UNESCO Helps Future Generations Safeguard Intangible Heritage

Intengible heritage - UNESCO

The first International Day of Intangible Cultural Heritage is an opportunity to celebrate the global wealth of cultural traditions and practices and highlight the need to preserve this inheritance.

Traditional dances using colorful costumes, ancient ways of farming, music, and oral stories that give meaning to our lives and preserve our stories and narratives all are part of our intangible heritage passed down through generations. 

There is a risk that, in the face of growing globalization, certain elements of intangible cultural heritage could disappear without help. UNESCO is working with communities to help protect our living heritage.

For a long time protecting culture was about protecting monuments, statues, and iconic sites, UNESCO has expanded our understanding of heritage and transformed public policies so they also safeguard traditions and living cultures. In 2003, UNESCO helped bring states together to sign the Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage, which acknowledges the importance of safeguarding our cultural diversity.

UNESCO has prioritized engaging youth to help document and learn about their living heritage to help transmit these practices to a new generation. Focused capacity-building programmes have helped encourage young people to become new practitioners.

Alongside engaging youth, UNESCO’s committee continues to register new cultural practices on the Lists of Intangible and Cultural Heritage to ensure better protection of important cultural heritages worldwide and to raise awareness of their significance. 

Our intangible heritage is diverse. It includes the Mediterranean Diet that is shared by diverse countries including Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Morocco.  The intangible heritage of the Mediterranean Diet encompasses not only the craftsmanship of how food is cooked but also the values of hospitality, like sharing and eating food together. It also has an element linked to conservation, as it includes customary ways of raising animals and fishing. 

Artisanal practices have also been recognized. For example, in Japan, a silk fabric production technique called Yuki-tsumugi is considered an intangible heritage practice. The silk floss for the yarn in Yuki-tsumugi weaving is produced from empty or deformed silkworm cocoons, otherwise unusable for the production of silk yarn. This recycling process plays a significant role in supporting local silk-producing communities.

Some of the most visually beautiful traditions of intangible heritage include music and dance. For example, the Scissor Dance from Peru has also been registered as part of our intangible heritage. A competitive ritual dance, it takes its name from a pair of polished iron rods, resembling scissors blades, wielded by each dancer in his right hand. 

Midwifery is an intangible heritage practice shared by diverse countries including Togo, the Kyrgyz Republic, Cyprus and Germany. Midwives support pregnant women before and after they give birth. Their knowledge is shared and passed down through evidence-based practice and also traditional skills. Midwifery also entails specific cultural practices, vocabulary, celebrations, and rituals.

These are just a few examples of the richness of our intangible heritage. UNESCO’s goal is to continue to safeguard more, particularly in the least-represented countries, to increase support for the communities and transmission of practices to a new generation. Globally, we can make better use of this knowledge to respond to contemporary challenges. Because many of the solutions to the problems of our century can be found in our living heritage – whether it’s a question of restoring the balance between humans and their environment, or of preserving the social bonds that enable us to live together as a society. 

UNESCO's Intangible Heritage List currently features 611 elements from 5 regions and 140 countries on the Representative List. Additionally, 82 elements are on the Urgent Safeguarding List, and 37 are part of the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices. Discover these cultural treasures and how they are being protected. 

- Courtesy: UNESCO