Shwedagon Pagoda will be discussed as an addition to a UNESCO tentative list that will inform future World Heritage nominations, according to a UNESCO Rangoon announcement on Friday.

Meetings between UNESCO and the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture will be held at Rangoon’s Department of Archeology and National Museum office on Feb. 13-14.

On the first day, the experts will review the cultural sites on Burma’s tentative list. The following day will be dedicated to technical consultations regarding the management of cultural landscapes.

Shwedagon’s gilded stupa and centuries-old architecture are locally and internationally known.

Yangon Heritage Trust director Daw Moe Moe Lwin said that Shwedagon Pagoda was a good nominee for the World Heritage list.

She added that the pagoda is highly valued by Buddhists and that a UNESCO preliminary measure is the extent to which locals treasure and maintain the proposed site.

Previous governments had created plans to leave an unobstructed view from Pyay Road to Shwedagon’s western staircase. But high-rise construction could threaten the view, said Daw Moe Moe Lwin.

Daw Moe Moe Lwin was invited to attend the upcoming two-day conference.

Burma’s tentative list of cultural sites has not been updated since 1996 despite Operational Guidelines of the 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage encouraging the task to take place every 10 years.

In 2014, the Pyu ancient cities were inscribed as the country’s first World Heritage property.

Currently, Burma is preparing to nominate the Bagan archaeological area and monuments and the Hkakabo Razi landscape in Kachin State.

Source:
courtesy of THE IRRAWADDY

by MOE MYINT

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