Cape Town - A majority of Africa’s heritage sites are increasingly at risk of being damaged by mining activities.
Professor Sophia Labadi from the University of Kent said 50% of all natural World Heritage Sites were threatened by harmful activities, and these industrial activities compromised the economic, social and environmental benefits of the sites.
“We recognise that Africa’s development requires appropriate policy and productive capabilities, especially through infrastructure development, science and technology development, transfer and innovation, value addition to primary commodities, youth development and women’s empowerment,” she said.
An African World Heritage Fund study revealed that 21 out of 124 African World Heritage properties negatively affected by development activities were directly affected by extractive industries.
Labadi was speaking at Robben Island Museum on Monday, at a workshop on the implementation of the 2015 policy on world heritage and sustainable development in Africa, which concludes on Friday.
The workshop, organised jointly by Robben Island Museum, the University of Kent and the African World Heritage Fund, is aimed at reflecting on the advancement of heritage that supports sustainability and development in Africa.
It features discussions from delegates, researchers and professors from Unesco, the African World Heritage Fund, the University of Kent, UCT and Robben Island Museum, to provide better understanding of how to “operationalise the principles of balancing conservation needs and sustainable development at and around World Heritage Sites”.
The workshop follows the adoption of the Unesco policy on the “Integration of a Sustainable Development Perspective into the Processes of the World Heritage Convention” in November 2015, which aimed at ensuring that the conservation and management of World Heritage properties was aligned with broader sustainable development objectives (environmental sustainability, inclusive social development, inclusive economic development as well as the fostering of peace and security).
Head of UCT’s archaeology department, Shadreck Chirikure, said: “Community organisations and institutions sit together to come up with sustainable development goals and with the African Union, coming up with Agenda 2063: the Africa We Want.
“All these documents and policies are to improve the lives of the people of the continent through sustainable utilisation of resources, of which heritage is one. However we should be aware of the limits,” he said.
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