Programme Director
Director General of UNESCO
Ministers and Deputy Ministers present
You’re Excellencies, Members of the Diplomatic Corps.
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

On behalf of the South African government, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you to the Republic of South Africa. I welcome in particular our guests from the African continent and those from the international donor community.

It heartens me to welcome you to Maropeng, which forms part of the Cradle of Humankind which palaeontological findings tell us is the site where the higher apes evolved into the human species.

This is one of the World Heritage sites South Africa inscribed on the World Heritage List during the 1990’s. The other is Robben Island. These two sites, situated within the borders of one country, perhaps best express the two dimensions of the species that first emerged here. Here in the north of South Africa, homo sapiens learnt to walk upright, to make tools, to control fire and to migrate and explore beyond their immediate environs here or near this site. With those attainments our species were able to conquer the world, so that today there is no part of the planet we do not inhabit. Our achievements since those pre-historic times have even emancipated us from our earthly existence, so that our species has walked on the moon and are ready to conquer space.

That is homo sapiens, “wise man”, giving expression to his most creative and positive dimension.

Travel south, to our other World Heritage site, to Robben Island, a place that was turned into a prison, then a leper colony, and again into a high security prison, notorious for its gross brutalities and known throughout the world as a symbol of inhumanity and oppression.

When we inscribed Robben Island on the World Heritage List, it was not the brutal oppressive institution we were seeking to memorialise. It was the struggle of the political prisoners, waged within that imprisoned island that symbolises the triumph of justice, over injustice; good over evil; the triumph of the human spirit over inhumanity.

These are two contradictory dimensions of the same human species that this heritage site celebrates, capable of the noblest deeds and loftiest ideals; but equally capable of plumbing the depths of brutality!

The World Heritage Convention was established in 1972 to preserve the natural and cultural heritage of the world so that we, and our descendants, may have more than a glimpse into the cultural and natural environment that shapes and has been shaped by humankind. Forty three African countries have ratified the convention.

The visible, tangible and intangible heritage of Africa is made manifest in the arts, customs, practices and creative work of her people. We are fortunate in being able to look back and draw lessons from the centuries of interaction with the world around us. And, fortunate too in being in a position speculate with a degree of certainty not only on how these evolved but also on our ancestry and the lives they led.

By committing ourselves, as African state parties, to the terms of the convention, we also committed ourselves to finding and implementing solutions to the problems arising from the need to manage and preserve our legacy. The aim of today’s conference is to leverage resources for the African World Heritage Fund to augment the financial resources available to meet these challenges that have so compromised the conservation and protection of African World Heritage Sites.
The ten year action plan contained in the African Position Paper has as one of its objectives increasing the number of African sites inscribed in the World Heritage List. But, before we can contemplate that, let us remove all African sites from the World Heritage Danger List.

As a matter of priority the Action Plan directs us to strengthen heritage protection, enhance policy, institutional and legal frameworks. The 10 Year Action Plan could be the blueprint for the preservation and protection of Africa’s tangible and intangible heritage. The African World Heritage Fund is the mechanism to achieve it. The fund will be resource on which African states can draw to develop, train and empower African experts. It can also facilitate research in new methodologies and techniques in conservation.

The African continent, like other parts of the Third world, is waging battle on a number of battle fronts. There are the huge inequalities if wealth distribution; the threat posed by the exploitation of our natural resources and our peoples; the HIV and AIDS pandemic; the ravages of war, for many of which are being fought on African soil; the forces of nature too can be a problem.

We have the old towns of Djenne in Mali dating back to 250 B.C., there is also Timbuktu with its magnificent mosque; there are the sacred spaces of the royal hill of Ambihimanga, in Madagascar, dating back some 500 years. Humanity would be the poorer if these were allowed to be swallowed by the sand and dust.
The concerns raised by the management of Africa’s natural and cultural sites calls for a holistic approach that will make them less of a burden on the fiscus. To attain this we will have to change our attitude to our heritage sites. The manner in which we manage Africa’s World Heritage Sites can transform them from fiscal burdens into economic assets. This site, where we are, for example, every weekend receives in excess of 300 guests. On long weekends, that figure escalates to more than 800. During holiday season it rises even higher, and many of those visitors are tourists from abroad who will spend their money here and in the surrounding towns and villages. Innovative management means the sites having a direct impact on the communities that surround them.

The African World Heritage Fund will facilitate the building of partnerships at the regional, continental and international levels. Partnership is important because so many African sites lie astride borders. Four of the African sites are trans-boundary.

I conclude by reiterating that it is the perspective of the South African government that the only way in which to preserve the unique cultural and natural heritage of the continent is the adoption of innovative policies.

Surely then we would have given proof of Professor Konare’s words, that we have moved beyond duty to honour in engaging and rethinking our strategies to manage our collective cultural and natural resources.

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