Key Unesco center to be established in Korea

Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Park Yang-woo speaks at the Unesco General Conference in Paris on Nov. 19. [NEWS1]

Korea will be home to the world’s only International Centre for the Interpretation and Presentation of the World Heritage Sites, following approval by the Unesco General Conference last week.

The proposal by the Cultural Heritage Administration to build the center in Korea was adopted last Thursday during the 40th Unesco General Assembly held at the organization’s Paris headquarters, the Cultural Heritage Administration announced.

The Centre will be responsible for developing standards for understanding World Heritage sites and the technology to facilitate these efforts. Korea has been holding international conferences on the topic of World Heritage sites since 2016 under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Centre will not legally be a part of Unesco, but it will be associated with it and work for the benefit of all of the organization’s member states.

“There are over a thousand Unesco World Heritage sites, and we hope to provide guidelines on how to describe and explain them,” said Park Young-rok, who manages world heritage at the Cultural Heritage Administration. “These guidelines will not have the power of enforcement but serve as examples.”

Neither the Centre’s location nor its estimated date of establishment has been confirmed. The Cultural Heritage Administration only said it will begin trial activities in Sejong from next year.

A proposal to establish the Global Research and Training Centre for Internationally Designated Areas in Jeju Island was also approved at the General Conference.

BY KIM EUN-JIN [kim.eunjin1@joongang.co.kr]