Local people have built houses and planted vegetables within the walls of the ancient Hue citadel.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) annually recognises around 20 “world heritage sites.” There is a long and complicated process of selection.

Since 1993, five world heritage sites and two intangible cultural heritages have been recognized in Vietnam.  These are Phong Nha – Ke Bang Cave, Hoi An ancient town, Ha Long Bay, the My Son sanctuary, the ancient Hue capital, the Central Highlands gong cultural space and the Hue royal court music.

Vietnam has nominated other candidates for UNESCO recognition.  These include the Thang Long (Hanoi) citadel (submitted to UNESCO in 2008), the Bac Ninh love duet (quan ho, also in 2008), the ca tru operatic performance (2009) and Cat Tien National Park.

Consideration is being given to making more submissions. These are the Giong Mother Goddess Festival, the 82 stone steles at the Temple of Literature, “hau dong” rituals, the terraced rice fields of Sapa, the Ho Dynasty citadel in Thanh Hoa, the Con Moong Cave in Thanh Hoa province, hat xoan (xoan singing) from Phu Tho province and the Central Highlands epics.

Not unsurprisingly, some experts are worried that if Vietnam nominates so many world heritages, it may not have the resources to preserve all of them, so some recognised heritages may lose the title. In 2006, Germany’s Dresden Elbe valley was deleted from the list of world heritages because local authorities insisted on construction of a bridge in this valley.

In Vietnam, some world heritages have been encroached on, for example local people have built houses and planted vegetables within the walls of the ancient Hue citadel. There is a great deal of industrial development on the northern edge of the Halong Bay World Heritage Site. Experts have suggested more effort to preserve the current heritages before nominating new ones.

When Vietnam submits so many nominations, UNESCO may dismiss some of them as inconsequential. Moreover, nominating more heritages means a lot of administrative costs.

It is a good thing to seek UNESCO recognition of Vietnamese heritages, but the nomination should be implemented carefully and scientifically, under a national strategy.

The definition of "world cultural heritage" and “world natural heritage” in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention:

Cultural heritages:

Monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;

Groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;

Sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological point of view.

Natural heritages:

Natural features consisting of physical and biological formations or groups of such formations, which are of outstanding universal value from the aesthetic or scientific point of view;

Geological and physiographical formations and precisely delineated areas which constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation;

Natural sites or precisely delineated natural areas of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty

(VFEJ, 26/8/2009)