Editor's Note: Organized by CRIHAP with ICHCAP and IRCI, the Release Ceremony of Selected Cases on ICH Safeguarding for Sustainable Development in the Asia-Pacific Region 2024 was held in Beijing on November 26. Deirdré Prins-Solani, an expert on intangible cultural heritage from UNESCO, shared her insights on the selected cases. Through the lens of personal experiences, Prins-Solani stressed the relevance of intangible cultural heritage in addressing global challenges. She highlighted that respecting and integrating cultural diversity is key to advancing sustainable development, calling for supporting community-based ICH transmission by engaging with local communities, cultivating curiosity, and promoting policy change and cross-sector collaboration. We have compiled her speech for your reference.

Respecting Diversity, Cultivating Curiosity - Insights from Cases on ICH Safeguarding & Sustainable Development

The incredible work being done in various parts of China and this region is truly inspiring, especially at a time when our world is plagued by war, famine, and the devastating effects of climate change. Witnessing and learning about these efforts brings hope, and hope, in turn, provides the energy and strength to keep moving forward. To all the organizations in this region that have worked to highlight these remarkable stories of communities, you have given us a gift. Your efforts are invaluable, and I cannot fully express my gratitude. It is easy to feel disillusioned and lose hope when confronted with seemingly insurmountable challenges, both within our communities and across the globe. But your work reminds us of the resilience and creativity of humanity. Congratulations to CRIHAP, ICHCAP and IRCI—you have done a commendable job.

I have given thought to what I wanted to share today, and I will keep it brief because the stories speak for themselves. I’d like to begin by telling you a little about myself. I am a farmer. I tend to land passed down to me through generations, following the traditions of my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. My focus is on cultivating medicinal plants, a practice rooted in the wisdom of my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother—a legacy I am honored to uphold.

Why am I sharing this? Because as a farmer, I have learned the profound joy of seeing seedlings break through the soil. When you plant seeds or bulbs, there is always an element of uncertainty. You don't know what will grow or how much of what you planted will flourish. You can't be certain whether the ecosystem into which you've sown those seeds has the vitality needed to nurture life and bring it to the surface.

There's a mystery that lies beneath the earth. When I read all 27 cases presented in our collection, I kept thinking about the metaphor of seedlings emerging from the earth. Why am I saying that? What's that got to do with intangible cultural heritage and sustainable development? Well, everything, really, because the cases shared with us, these 27 cases, made me think about what they reveal about the people. What do they tell us about the way of being in the world, the way of life, the belief system, and the knowledge systems that exist within those communities?

These seedlings that have popped up, these 27 cases that we have borne witness to, evoke a curiosity in me to know more. I need to know more about why this particular way is there, why we see bamboo, why this particular performance art, why this dance. Because living heritage is not only about that one element. It's not only about that one case. That element, that case, tells us something much more about the communities and the way of life that is there. And that there's an ecosystem in which this community thrives and is well. The case studies we are presented with tell us a little bit about it, but not everything. And what we should be seeking is to continue to nurture our curiosity about what those elements, what that living heritage tells us about people.

The diversity of the elements presented here is almost representative of the diversity of the peoples and their stories. And that’s exciting because what it tells us when we think about living heritage and sustainable development is that there needs to be diversity. There needs to be diversity in our approaches to how we address things like climate change, like war, like calamities such as famine. That there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. And while we may try to create solutions, and then say, impose those solutions within communities. What this particular project is saying to us is no, no, no, hang on, look more closely at where these things are happening, find out from communities themselves, what are the knowledge systems and ways of being in the world that's going to inform how to address some of these challenges which communities face at a local level.

In some of the work that I'm doing in my country, in the north of South Africa, we have a community of people who are called the Chivenda people. And I work with a community of 10 clans of Chivenda people. Over the last four years, when we've been having these discussions about living heritage and sustainable development and how their living heritage, through the intangible process, is going to help to contribute to sustainable lives for themselves. They keep telling me and keep reminding me: “You know, madam, you come here with your knowledge, and that's wonderful. You have so much to teach us, but we also need to teach you. We need to tell you that we don't know this thing called sustainable development, that word doesn't exist in our vocabulary. We also don't know this thing that you call it living heritage, because that word also doesn’t exist. We can't translate that into our language. What we know is ‘Zifo’. Zifo, badly translated into English, means that we as humans live together in the world, the human world. Our ancestors rest in the trees. The waterways are sacred, and because of that, that's why we have certain taboos around who can use the water, when you can use the water, etc. So when you talk about living heritage and sustainable development, we don't know that, and I'm raising it here because very often we come with a language that is often grounded in international speak, and when we engage and encounter communities, they will tell us the language that makes sense and that makes meaning, and that's really exciting. And that's why, again, listening to these 27 cases as examples of this relationship between living heritage and sustainable development, we can also begin to ask questions of, how does the community frame, how does the community think of sustainable development and these 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and how these elements actually address some or all of the Sustainable Development Goals and create a sense of well-being within communities.

I want to emphasize the importance of nurturing curiosity. Often, as academics – and I'm one of them – we're eager to find solutions. We write them down, publish them, and present them to the world. However, these so - called solutions may hold no meaning or make no sense to the very people we're studying or whose stories we're telling. As you return to the communities where you do your work, keep this in mind: cultivating curiosity is essential.

The second point is to avoid being extractive or reductive. It's all too easy to fall into this trap. For instance, in South Africa, when we come across good case studies about how communities thrive or become more resilient in the face of climate change, we might extract a bit of knowledge, post it, and share it globally, saying, "Here's a way to do it." But communities will tell us that the knowledge we've taken from them is just a part of a much broader worldview and a more extensive knowledge system. When discussing the relationship between living heritage and sustainable development, we must carefully consider how we demonstrate and represent this. Otherwise, we'll repeat the mistakes of the past, approaching problem - solving in an extractive manner. Being mindful of how not to do this is another challenge I want you to be aware of.

Take my work in Ghana, for example. Kente cloth weaving is well - known and may be listed by Ghana as an element. I've encouraged my colleagues there to think about how Kente cloth weaving relates to the life of a child studying mathematics and arithmetic at school. How can the veneration and celebration of this cloth - weaving knowledge system, passed down not through written patterns but through memory, story, song, and rhythm, contribute to the lives and well - being of Ghanaian schoolchildren?

Another important aspect is how we can effect change at the policy level. This year, it was truly exciting to listen to case studies spanning different sectors, disciplines, and various levels of governance structures within both communities and states. When considering living heritage and sustainable development, think about the policy landscape. How can policies and legislation support and facilitate the relationship between living heritage and sustainable development? How can these frameworks be utilized to support this? In one country where I've worked, for example, the focus was on climate change resilience, and strategies for it were introduced as a means of addressing sustainable development. But when I interviewed community members a few months ago, they said that forestry and water departments, along with experts, came and planted fast-growing trees to deal with flooding without consulting them. The community could have recommended indigenous and endemic trees that would have been more suitable for the region. This shows that cross - sectoral and intra - sectoral cooperation, especially with a focus on culture, is absolutely crucial.

The last point is about how to scale these things up. How can we take these case studies and examples, and use them as a way to think about scaling up projects? In highly urbanized areas, local communities are sometimes forcibly evicted from their land, or they lose access to resources such as water and healthcare services due to development. How can living heritage be relevant in these situations, especially in large - scale infrastructure projects like building roads, bridges, and digital platforms, which are the infrastructural demands of a developing region? How can we ensure that living heritage becomes a key factor in the implementation of these projects? That is, the engineering and plans should be guided by living heritage, rather than considering living heritage as an afterthought.

Thank you very much.