...the UN Heritage Site Management awardee

Vigan City bags UN award for heritage site management

By Kim Arveen Patria

Yahoo! Southeast Asia Newsroom

Fri, Nov 9, 2012

Vigan's Calle Crisologo is named after Mena Crisologo, a revolutionary, lawmaker, governor, and poet.

Keeping history alive is apparently more fun in the Philippines, with Vigan City bagging a United Nations award for world heritage site management.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has recently given the city in Ilocos Sur its first-ever "Best practice in World Heritage Site Management" award as the international body ended the 40th World Heritage Convention in Japan Thursday.

Vigan City bested 27 other cities from 23 countries considered for the recognition, which UNESCO said is aimed at highlighting challenges to world heritage conservation, lessons learned, priorities and opportunities.

"Vigan's successful and sustainable management has been achieved with relatively limited resources, which should make it adaptable to sites in all countries..." UNESCO said.

"[T]he local community is well integrated into many aspects of the sustainable conservation and management of the property; and a multi-faceted approach to the protection of the site has been developed," it added.

This year’s convention theme "World Heritage and Sustainable Development: the Role of Local Communities" highlighted the need to marry conservation programs with local community growth.

Vigan City, famous for conserving early architecture and other features, was named a world heritage site in December 1999.
"Vigan is an exceptionally intact and well-preserved example of a European trading town in East and South-East Asia," UNESCO said in its website.

"The architecture is truly reflective of its roots in both materials and design, in its fusion of Asian building design and construction with European colonial architecture and planning," it added.

The case of Vigan City and other sites discussed in this year's World Heritage Convention, UNESCO said, may "enrich current debates about the implementation" of conservation projects the international body is set to name the 1000th world heritage site.