Decision 41 COM 7B.40

Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra (Albania) (C 569bis)

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC/17/41.COM/7B,
2. Recalling Decision 39 COM 7B.75, adopted at its 39th session (Bonn, 2015),
3. Notes the efforts undertaken by the State Party to continue to improve the conservation and management of the property, notably the maintenance and restoration works carried out in 2015 and 2016, and strongly encourages the State Party to proceed with the timely adoption and implementation of the draft Law “On Cultural Heritage and Museums”;
4. Welcomes the progress made with the development of monitoring indicators related to the protection of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) during the April 2016 workshop, and also encourages the State Party and stakeholders to proceed with their finalization and continue monitoring and controlling development;
5. Recalling the fundamental and urgent need for an overarching Integrated Management Plan (IMP) and appropriate control mechanisms for the property and its buffer zones and beyond, regrets that, despite its repeated requests, no progress has been reported on the development of such IMP for the property and urges the State Party to develop, as a matter of priority, an overarching IMP, including a risk management component with threat mitigation measures, and to:
   1. Develop an integrated urban conservation and development tool, based on a detailed survey and documentation of all buildings and environmental features in the urban settlement and its wider context, using if necessary the approach carried by the Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (2011),and ensure strong inter-institutional cooperation in particular with the entities responsible for urban planning,
   2. Maintain the moratorium on new constructions within the property and buffer zones, until approval of the above-mentioned tools for protection and management of Berat and Gjirokastra;
6. Requests the State Party to take into consideration the review and recommendations provided by the Advisory Bodies concerning the infrastructural projects, and in particular, with regard to the Gjirokastra Bypass Road project, reassess the carrying capacity and scale in order to minimize potential adverse impacts of this development project on the OUV of property;
7. Reiterates its request to the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre the results of a Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) concerning the entirety of the rehabilitation project at Berat Castle, for review by the Advisory Bodies;
8. Further encourages the State Party to continue to provide to the World Heritage Centre any development proposals before their official approval, in line with Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines, for review by the Advisory Bodies;
9. Also requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 December 2018, an updated report on the state of conservation of the property and the implementation of the above, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 43rd session in 2019.