Inventories are a fundamental tool for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH). In its “Guidance Note\nfor Inventorying ICH,” UNESCO reiterates the importance of community participation in the inventorying\nprocess. In other words, ICH inventories must go beyond mere documentation of specific elements by experts and instead enable a collaborative process whereby the information gathered assists with keeping the ICH meaningful and viable for associated communities. Digital media offers exciting opportunities for engaging communities in ICH inventory processes, as well as in modeling information in ways that help heritage professionals, advocates, and practitioners gain a more nuanced view of an element’s viability. In this paper I present two digital tools, Photovoice and Arches, that can assist community-based inventories to identify and document the complex cultural “ecosystem” that ICH lives through.

Madam Irina Bokova (Director-General of UNESCO), Representatives from UNESCO regional Offices and NATCOMs, Experts, Scholars, National and International Practitioners and Communities in the Asia-Pacific Region, and Our Hosts the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea: It gives me great pleasure to be able to present here today on this auspicious occasion. Distinguished participants and Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to thank the organisers for supporting my attendance at this forum and to congratulate ICHCAP on its success in being established as a Category 2 Centre in the Asia-Pacific region and for bringing us together at this forum to provide an opportunity to exchange information, communicate, and network.

This paper aims at providing a basis for discussion on how to enhance regional and sub-regional collaboration among ICH stakeholders. The paper begins with identifying ICH stakeholders at local and national levels, and then looks at ICH stakeholders at sub-regional and regional levels. Sub-regional integration bodies in Asia and the Pacific region are introduced as potential partners for ICH safeguarding, while specific functions assigned to three Category II Centres in the field of ICH established in the region are highlighted for the sake of clarification. Based on that, the paper suggests three actions with a view to enhancing regional and sub-regional collaboration among ICH stakeholders; i) set clear goals and results to be achieved within the framework of global vision, ii) formulate a strategy and action plan, and iii) ensure monitoring and evaluation. Most of the examples used in this paper are taken from the Pacific region with which the author is familiar.

The region of Bay of Bengal has been an important part of maritime activities, including trading and fisheries from very ancient times. The significance of the region continues even at present. The massive \nwaterbody is a representation of a busy network of trade and commerce and the basis of livelihoods for thousands who surround it from all sides from various countries. Fishing as an occupation is an important \nsector of food and nutritional security and India alone, has more than nine million active fisherfolk across its coastline, who are directly dependent on fisheries for their livelihood, amidst which 80 % are small scale fishers. The sector of fisheries employs over 14 million people and contributes to 1.1 % of the Indian GDP. Though the number remains unaccounted for in most countries, but amidst the number of \nfishermen, there is a substantial number of fisherwomen, who have been contributing through generations in various ways, including supplementing the family income through alternative methods of income, as well as being the main conduits of maintaining various elements of intangible cultural heritage, including traditional methods of fishing. This research paper is an attempt to look into the contribution of the fisherwomen community around the western fringes of the Bay of Bengal, especially looking at the countries of Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka and the vital contributions of these womenfolk. The fisherwomen \nnot only help to sustain the families through the main profession of the family, but also helps financially through various subsidiary modes of income, like handicrafts and artwork. This is extremely helpful for sustaining the family in time of the lean seasons of fishing, as well as during periods of disaster, like the present Covid-19 pandemic situation. These attempts of the fisherwomen, thus, connects various factors to \noverall social cohesion and development, including sustaining various channels of intangible cultural heritage which directly connects to their main profession and also helps in transmission of community values \nand also redefines gender roles within the community.

This paper begins with illustrating the vulnerability and resilience of Pacific island countries (PICs) to put intangible cultural heritage (ICH) safeguarding in a broader context of sustainable development for the Pacific region. The paper first presents a summarised history of the Pacific World Heritage Programme and the progress of its implementation since the adoption of the World Heritage Convention in 1972. It then outlines the development of the Pacific ICH Programme since the preparatory phase of the ICH Convention, adopted in 2003, to the organisation of multi-stakeholder consultations in seven PICs in 2010 and 2011. The paper identifies two tasks: i) organisation of consultations on ICH safeguarding and ii) elaboration of a mid-term strategy for ICH safeguarding in the Pacific. As a conclusion, the paper presents a strategy to focus on the contribution of Pacific ICH to the achievements of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other internationally agreed goals such as Education for All (EFA). The paper argues that this could be done by building upon on-going good practices and by strategically highlighting the central role of ICH in achieving\nsustainable development of communities.

