If development is an aspiration, then culture is the historical sediment underlying this aspiration. Culture conveys humanity’s intersecting bonds and the kinds of rituals, practices, and representations that make up its ways of life. Development—conceived narrowly as income growth or broadly as ways in which people participate to achieve well-being—is heavily influenced by this sense of bonding and group-ness. Culture is literally the way humanity recognizes itself and reveals its aspirations.

The Miao people are a linguistically and culturally related ethnic group who settled in the Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan, and Guangxi. While the Miao are disbursed over a large area and are subdivided into several different branches, they share a common heritage element called the circle dance. Often accompanied by a lusheng (a bamboo musical instrument), the circle dance is the most important dance and the most popular among all Miao branches. The wood drum dance is popular among the Fanpai Miao in Taijiang County, Guizhou province.

"This report focuses on where Tonga stands in regard to the 2003 Convention in terms of achievements and challenges faced since the second sub-regional meeting that was held in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, in February 2011.\nTonga has signed two conventions—the 1972 World Heritage Convention and the 2003 Convention. There is no doubt of the benefits received from signing these two conventions. The State Parties are experiencing the same problems related to westernisation, globalisation, and migration, and we have to act professionally in trying to maintain, preserve, develop, and promote our traditional cultures; otherwise, our traditions will drift away from us, leaving nothing for the next generation. Hence, the transmission of skills from one generation to the next generation is one of the vital activities to adopt through formal, non-formal, and informal education.\nThe two main education outcome objectives that guide us in performing our tasks in the Ministry of Education, Women’s Affairs are to \n1. Preserve, maintain, support, promote, and integrate Tongan values, culture, and language into all educational programmes and activities\n2. Improve universal basic education and post basic education through curriculum development that includes culture, gender, ICT, language policy, sports, technical vocational education and training skills, life skills, and life- long learning\nThese are the activities that have been done or are being undertaken during the 2011 and 2012 financial year in relation to implementing the 2003 Convention at the national level:\n• Second Sub – regional network meeting held in Tonga, February 2011;\n• Initial discussion related to the field survey project with ICHCAP\n• Completed National Cultural Policy, August 2011\n• Signed Joint Project Agreement between Tonga and ICHCAP, October 2011\n• Completed Phase One of the Joint Project Agreement October – December 2011"

Of the fifty-four ethnic groups in Vietnam, the Kinh (also known as the Viet) people account for 85 percent of the entire population of Vietnam while the remaining 15 percent of the population is made up of the other fifty-three minorities. Within the group of minorities are the Nung people who have a population of around one million and reside in the northern mountainous provinces on the border with China.

The subject of this study is to find out the protection and sustenance ways of Shaman heritage among the Turks of Turkey. As it is known, Turks of Turkey are shaman community in terms of ancient religions and world-views such as Kazakhs, Uighurs, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Altai, Republic of Tuva, Sakha and other Turkish tribes constituting the Turkish World. Majority of the Turks of Turkey migrated from the middle of today’s Mongolia to the shores of Aegean Sea and Balkan Peninsula in the last 1500 years. Another factor complicating this 1500-year migration is the fact that Turks accepted Manichaeism, Buddhism, Christianity and some groups accepted Judaism. Normally while it was expected that they pursued various religions and dispersed in this tens of thousands kilometer square, these Oghuz tribes weren’t assimilated and they assimilated many communities whose administration they undertook within the scope of their control.

"This paper considers some of the challenges around inventory making for intangible cultural heritage from a European perspective. It will outline the work that is currently being undertaken in Scotland to develop an online inventory using a wiki-based approach. Scotland as a devolved nation within the UK has its own cultural policies that embrace the concept of intangible cultural heritage (ICH); however, at a UK level, there appears to be resistance to the ratification of the 2003 UNESCO Convention on ICH. Scotland has taken an inclusive and participatory approach to the creation of an inventory that reflects the broad and open definition of ICH that has been adopted. This approach has brought some challenges as we begin to operationalize the identification and future safeguarding of ICH in Scotland. In managing the process, we are beginning to encounter some ethical questions. The digital inventory format of the wiki promotes grassroots community ownership, which means that data is user generated. Our challenges are around how this data should be moderated whilst adhering to the principles of a community approach, but also ensuring that we do not actively promote ICH that contravenes the basic human rights that the Convention is designed to uphold."

On this beautiful day of the harvesting season in autumn, when hundreds of fruits and grains are ripening and trees in the mountains and fields are tinging maple colours, I am very delighted and filled with the feeling of great honor that our Centre of UNESCO for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia and Pacific Region (ICHCAP) is privileged to host this year International Conference on Safeguarding ICH to reflect on the creative values and productive utility of our intangible heritage that our forefathers have inherited to us.

Water management has long been the most necessary agricultural activity for Korean farmers, who typically make their living through rice cultivation. This is why if rain is scarce \nor water management is wrong, it can ruin farming for the year and farmers will struggle to provide for themselves and their families. Whether the practices are traditional or modern, \nagriculture is fundamentally dependent on nature. Therefore, people prayed for rain to the gods who they believed were in the sky or the sea to prevent drought in rites that were common in Korea. While they still rely on nature, farmers have always sought to increase their resilience in the face of natural disasters by continuously innovating with irrigation solutions suitable for the local environment. This chapter introduces two types of irrigation \nfacilities that are typical examples of the water-management system in rice-farming areas from the perspective of traditional knowledge.

The custom of traditional Japanese tug-of-war, or tsunahiki (綱引), can be outlined as follows:\n\n• It is practiced on different annual events, such as Ko-syogatsu (小正月), or New Year celebration around 15 January according to the lunar calendar), Obon festival (盆)celebrated around 15 August, the Boys’ Festival on 5 May (端午節句), or the fifteenth night of August of the lunar calendar (八月十五夜).\n• The tug-of-war ropes are made of either straw, kaya (kind of cogon grass often used as traditional roofing materials), or shobu (菖蒲 or sweet sedge).\n• A village is divided into two groups of farming and fishing areas, eastern and west-ern areas, and upstream and downstream areas, and in some cases, the two groups are subdivided into smaller groups such as children and young adults as well as men and women.\n• The rope is tugged by these groups, or dragged around, slammed against the ground, or sometimes cut into pieces.\n• The purpose of this traditional event is said to forecast the volume of the coming harvest, to ward off evil spirits, or to pray for a peaceful life.

Intangible cultural heritage presents an important form of living cultural heritage. It covers fundamental, yet extremely vulnerable aspects of living culture and tradition embodied in the spiritual life, traditional knowledge, skills, and practices of communities. It presents one of the most vivid and colourful forms in which the world’s cultural diversity is expressed and preserved.

Samoa has rich oral traditions, mythologies, and legends, and some have been closely associated with traditional festivals and rituals such as the ‘Ava (or Kava) ceremony. ‘Ava is a beverage produced from the root of Kava, which is consumed throughout Polynesia, Melanesia, and some parts of Micronesia. The dried Kava root is grounded into a powder, added to water, and blended in a tanoa (round bowl made from a single piece of wood with multiple legs). The ‘ava drink is often prepared by a group of people during the ‘Ava ceremony. This well-known ceremony has important socio-cultural meanings and is the most significant ritual at the bestowal of matai, Samoan chiefs.