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Editorial

A New Bid

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee, meeting in Brasilia from 25th July to 3rd August last, ruled, in line with the opinion issued by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (Icomos), that the bid for Wallonia’s four major mining sites should be deferred. This came as no surprise, as the Walloon Region had already been informed of the content of this opinion in June and had arranged to resubmit its bid documents with the additional information in response to the Icomos comments in January 2011. The dossier will be examined again as part of a new procedure and resubmitted to the World Heritage Committee in July 2012.

In the conclusions to the opinion issued by Icomos, the latter vitally recognises the outstanding universal value, authenticity and uniqueness of the 4 sites, which, as a reminder, are the old collieries of Le Grand Hornu, Bois-du-Luc, Le Bois du Cazier, and Blegny-Mine. However, Icomos feels that this universal value cannot be fully expressed in the present condition of protection, conservation, and management of these sites put forward for listing.

So the Walloon Region, which is submitting the bid, will have the following challenges to meet in the next few months:

• to implement greater protection of the sites by completing the procedures for classification or classification extension or definition of the buffer zones which have been started but are still incomplete;
• to set up, define, and monitor a conservation plan for all the sites, in particular by drawing up detailed records.
• to provide an official, effective structure to agree and coordinate management in order to establish a coherent, homogenous system for monitoring all 4 sites.

The latter point can, of course, only be fulfilled in cooperation with the owners and management structures in place at these sites.

The ASBL “Patrimoine Industriel Wallonie-Bruxelles”, whose executive board includes representatives of the sites, will support this new bid in the same way as the original bid, by providing its expertise and developing a series of awareness actions.
 

Jean-Louis DELAET President of PIWB