San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titano
Summary provided by State Party
A public competition concerning the new UNESCO signs. The winner, the San Marino architect Renzo Broccoli, and the Director of the State Museum, together with the Ministry of Territory and the UNESCO Coordination Unit, have started to develop a project, which will soon be implemented, with a view to providing new and comprehensive cultural information on the monuments of the Property (in Italian and English). This service, to be provided both with elegant signs and through information technology and telephony, involves 40 monuments among the most significant ones of the Historic Centre of San Marino, Mount Titano and the Historic Centre of Borgo Maggiore. The main objective is to harmonise cultural and tourist information with new information material to be used also for official and institutional visits.
The project provides for the realisation of uniform panels made of serigraphed aluminium with a supporting structure, always made of metal.
The Directorate of the State Library has collaborated in a fundamental manner in the drafting of the explanatory texts of the monuments. With regard to the sites and archaeological emergencies, resort has been made to the experience of the staff of the State Museum. The final drafting of the texts (not yet completed) will be approved by the administration prior to the final making-up in the signs.
In the most relevant environmental situations, signs have always been placed perpendicular to the main façade of the monument. This allows to have a lower impact in the pictures taken by tourists as a souvenir and in video images taken of official ceremonies taking place outside.
Info Point
Info point is the kind of support that has been modified compared to that of the competition. This choice is due to the need to have a uniform communication. The initiative undertaken by the Office for Tourism to provide the historic centres of San Marino and Borgo Maggiore with a system of multimedia totems, which can considerably help tourists in terms of information, is perfectly in line with the spirit of the competition and of our project. Indeed, our project provided for a web interface for the communication and dissemination of the specific features of the UNESCO property.
The editorial initiative “Protected Naturalistic Areas of the Republic of San Marino” illustrates the Detailed Plan of Protected Naturalistic Areas, established according to the provisions of Art. 31 of Law no. 7 of 29 January 1992 “General Town Planning Scheme and relevant implementing rules”.
Also in our country, protected areas are rich in biodiversity and represent a resource of outstanding value, which deserves due attention, together with an adequate and respectful access by citizens.
The protection of nature is a duty, need and sign of civil maturity. A responsible and aware development is necessarily connected with a respectful relationship between man and environment, where every activity should be carried out within the limits of tolerance of the various ecosystems. Protected areas contribute to this indispensible balance and represent an inestimable richness of our planet.
This editorial initiative was supplemented by an important conference on landscape, in October 2011, which took place in collaboration with Italian technical experts and authorities. This publication will be sent separately (together with the images requested).
One-off Initiative for the recognition of best practices
The World Heritage Capacity Building Strategy, adopted by the World Heritage Committee in 2011, responds to the identified needs of a diverse and growing audience for capacity building for World Heritage conservation and management activities. Development of resource materials such as best practice case studies and communication tools are among the activities foreseen by the strategy to improve these capacities.
An example of an innovative capacity building initiative is the recently concluded Recognition of Best Practice in World Heritage Management. This initiative, requested by the World Heritage Committee and carried out within the framework of the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention in 2012, solicited applications from World Heritage properties which had demonstrated new and creative ways of managing their sites. Twenty-three submissions were received and evaluated by a 10-member international selection committee which included the representatives of the Convention’s Advisory Bodies, ICCROM, ICOMOS and IUCN. The Historic Town of Vigan in the Philippines was chosen as a best practice achieved with relatively limited resources, a good integration of the local community in many aspects of the sustainable conservation and management of the property and with an interesting multi-faceted approach to the protection of the site.
Management practices recognized as being successful and sustainable can include everything from involving local people in site management, to creating innovative policies and regulating tourism. There are sites that include students from local schools in the management of the site (Slovenia), train local inhabitants as tour guides (Peru), or even put up nylon fences to protect villagers from straying tigers from the Sundarbans National Park (India). Sharing these practices helps other sites find solutions that work.
This initiative provides incentives for States Parties and site managers to reflect on their management practices and explore improvement possibilities.
Consult more best practice examples
- Acropolis, Athens
- Angkor
- Archaeological Ensemble of Mérida
- Boyana Church
- Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia
- Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas
- Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa
- Gros Morne National Park
- Historic and Architectural Complex of the Kazan Kremlin
- Historic Areas of Istanbul
- Historic Centre of Oaxaca and Archaeological Site of Monte Albán
- Historic City of Vigan
- Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities)
- Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area
- Land of Frankincense
- Le Morne Cultural Landscape
- Medieval City of Rhodes
- Mogao Caves
- Old Havana and its Fortification System
- SGang Gwaay
- Sacred City of Caral-Supe
- San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titano
- Shiretoko
- Škocjan Caves
- Sundarbans National Park
- Teide National Park
- Wet Tropics of Queensland