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SOURCE DE L’INFORMATION : UNESCO
REPRODUCTION DE L’ARTICLE
Assurer le développement durable grâce à la diversité culturelle
Les attitudes et les styles de vie, la responsabilité des programmes
éducatifs, le sens de la responsabilité pour préserver un futur correct aux
générations à venir, sont intimement liés à l’identité personnelle et aux
valeurs de chacun . Tant qu’on n’aura pas reconnu leur grande importance
dans le développement durable, on ne pourra avancer.
L’UNESCO a toujours insisté sur la relation entre la culture et l’ouverture
comme le reflète la brève histoire de la
culture à l'UNESCO
et son agenda.
Photo:© Yann Arthus-Bertrand/Earth from above/UNESCO
Pas disponible en français. Disponible en anglais.
Providing a new anchor and entry point for approaching the issue of
sustainability from the viewpoint of cultural diversity is the
Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity,
adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in late 2001.The declarationis
predicated on the consideration of culture as a full-fledged resource for
development. Explicit in the declaration is that cultural diversity is as
important a factor for development as biological diversity. Cultural
diversity presupposes the existence of a process of exchanges, open to
renewal and innovation but also committed to tradition, and does not aim at
the preservation of a static set of behaviours, values and expressions.
If creativity is essential in the search for sustainability, then memory is
in turn vital to creativity. That holds true for individuals and for
peoples, who find in their heritage – natural and cultural, tangible and
intangible—the key to their identity and the source of their inspiration.
In the field of the tangible heritage, UNESCO’s actions focuses on the
identification, protection and preservation of the cultural and natural
heritage considered to be outstanding value to humanity. This is embodied in
an international treaty called the
Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural
Heritage.
Adopted by UNESCO in 1972, the Convention now has 167 States parties. The
World Heritage List, which was created under this convention, today includes
721 sites—544 cultural, 144 natural and 23 mixed—in 124 countries. It is
completed by a list of endangered world heritage which includes 31
threatened sites. The convention’s thirtieth anniversary in 2002 will be
marked by an international congress in Venice in November.
This year (2002) is also the
United
Nations Year for Cultural Heritage.
UNESCO has been designated lead agency for theYear by the United Nations and
has chosen the themes of reconciliation and development as the focus of its
activities. The biggest challenge facing UNESCO in this task is to make the
public authorities, the private sector and civil society as a whole realize
that the cultural heritage is not only an instrument for peace and
reconciliation but also a factor of development.
In terms of intangible and oral heritage, the world is experiencing the
rapid disappearance of local languages and of traditional cultures and their
underlying spirituality, and of knowledge traded over generations, which is
profoundly relevant for sustainability. Growing threats are particularly
significant in relation to the
world’s
indigenous peoples,
now numbering some 350 million individuals representing over 5,000 languages
and cultures in more than 70 countries on every continent. Along with the
rest of the United Nations system, UNESCO contributes to efforts to
implement partnerships in action for the International Decade of the World’s
Indigenous People (1995-2004). Among UNESCO’s recent publications is the
Atlas of
the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing.
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