Decision 44 COM 7B.10

Sukur Cultural Landscape (Nigeria) (C 938)

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC/21/44.COM/7B,
2. Recalling Decision 42 COM 7B.48, adopted at its 42nd session (Manama, 2018),
3. Commends the State Party for the initiatives undertaken for the restoration and reconstruction of some of the traditional buildings in the property that were damaged by 2014 insurgents' attacks, in particular within and around the Hidi Palace;
4. Notes with satisfaction the resilience of the Sukur community in the context of persisting threats in the larger area surrounding the property, and encourages the State Party and the local community to maintain their efforts for heritage conservation, in particular with regard to the mobilisation of the youth;
5. Notes nevertheless that considerable further conservation work remains to be undertaken on paved paths and walls as well as on the wider property beyond the Hidi Palace, in particular on the clusters of traditional house and agricultural terraces, which were devastated by insurgents and are crucial attributes of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property as a living cultural landscape;
6. Welcomes the efforts deployed by the State Party to secure the area, ensuring increased protection to the population of Sukur, especially on the hilltop, but expresses its concern over persisting threats to security in the larger area through sporadic attacks from Boko Haram insurgents along the access route to Sukur;
7. Recognising again that due to the sense of relative safety the hilltop holds, the population has resettled and increased at Sukur, but also notes with concern that the increase of demographic pressure is a factor that contributes to environmental degradation, resulting in scarcity of local building materials, and favours the inappropriate re-adaptative use of new building materials and technologies;
8. Requests the State Party to take action to enhance awareness of heritage conservation by reaching out to the Sukur community to encourage them through promotion and incentives to actively conserve traditional architecture and agricultural terraced landscapes, and to safeguard associated intangible cultural heritage through coordination between the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) and the relevant departments responsible for agriculture and living heritage;
9. Also notes that discussions have taken place with the State Party of Cameroon on the possibility of a transboundary extension of the property to include the Diy-Gid-Biy archaeological sites, and also encourages the State Party to consider requesting Upstream advice on the potential for this extension to reflect the OUV of the property as a living cultural landscape;
10. Further notes that the 2018 joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring mission was unable to visit the property itself due to security concerns, and also requests the State Party to again invite a joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring mission to the property, once the necessary security clearance can be obtained, to assess the state of conservation of the property and the efficacy of measures for both traditional buildings and traditional agricultural terraced landscapes that have been put in place to safeguard the property's OUV;
11. Further requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 December 2022, 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 46th session.