Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley

• Looting, illicit traffic and illegal excavations of cultural heritage assets (issue resolved)
• Military Training (Continued inappropriate use of certain heritage areas for military posts)
• Anti-personnel mines and unexploded ordinances (i.e. munitions) (issue resolved)
• Commercial development, Housing (Development pressure around the property and in the buffer zone)
• Ground transport infrastructure
• Others (Risk of collapse of the Giant Buddha niches; Irreversible deterioration of the mural paintings)

• Site security not ensured
• Long-term stability of the Giant Buddha niches not ensured
• State of conservation of archaeological remains and mural paintings not adequate
• Management Plan and Cultural Master Plan (the protective zoning plan) not implemented

Adopted, see page https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/1287

Adopted, see page https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/1287 

Adopted, see page https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/1593 

Total amount granted: USD 7,170,807 (2003-2017) from the UNESCO/Japan Funds-in-Trust; USD 159,000 (2011-2012) from the UNESCO/Switzerland Funds-in-Trust; USD 900,000 (2013) from the UNESCO/Italy Funds-in-Trust

On 9 April 2017, the State Party submitted a state of conservation report, which is available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/208/documents and reports the followings:

• Conservation: a condition assessment of the western Buddha niche was undertaken in 2016, providing an accurate picture on the rear wall of the niche on the basis of which a future conservation planning will be made. The work to complete the scaffolding has been ongoing and is supposed to be completed in 2017. The report further mentions some conservation work at Shahr-i Ghulghulah in 2015, and a conservation treatment plan was developed to address erosion problems at the site, where mud brick structures are gradually collapsing. The State Party hopes to continue conservation work at Shahr-i Ghulghulah in 2016 and 2017. No conservation work has been carried out at other component sites of the property;
• Security: Eight on-site guards are deployed in each component of the property in order to control illegal access to the sites. Additionally, a team of police officers from the specialized unit for protection of cultural heritage has been deployed;
• Management: A Bamiyan Expert Working Group meeting took place in December 2016 in Munich (Germany) to discuss, amongst others, the management of the property;
• Cultural Master Plan: In the framework of the UNESCO/Japan Funds-in-Trust (FiT) project, the State Party and UNESCO jointly organized in October 2016 a community consultation workshop to assess the levels of integration between the Cultural Master Plan and the Governments’ City Master Plan. It is reported that the Cultural Master Plan has been an efficient tool to control urban growth in and around the components of the property (for example, two bazaars relocated from the city centre to adjacent valleys and a new housing project planned further out of the city centre). However, the report mentions some development projects close to heritage sites. Another workshop, organised as part of the FiT project, is planned in 2017 to provide further support and guidance to integrate the Cultural Master Plan into the City Master Plan;
• The construction of the Bamiyan Cultural Centre, funded by the UNESCO/Republic of Korea FiT, was initiated in June 2016 and will provide a creative hub for Bamiyan’s vibrant cultural scene with a music room, viewing galleries and lecture theatres;
• An International Symposium on the Future of the Buddha Statues is planned in Tokyo on 27–30 September 2017 within the UNESCO/Japan FiT project, in which experts will present proposals for physical and non-physical reconstruction and for the revitalisation of the eastern Buddha statues. The selected proposals will be sent to the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies for review and also for the examination of the 42nd session of the Committee in 2018.

Finally, the State Party stresses the need to revise the Cultural Master Plan developed in 2007 due to strong development pressures and to proceed with a boundary modification. Much of vernacular architecture, traditional land use, canal and irrigation systems that make up the cultural landscape of Bamiyan lie outside the present boundaries of the property, and are hence under increasing pressure for development and urban growth. Therefore, it would be crucial in the near future to include the values of the Cultural Landscape, to help the entire site face increasing development pressures, and to review the entire system (the Cultural Master Plan as a control mechanism, the legal management system and the boundaries of the properties).

The approval of the Phase V of UNESCO/Japan FiT project for the Safeguarding of the Bamiyan Valley, in August 2016, which allowed UNESCO and the Government of Afghanistan to resume the long-awaited conservation activities at the Western Buddha niche, is most welcome.

On the other hand, there remain concerns over the other seven component sites that form the property, which are gradually collapsing, as no emergency conservation work have been carried out, except for Shahr-i Ghulghulah, where emergency conservation works were carried out in 20015-2016 thanks to a UNESCO/Italy FiT project. According to the State Party’s report, there is still no budget allocated to carry out minimum emergency conservation work at these sites, which could at least prevent the further collapse of the remaining structures. In light of this, it should be recalled that, in accordance with Article 4 of the Convention, the duty of ensuring the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of the cultural and natural heritage lies primarily with the State Party. So far, all the conservation works and efforts have been covered by various UNESCO FiT projects and other bilateral projects, and it should be underlined that it is high time that the State Party allocate minimum funding to the property, in particular for those sites where international funds are available to carry out the necessary conservation work, and without which these sites would certainly disappear, resulting in the loss of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property.

The resuming of the Bamiyan Expert Working Group meeting, organized via the UNESCO/Japan FiT project, is also welcomed. It is however recommended that the Committee draw the attention of the State Party to the fact that this mechanism is meant as a means of helping coordination between different international experts/institutions which intervene through different activities related to the conservation of the property, and are not meant to function as a mechanism for the management of the property. Hence, it is recommended that the Committee request the State Party to provide detailed information on the implementation of the Management Plan and how it is integrated into the Bamiyan City Master Plan.

The efficient role played by the Cultural Master Plan, established in 2007 in interaction with the Bamiyan City Master Plan, is duly noted. So far, it seems that this mechanism has been able to control strong development pressures in and around the property. However, the concerns of the State Party concerning the increasing development pressure should be noted, along with the State Party’s wish to revise the Cultural Master Plan and to modify the boundaries of the property in order to fully reflect the value of the cultural landscape.

Concerning the Bamiyan Cultural Centre and Museum, the State Party did not follow the Committee’s request at previous sessions (see Decision 38 COM 7A.15 and 39 COM 7A.39) to submit detailed information, including a Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA), for any major planned development within or nearby the property as well as proposed visitor’s facilities, for review by the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies before any irreversible decision is taken. It is therefore recommended that the Committee regret that no information on the HIA of the Cultural Centre and Museum in Bamiyan was submitted to the World Heritage Centre for review by the Advisory Bodies, which goes against Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines.

As no progress on a capacity-building programme has been reported, it is recommended that the Committee reiterate its encouragement to the State Party to elaborate and implement, with the support of international donors, a capacity-building programme to strengthen local and national capacities with regard to heritage conservation and management, including the development of the local communities’ capacity to contribute to the safeguarding the property.

Finally, the importance of the forthcoming International Symposium on ‘The Future of the Bamiyan Buddha Statues’, which is to take place in Tokyo in September 2017, is acknowledged and details of the outcomes of the Symposium should be provided to the World Heritage Centre.