World heritage Committee Meeting, Saturday, December 17

Peter Stott (pstott@EMERALD.TUFTS.EDU)
Thu, 22 Dec 1994 03:04:26 -0500

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A daily report covering the activities of the World Heritage
Committee, meeting in Phuket, Thailand, December 12-17, 1994
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Vol. III, No. 6 Saturday, Dec. 17
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EIGHTEENTH SESSION OF THE WORLD HERITAGE COMMITTEE COMPLETES WORK

PHUKET, THAILAND. On this last day of the 18th session, its
participants were the guests of the Royal Thai Navy on a tour of Phang Nga
National [Marine] Park. Four buses left the hotel at 6 am for the one hour
ride to the Phuket Deep Sea Port, at the south end of Phuket Island. In a
scene recalling our tour of Cartagena Bay on the Colombian Navy's training
ship 'Gloria' the year before, we boarded the destroyer escort H.T.M.S.
Tapi at approximately 7 am for the trip north along the eastern shore of
Phuket Island. Once in the park, we transferred to four shallow-draft tour
boats. Phang Nga National Park is a bay dominated by huge limestone
formations rising abruptly out of the water. Several of these karsts formed
the backdrop for sequences in the James Bond movie, "The Man with the
Golden Gun." At one of these islands, Khao Phing Kan (known locally as
"James Bond Island") our tour guides beached the four sightseeing craft to
allow us to climb a short trail up into the rock outcrop, and to visit the
thirty stalls set up to display the wares of local merchants. After a
luncheon at Phang Nga Bay Resort, we reboarded buses to for Sirinart
National Park (formerly Nai Yang NP) at the north end of Phuket Island.
Here, as guests of the Department of Forests, the Governor of Phuket, and
the Thai Navy, we participated in the release of approximately 200 young
sea turtles into the Andaman Sea. Hatchery raised, these turtles were
expected to recolonize Phuket's western shore. It was, as several guests
pointed out, a merging of cultural and natural events in the true spirit of
the Convention!

The buses returned to the hotel promptly at 4 pm. Since the conclusion of
the preceding day's meeting, the World Heritage Centre staff had compiled
and copied the draft report of the 18th session of the Committee, which
reconvened for the last time at 5 pm to review the text. The 75-page draft
(CONF.003/16) was the longest report yet produced for a Committee meeting.

The section (VIII) dealing with the strengthening of the World Heritage
Centre received the most attentive review. Alternate texts were proposed
and accepted for several paragraphs. The only other section requiring
comment was that dealing with Promotional Activities, including adoption of
a plan for marketing and fund-raising (section XV). Several delegates felt
that the Centre's summary of the debate was milder than it might have been
and introduced texts to emphasize their opposition to a new logo, to its
use as trademark on commercial products, or to disassociating the World
Heritage logo from that of UNESCO.

The draft report, as amended, was finally adopted at 7:57 pm, amid high
praise for the Committee's work, for the efforts of the Centre, for the
Governor of Phuket, the Thai National Committee on the Convention for the
Protection of World Heritage, the Chairman, Dr. Wichiencharoen, and all
others concerned with the smooth operation of the meeting.

The last dinner on the island was hosted by the Governor of Phuket at the
Thai Village Restaurant, concluding the Eighteenth Session of the World
Heritage Committee.

* * * * * * * * * * *

This is the sixth and last newsletter to be distributed concerning the
eighteenth session of the World Heritage Committee. Many readers will have
observed that these reports did not arrive with quite the daily promptness
that was originally promised. The early failure of a high-speed modem made
the regular transmission of these reports infinitely more complicated.

The delayed distribution was certainly not due to a lack of support. In
particular, I should thank ICOMOS Canada, whose initial interest last year
launched the project. The ICOMOS Canada Internet servers (gopher and World
Wide Web) are the backbone of the ICOMOS presence on the Net. In Ottawa,
Gordon Dewis manned the distribution list and made sure that each report
was posted to the gopher as it arrived. The U.S National Committee of
ICOMOS also supported the project and helped raise needed travel costs for
the project, for which I am grateful to its President, Terry Morton.
Funding assistance to cover expenses came from the Samuel H. Kress
Foundation, the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training,
and the Secretariat of the International Council on Monuments and Sites.
Both of my own home institutions, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
and Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences, also supported the
project with travel grants.

The distribution of reports was carried out through two networks of the
Association for Progressive Communication (APC): the Institute for Global
Communications (U.S.) and Pegasus Networks (Australia). At Pegasus, Stan
Thompson and Andrew Garton provided help and advice in setting up the
distribution. That in the end I did not need to call Australia from Phuket
for a network connection was due to the fortuitous and generous offer of
Dr. Anuwat Supachutikul, of the Health Systems Research Institute, Ministry
of Public Health, Bangkok. A chance airport meeting led to his generous
offer of Internet access through his own Bangkok account.

The links in this chain have not been as 'robust' as intended; readers who
are missing one or more of the reports should write the undersigned. The
reports can also be found in the World Heritage section of the ICOMOS
gopher at gopher://hpb.hwc.ca:7000/11/.icomos/wh. We anticipate that these
reports will be joined by the World Heritage Centre's own official report
of the meeting when it is released.

Peter Stott
Distribution coordinator and editor
pstott@tufts.edu

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W o r l d H e r i t a g e C o m m i t t e e
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------ XVIII Annual Session, Phuket, Thailand, December 12-17, 1994 ------
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This distribution is made possible through grants from the Samuel H. Kress
Foundation; the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training;
the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; and Tufts University's School of
Arts and Sciences. It has been organized with the support of the Inter-
national Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and its Canadian and U.S.
national committees, ICOMOS Canada and US/ICOMOS. It has had the technical
support of the Pegasus Networks (Australia) and the Institute for Global
Communications (U.S.).
The reports are those of an observer of the meetings and do not represent
official publications of ICOMOS, the World Heritage Centre, or any dele-
gation.
Inquiries to the editor, Peter Stott
<pstott@peg.apc.org> or fax to (66-76) 340-479 between December 12 and 17
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