New plan to preserve historic Zabid
The Source: Yemen Observer - 15/05/2007
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Setting aside land outside of the ancient city of Zabid for the
construction of modern buildings could help preserve the historic
character of the city, officials have suggested. A new blueprint for Zabid could clearly designate the appropriate areas for expansion and construction. That is the solution proposed by Minister of Culture Mohammed al-Muflehi and Hamid al-Awadhi, Ambassador, Permanent Delegate Permanent Delegation of Yemen to UNESCO. They came up with the idea in a meeting held last Saturday to discuss how the Ministry of Culture could maintain the city of Zabid on the World Heritage List.
UNESCO has threatened to remove Zabid from the list, because Yemen’s government has failed to protect the historic city from human activities that have been eroding the character of Zabid’s houses and monuments. At the recent meeting, the ministry discussed submitting a new blueprint to the Cabinet. This blueprint would include expansions and the adoption of new lands outside Zabid, so that the government could ban modern building in the Old City of Zabid. This would be done in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Works and Roads Participants at the meeting discussed the myriad problems Zabid is facing, especially its architectonical status, said al-Awadhi.
“There would be a blueprint plan to have new city outside Zabid for those who want new buildings, in addition to frequent visits to Zabid by the government.” YR 10 million has been designated by the government to fund the rehabilitation the city of Zabid. UNESCO’s threat to remove Zabid from the World Heritage list came in the wake of a report submitted by a team from the UNESCO World Heritage Center, which arrived in Yemen January 17. The team came to examine the efforts made to rehabilitate the city and preserve the components of its heritage since it was listed among endangered world heritage sites in 2000.
The report found that the historical monuments are falling into complete ruin due to the neglect and indifference of the government and local authorities to maintaining this historical city, said Mohammed al-Qadasi, general secretary of the National Committee of UNESCO. The recent meeting also tackled the importance of concentrating on concrete heritage and cultural variety in Yemen and preserving them. Al-Muflehi said that his ministry is very keen to restore good relations with UNESCO, pointing to the importance of Yemen’s participation in its forthcoming conference.
In the same meeting, which included deputy ministers and Dr. Abdullah Ba Wazeer, head of the General Authority for Heritage, al-Muflehi praised the initiative launched by the State of Qatar for financing archaeology campaigns in Yemen. The Qatari initiative is the first Arab cooperative initiative for exploring heritages, said al-Muflehi. “We should make use of the accumulated experience of the brothers in Qatar in the field of museums to improve the conditions of museums in Yemen, and experiences in the field of excavations too.”
The meeting ended with an agreement to send a letter to the chairman of Qatar Museums Authority board of trustees, Sheikha Mayyasa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. The letter would suggest sending a team next June, to learn more details about the places where they want to dig in and allow them to select sites for exploration. In related news, Hisham Ali bin Ali, deputy of the Ministry of Culture, declared that Yemen is trying its best to join the Global Convention on Cultural Diversity.
The Ministry of Culture will offer the convention draft to the Cabinet for approval. Yemen’s joining of the Convention comes as a desire from Yemen as well as number of friendly countries’ insistence that Yemen’s joining will enhance the Convention state in UNESCO, he said. Yemen will be the third Arab country to join the Convention after Djibouti and Morocco.
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