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Dear ICOMOS Colleagues,
I hope 2020 sees you off to a good start! It was a happy reunion seeing many of you in Marrakesh, and I hope to see more of you in Sydney. In my last letter as President, I will report to you on this past year and my proposal for changes for ICOMOS in order to keep it sustainable and relevant in this changing world. I welcome your thoughts on this.
At the close of 2018, I sought to address expanding ICOMOS's global presence, currently established in only roughly 70% of the countries around the world. In 2019, I visited many countries, including Tunisia, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Jordan, the Philippines, Hungary, Romania, Azerbaijan, Montenegro, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, China and Argentina. There I met with ICOMOS colleagues and other heritage experts to collaborate on addressing pressing heritage issues, resulting, for instance, in new institutional alliances, a sustained advisory position for World Heritage Sites, the second University Forum, founding and supporting new National Committees, consultation on new evaluation processes for World Heritage Sites, supporting conferences on the Baukultur, the Modern Olympic and heritage, as well as other emerging issues. In 2020, I will work for more dialogue and consultations with ICOMOS members, hopefully by visiting areas where ICOMOS is underrepresented.
Toshikyuki Kono and Carolina Jaeger-Klein (President of ICOMOS Austria) at the third ICOMOS South East Europe Regional Meeting in Kotor, Montenegro, in September 2019
In my last message, I wrote that 2019 would be crucial for the World Heritage work of ICOMOS, because the World Heritage Committee considered involving other bodies in the evaluation process. In my opinion, this could mean diminishing the significance of our organisation. I attended most sessions of the ad-hoc Working Group of the World Heritage Committee in Paris, assisted by our Director General, Marie-Laure Lavenir. In the World Heritage ad-hoc group in Paris, whose mandate was to discuss possible modalities to involve other bodies, we demonstrated ICOMOS's strength, i.e. members’ multidisciplinary and high quality work and contribution to the World Heritage system. Through this difficult process, we have also collaborated well with IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property). Still, up until one month before the World Heritage Committee Conference in Baku, the outcome of the ad-hoc working group was uncertain. However, I am pleased to inform you that the World Heritage Committee decided to maintain the status quo. Simultaneously, we have been working on a new mechanism, the Preliminary Assessment, following a suggestion by the experts’ group meeting in Tunis in January 2019, which Marie-Laure Lavenir and I attended, to reduce costs on evaluating unsuccessful nominations. ICOMOS has been and will be playing an important role in the process to clarify the modalities of this new process. This marks a new chapter in World Heritage with a leading role for ICOMOS.
These circumstances show us that the environment of ICOMOS changes constantly, and we should be able to both adapt to changing circumstances and fortify our organisation. If the quality of the work of ICOMOS is put into question, it will be much harder for our organisation, and its Scientific and National Committees, to move forward in the future. If each component of ICOMOS work remains isolated, the quality of the work will be endangered. ICOMOS should then promote more synergy between its members.
In Marrakesh, I proposed a corporate model for ICOMOS with the structure of an ecosystem where the synergy relies on each part, each expert member or Committee in its own role and in collaboration with the whole. Together, we can develop a framework for long-term strategies, activities and outputs to keep us aligned. Combined with more diverse expertise and geographical representation, generational balance through growing emerging professionals, we will be poised for a healthy organisational future. I invite the executives in each Committee and the Board to reflect on short, mid, and long-term strategies to fulfil these aims. The statutory meetings should serve as fora to discuss them.
The ICOMOS Emerging Professionals Working Group in Marrakesh, Morocco, in October 2019
Additionally, the recent change in ICOMOS Statutes means frequent leadership change at every level of the organization, and the three-year cycle inhibits our perspective towards long-term strategies. To become organisationally stable, we must prioritise or at least pay due attention to longer term development. I propose that you consider a ten-year vision and invite you to imagine an ICOMOS 2030 in which you would want to participate. I hope we will have many opportunities to discuss our “ICOMOS 2030” in Sydney next October!
With warm regards
Toshiyuki Kono
President of ICOMOS
Photo Credits: ICOMOS
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