Law and Legal Documents on ICH \n\nLaw on Cultural Heritage indicates clearly that the cultural heritage in Vietnam is the valuable property of all ethnic groups of Vietnam and has its significant role in the sustainable development of the country. \nIn compatible with the 2003 Convention Vietnam rectified in 2005, the Law on Cultural heritage (2001) amended in 2009 with some articles on the identification of ICH, management, its safeguarding measures and designation of the master practitioners. The Article 1 on the identification of ICH states that “ICH is the spiritual product that is attached to the communities or individuals, relevant to tangible culture and cultural space. It expresses the cultural identity of communities, and has been continuously recreated and transmitted from generation to generation orally, through apprentices, performances and other modes of transmission."\n

The Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies (IPNGS) was established under the Cultural Development Act, passed by the Papua New Guinea House of Assembly on 14 October 1974. Papua New Guinea had become self-governing from Australia almost a year earlier, but independence was still about another year in the future. Today IPNGS is a national cultural institution under the National Cultural Commission Act. It moved to its present location towards the end of 1976. The distinctive welded sculptures on the outside walls and gates depict the Orokolo story of Aru Aru and his journey to the moon, as told by Sir Albert Maori Kiki.

I’ve been asked to speak about regional collaboration for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in South-East Asia, but I will be focusing more on safeguarding as it relates to the 2003 Convention, particularly on processes for ratification, inventory making, and legislative measures that have or have not been taken. It is important to know that there is a broader sense in which safeguarding happens at its best when UNESCO is not needed by which I mean it is happening in the communities, and there is no need for international conventions, laws, and national measures. That is the ideal situation. Unfortunately, that is not the situation of the world today. That is why we have the 2003 Convention, and that is why these measures are being put into place. I am going to try to focus on that.

Samoa is an independent nation that is homogeneous in language and ethnicity and is part of a broadly defined group of islands that make up the “many isles” of Polynesia. The vast majority of Samoans identify with some form of Christianity and there are estimated to be at least twice as many Samoans living abroad, in countries like Australia, New Zealand, and the US, as there are in Samoa.\nDespite foreign influences and globalization, the ICH of the people of Samoa remains rich and distinctive. At the foundation of the ICH of Samoa is the spoken word. It has only been in the last two centuries that Samoans have shifted from living in an oral culture to a society in which the written word has gained ascendency. The work of early missionaries to translate the Holy Bible into Samoan not only produced the scriptures in the vernacular but also created the look-to model for written Samoan that endures to this day. If the spoken word lies at the bedrock of ICH, capturing the language in a written format has helped ensure its continued use and transmission from one generation to the next, both in Samoa and throughout the Samoan diaspora.

The period of cultural awakening in Central Asia, which began in the Middle Ages six hundred years before the European countries, facilitated the development of a large group of genius scientists whose names were written in gilded letters in the annals of world history. One such genius is Abu Ali Ibn Sina, who blessed creativity on almost all fields of science and raised medicine to great heights. During the time of Abu Ali Ibn Sina (known in Europe as Avicenna), medicine in the Central Asia region reached perfection in all respects. It was strongly influenced by Greek, Roman, Jewish, Syrian, Arabic, Persian, Chinese, and Indian medicine, among which the ancient scientific and practical manual Avesta was the main point in this maturation process.\n

Director-General Samuel Lee, distinguished guests, and fellow participants of this important and significant UNESCO conference to reflect on the efforts to safeguard intangible cultural heritage and prospects for the future, it gives me pleasure and great honor to take part in this historical moment primarily as a student. I want to learn, to relearn, and also to unlearn, especially about intangible heritage that has suffered for\nmore than a hundred and fifty years—a great deal has suffered to a point of cultural marginalization or even annihilation, especially in the motherland of the cultural heritage. Of course, I am referring to Confucian tradition—not just temples, academies, and tangible structures, but Confucian tradition as one of the most precious intangible cultural heritage elements of East Asia, which includes not just China, but also Korea,\nJapan, Vietnam, and East Asian diaspora around the world.

Capoeira , a Brazilian martial art (MA) expression, was in 2014 inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity for its fundamental values and characteristics, transmitted from one generation to another (Vianna, 2016; UNESCO, 2020). The is a circle formed by capoeiristas, musicians, and the audience, in the center of which capoeira matches take place.

The Central Asian region is a unique area where centuries-old civilisations, religions, and cultures have intersected. The region’s ICH provides the basis for historical self-identification of the people that inhabit the region, and this ICH has influence on their future spiritual development. The ancestral heritage is intertwined in a vast cultural material, which reveals itself in folklore, legends, festivals, and games; in the rules and norms of social behaviour; in music, songs, and dances; and in national costumes as well as in decorative and applied arts and crafts.

Abstract: East Asian countries such as Mongolia, the Republic of Korea, the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Japan have had interactions and cultural exchanges for a long time ago. This paper is therefore about safeguarding the “Shared Heritage” in East Asia. Writing down the shared intangible cultural heritage in East Asia requires an understanding of the concept of sharedness from the perspective of commonality, similarity and recognition, and mutual acceptance. \n\nThis paper enumerates the Mongolian government’s initiatives and efforts to safeguard the shared intangible cultural heritage elements, such as “Falconry, a living human heritage,” and the challenges we face.

Our current climate change crisis, termed the Anthropocene, has been tied to the history of the colonial plantation, capitalism, empire, nuclear testing, and a globalization era of disposability and waste. All of these histories have impacted (tropical) islands to a far greater extent than their continental counterparts, because islands have often functioned as laboratories for colonial experimentation, from the plantation complex of the Caribbean to nuclear testing in the Pacific. The climate crisis alerts us to the peril of living beyond our limits, yet islanders have long had to negotiate ecological crisis as well as find innovative solutions of sustainability and resilience in bounded lands and with limited resources.

Throughout their history, the Kyrgyz people have lived nomadically, which then determined the direction of their cultural and spiritual life. This idea comes to life quite easily when examining the intricacies of Kyrgyz folk art and epic poetry, in particular. The main core of Kyrgyz epic poetry is Manas.

Co-orgarnized by ICHCAP and Hue Monuments Conservation Centre (HMCC), this year’s Asia-Pacific ICH NGO Conference was held in Hue, Vietnam under the theme of ICH NGOs towards Sustainable Development of Communities.