Icomos Seychelles celebrates world heritage day   |19 April 2022

The theme dedicated to mark the 2022 Heritage Day is ‘Heritage and Climate’. Since 1982, April 18 is dedicated as a yearly celebration of the importance of cultural heritage to society.

It is celebrated under the patronage of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) but also with the support of international cultural agencies. One such agency is the International Council of Monuments and Sites (Icomos). The headquarters of Icomos is based in Paris. It is the largest global heritage organisation of its kind and has representations in more than 50 countries either through national Icomos committees or individual and institutional membership. Since 2012 Seychelles has been a member of the organisation through a small national committee ‒ Icomos Seychelles. Unfortunately, and despite a modest but encouraging start with almost a dozen members, it became increasingly difficult to maintain the interest which was further complicated by arrears in membership fee payments and, more recently, by the Covid-19 restrictions.

There is nonetheless a renewed effort by a small group of founding members ‒ Patrick Berlouis, Daniella Johnstone, Benjamine Rose, Seychelles Heritage Foundation, Patrick Matyot, Patrick Nanty ‒ to revive the organisation and to give a helping hand where convenient to local heritage preservation activities. Above everything else, it is very much the intention and hope of the members to support projects and programmes initiated by the cultural authorities and to make its contribution in partnership with other interested parties. It is in this respect that the committee will also work towards opening the current small membership to other interested individuals. Furthermore, and additional to direct membership, it is hoped that Icomos Seychelles can eventually provide for affiliations of community or school-based heritage clubs.  

Working alongside Unesco, Icomos has played a leading role in the decision to mark an international heritage day as well as in the selection of special themes for the occasion.

The theme chosen for this year’s Heritage Day ‒ ‘Heritage and Climate’ ‒ is an indication of the attention that the organisation pays to pressing issues and current challenges facing heritage preservation. It takes into consideration the vulnerability of heritage places and assets to climate change but also the role of heritage as a source of resilience. Across the world Icomosnational committees marked the occasion with a variety of activities focused on the threat of climate change to the preservation of heritage assets, but also of the increasing need to bring in the participation of heritage agencies and activists, including local communities, in the equation. Given the growing acceptance that the ‘cultural’ and the ‘natural’ environment are necessarily linked and that we live in landscapes defined by both nature and culture, the theme ‘Heritage and Climate’ is certainly of relevance.                                                                                              For its part, Icomos Seychelles supports efforts that are made by the Seychelles National Institute for Culture, Heritage and the Arts (SNICHA) to safeguard our heritage in the face of climate change and that alongside other stakeholders our small organisation can become a useful partner in promoting and preserving our sites and places of heritage interest. We hope that long-term solutions can be found for the upkeep of our most prominent heritage sites and buildings but that the need to also protect and promote the smaller features of heritage significance can also be addressed. Such features include old street walls, public pathways and steps, or part of the old seawall of Victoria; the list also include features of interest in our districts ‒ the old public water taps or few remaining stone bridges and, naturally, sites of prominent historical significance but sometimes left in a pitiful or inaccessible state, these are but a few examples of where more community or non-governmental organisation (NGO) support can be of assistance to the work already being undertaken by the cultural authorities .

We wish the current and past or future members of the local Icomos committee and all heritage activists a successful Heritage Day 2022.

Contributed by Patrick Nanty on behalf of Icomos Seychelles)