as a heritage site is a magnet for tourists. it is very hard to preserve old buildings and the culture itself if commercialism has its way.