Changes in our planet derived from human activities are now comparable to massive volcanic eruption and meteorite impacts in the past, to the extent that we can now consider the advent of a distinctively new geological era, the Anthropocene. This concept was first proposed by an atmospheric chemist, Paul J. Crutzen, in 2000 and was quickly adopted by earth system scientists and geologists, humanity scholars and social scientists, artists and performers. Yet this new geological concept is still not much familiar to the general public and has to go through many steps to get the official endorsement from the International Commission on Stratigraphy. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that the Anthropocene refers to our planet's planetary crisis, which includes climate change and ecological destruction.

Bangladesh is a repository of hundreds of intangible cultural heritage elements that have been developed through various historical waves of different political and religious regimes over the last 5000 years.ICH education at the tertiary level has an important role to play in creating a pool of human resources for sustaining the value, meaning, and significance of these ICH elements. Until recent past, the importance of protection, promotion and safeguarding of various cultural heritage resources in Bangladesh has not received necessary attention from administration, academicians and researchers. Lack of policies and resources, and shortage of trained teaching staffs were the main reasons for not being able to introduce required courses at the tertiary level of education. Assessing the present status of heritage education at various tertiary institutions, this paper calls for immediate policy responses to strengthen the ICH education for developing a Sustainable Cultural Heritage Management Plan (SCHMP) through building capacities by mobilizing local resources in collaboration with various national and international organizations. Immediate and long-term heritage education policy-planning and interventions can encounter the challenges of protecting, promoting and safeguarding various ICH elements of the country. \n\nThus, the main objective of this paper is to examine the actual status of heritage studies at the tertiary level of education in Bangladesh through analyzing the contents of curriculums of some selected departments which are closely related to cultural heritage studies. As a supplement to this content analysis, a small number of randomly selected students and teachers have been interviewed to know their general understanding about the importance of ICH education in Bangladesh. \n

Water, as we all know, makes life possible on Earth. Thus, the accessibility and availability of water sources have historically decided the rise and fall of civilizations around the world. \nScientific research has shown that the Kathmandu Valley once contained a great lake, and it only became habitable once the lake was drained. Buddhist narratives place the agency behind the draining with Manjushri, while later Hindu accounts place it with Krishna (Slusser, 1982). The fertile alluvial soil present in the valley adds to the argument of the valley once being a lake. In addition, there are many water sources in the valley, including rivers, small lakes, ponds, wetlands, wells, springs, and stone waterspouts.

The Philippines, in the tropical waters of the South China Sea at the western edge of the Pacific Ocean, is dry from January to May and rain-swept for the rest of the year, especially during the monsoon months of June to September. The archipelagic country is vulnerable to climatic changes. The balmy ocean air becomes searing heat of 40 degrees Celsius in summer, and the monsoon rains extend in duration with increased volume.

Duong Bich HANH is the Chief of Culture Unit in the UNESCO Bangkok Office. She has been working to promote the ratification and implementation of UNESCO’s six cultural Conventions- including the 2003 ICH Convention- and coordinating a number of regional projects in Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific. She is especially interested in promoting the role of culture and cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible, in sustainable development and in ensuring that local communities both participate and benefit from the protection of their own heritage. Ms Hanh is an Anthropologist with extensive knowledge and experience in Southeast Asia and international development.

The Tao Foundation for Culture and Arts is a Philippine non-profit, non-governmental orga-nization based in Quezon City, National Capital Region, Luzon and in Agusan del Sur, Caraga Region, Northeastern Mindanao. Established in 1994, the Tao Foundation is led by an all-fe-male Board composed of Filipino scholars, artists, and Indigenous community leaders engaged in cultural regeneration initiatives in response to the five centuries of colonial and neocolonial histories and the need to help build strong cultural communities. The Tao Foundation’s mission is to (1) facilitate the exchange, transmission, and development of Philippine ICH/TCH; and to (2) contribute to the empowerment of culture bearers or those who possess ancestral practical and theoretical knowledges that have endured and transformed to remain relevant through colonial and neocolonial histories as a result of day-to-day and more large-scale acts of resistance.

Cultural heritage, as defined by UNESCO, includes both diverse tangible and intan- gible cultural heritage (ICH).1 In the maritime realm—that is, connected to human activity at sea—tangible heritage includes physical material such as shipwrecks, artifacts, and submerged archaeological sites found under water and in the tidal zone. A term more commonly used is underwater cultural heritage (UCH), as defined in the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. Intangible heritage encompasses five domains where heritage is expressed and maintained through contemporary practices (“living heritage”), as defined in the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.