Koutammakou, the Land of the Batammariba

Total amount provided to the property: USD 21,471.5 for an emergency mission (see below) following the collapse of several Tankienta (Heritage Emergency Fund)

On 1 February 2019, the State Party submitted a detailed report on the state of conservation of the property.  This document, which was requested from the State Party by the Director of the World Heritage Centre in a letter of 29 November 2018, follows an emergency mission carried out from 19 to 24 October 2018 on the site after the collapse of several Takienta (earthen dwellings) during the 2018 rainy season. The State Party report and the mission report are available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1140/documents/.

The report sent by the State Party provides an analysis of the state of conservation of the site through cultural elements (tangible and intangible) and natural, identifying the main problems related to the conservation of the site in the following areas:

• Traditional housing: scarcity of building materials, increasing difficulty for communities to maintain the Takienta, influence of modernism expressed by the construction of modern buildings or the emergence of semi-urban centres;
• Intangible heritage: growing abandon of traditional practices, especially initiatory, funeral and worship rites, which would be linked to the adoption of monothesistic religions;
• Natural landscape: deforestation, uncontrolled urbanization, lack of access to certain areas of the site and severe weather;
• Difficulties related to the management of the site: insufficient human, material and financial resources at the level of the conservation service, lack of complementary legal and legislative texts;
• Problems concerning the promotion of the site: lack of quality accommodation and catering facilities, and visibility and cultural activities around Koutammakou.

Finally, the report concludes that, despite the disaster in 2018, the damage of which is being repaired, the property is currently not dealing with major threats that could affect its Outstanding Universal Value (OUV).

In addition to the State Party report, the report of the October 2018 emergency mission should also be considered for the purpose of this analysis. In fact, this report describes the damage observed on the site, especially in the localities of Bassamba, Warengo, Pimini and Nadoba. Thus, the experts were able to determine the destruction of 587 Takienta (of which 421 partially and 166 totally) and that of the altars sheltering the Manes of the ancestors of Batammariba.

The responsiveness of the State Party following the bad weather of 2018, which caused the destruction of several Takienta, in requesting the organization of an emergency mission and initiating restoration work on the damaged Takienta, is welcomed. It should be noted, however, that the State Party's report makes only a brief mention of the destruction, indicating that the damage is being repaired without specifying its extent, the progress of the work, the actors involved or the financial resources deployed. It is therefore recommended that the State Party provide more details on ongoing restoration measures.

In addition, the site faces management problems related to a shortfall in human, material and financial resources as well as the legal and legislative framework. Indeed, although rain damage of Takienta is recurrent and usually repaired by the community, the extent of the damage recorded in 2018 seems to reveal failures in the risk management and monitoring of the property.

This also partly explains the fact that the experts were unable to obtain reliable data to analyze the extent of the damage in relation to the entire property, in particular because the inventory of the elements constituting it (including Takienta) is incomplete and therefore does not provide a reference situation.

Thus, it is recommended that the Committee request the State Party to undertake an accurate inventory of Takienta and a complete inventory of the attributes that contribute to the Outstanding Universal Value of the property, including mapping, and a boundary delimitation of the property and its buffer zone, for effective management and protection.

In addition, the 2016-2026 Management Plan for the property, which had received international assistance in 2015 for its elaboration, has not yet been validated at the national level and is therefore not being implemented. To address the need to strengthen the conservation of the property and address the risks involved, the mission recommended that a Conservation Plan and a Risk Management Plan be incorporated into the updated management plan. It is therefore important that the State Party validates the Management and Conservation Plan by first updating it in accordance with the mission's recommendations, and that it also provides the conservation services with adequate resources and legal and legislative frameworks.

The State Party also mentions the appearance of contemporary constructions (round, square or rectangular huts, substitution of straw by sheet metal, administrative facilities) next to the Takienta, as well as architectural alterations (materials, structure, and architectural coherence). Although these elements reflect the needs of the populations to conform to forms of housing more adapted to their current way of life, they could have a negative impact on the cultural landscape of Koutammakou. This could also be accentuated by deforestation and uncontrolled urbanization phenomena (like the village of Nadoba).

Due to the limited mandate of the October 2018 mission and to all of the above factors potentially affecting the property, it is recommended that the State Party invite a joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS/ICCROM Reactive Monitoring mission, in order to fully assess the state of conservation of the property.