Cambodian Living Arts’ (CLA) mission is to be a catalyst in a vibrant arts sector, inspiring new generations. Established in 1998, the organization’s original goal was to keep Cambodia’s endangered intangible heritage alive. As the context of Cambodia changed, and a new generation of artists began to emerge, CLA started offering scholarships, fellowships and professional development training, whilst creating job opportunities and encouraging cultural entrepreneurship. To support the transforming environment, CLA also engaged in cultural policy advocacy, supported the development of arts education in public schools and built new audiences for arts. CLA’s programs aim to give artists the resources and opportunities to start telling stories of contemporary Cambodia. Cambodian Living Arts believes that arts are at the heart of a vital society and supports cultural participation for all.

Based on the accumulated experience over the course of fifteen years since the adoption of the 2003 Convention, Southeast Asia is well known for its diverse and abundant intangible heritage. Many states in this region have already initiated ICH safeguarding plans with active participation of communities.\nHowever, a number of Member States are still having difficulties employing community‐based safeguarding plan and programs. In implementing the 2003 Convention, much attention should be paid to build capacity to support and safeguard a wider range of ICH Stakeholders, including communities, group, and individuals.\nTherefore, this session will provide an opportunity to share experiences and discuss on the roles the community should exercise in safeguarding ICH. In this session, we will discuss the following questions: (1) Do ICH communities, groups, individuals, and practitioners fully recognise the spirit and significance of the 2003 Convention? (2) Are they subsequently assigned to embody appropriate roles?

Epics are the literary version of a nation’s history. They provide insight into a nation’s lifestyle, traditions, history, and present and future ways of thinking. The process of modernizing moral values depends on the study of literary heritage.

Learning oral epic traditions means learning people’s lifestyle, traditions, customs and history, their present and future, their way of thinking and their spirit. Specifically, it means understanding the originality of a nation, its qualities, wishes, way of living and outlook or, in other words, learning the oral traditions of a nation means to study the nation itself. The process of modernising our present morals depends on how we have studied literary heritage, including the originality and degree of mythology in oral epic traditions. For this, initially we need to learn, investigate and research ancient mythological imaginations of our people and their oral narrative traditions, which are the base for art and literature. Oral epic works present the literary history of any nation.

This article describes one of Tuvalu’s renown intangible cultural heritages – the cultivation of pulaka. Pulaka (Tuvaluan) is known by different names in other countries, such as babai in Kiribati or via in Fiji, and also has different monikers in other countries like the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM)—Korsae, Pohnpei, Chuuk, and Yap. Its scientific name is Cyrtosperma chamissonis and its common English name is the “giant swamp taro.” Pulaka is the traditional root crop for the people of the atolls but is also found in volcanic lands like Fiji, Pohnpei, Vanuatu, and others. In the latter case pulaka pro\u0002vided a vital source of food in times of shortages

The Orang Asli are the indigenous minorities of Peninsular Malaysia and number less than 170,000. They consist of eighteen ethnic groups with different languages and cultures but broadly similar traditional belief systems (adat). The Orang Asli live in a variety of ecological niches, including upland forested areas, freshwater swamps, and coastal lands.

Nepal is a multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural country with rich cultural heritage located between India and China. The 2011 census recognized 125 caste and ethnic groups and 123 different languages. The new constitution of the Nepali federal republic has further recognized all the spoken languages as national languages. The National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities (NFDIN) recognized fifty-nine indigenous nationalities residing in Nepal in 2002 (NFDIN 2011). However, in the 2011 census only forty-seven indigenous nationalities were reported (CBS 2012). Among them, Tharu is the second-largest indigenous group with a population of 1.7 million residing in various districts of southern Nepal (CBS 2012).

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.

On 17 January, in Macerata Campania,1 a small town in southern Italy, the citizens repeat the ancient feast of St. Anthony the Abbot (in the local language, A festa ‘e Sant’Antuono). On this occasion, the citizens build huge boat-shaped floats, i.e. ornamental wagons dedicated to St. Anthony called carri di Sant’Antuono, on which the battuglie di pastellessa parade through the streets of the town, performing the ancient music of St. Anthony, accompanied by a percussion of barrels, vats and sickles. The battuglie di pastellessa are a local group formed of about 50 people called bottari (i.e. particular musicians called “barrel-beaters”) and coor-dinated by an orchestra leader known as capobattuglia. During the festival, over 1,000 bottari (young people, adults and even children) play percussions with barrels, vats and sickles, common tools for agriculture, to give life to the typical music of St. Anthony, commonly called pastellessa.\n

"In this region of many “lands” surrounded by water, knowledge of the land and its harvests is tied closely to identity and heritage. This section’s themes thus offer a closer look at how the knowledge of caring for the land and harvests is a way of feeling for the Pacific islanders. This ICH, in addition to coloring people’s interactions on the land and carrying expressions of respect, is a means of ensuring sustainability and prosperity.\nPacific islanders depend largely on the land and their harvests from it for their survival, but these also hold deeper meaning for life. To the people of Vanuatu, for instance, laplap soso'ur is more than an edible delicacy: it is a feature of their cultural identity and a means to bring people together across societal levels. Similarly, in Palau, the mesei taro fields are valuable property, but they are also much more in that these pieces of land are deeply connected to the identity of the people, particularly women, and figure prominently in the colorful oral histories of the Palauans. Both of these cases, along with the other themes in this section, reflect the profound value of ICH related to the Pacific islands and their harvests."

Established in 2000, The Loden Foundation is a registered civil society organization in Bhutan with the objectives of promoting education, cultural preservation, and entrepreneurship among the Bhutanese children and young adults; promoting education and learning at the preschool, school, and post-school stages, and thereby fostering an enlightened and educated society in Bhutan; promoting awareness of the education and the needs of local communities in relation to entrepreneurship, health education, practical skills and crafts, and literacy among remote villages and communities within Bhutan; preserving and promoting the cultures and tradi- tions of Bhutan; and undertaking, if need be, other charitable work that contributes toward the welfare of the public.