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The Ocean Declaration of Maupiti
The participants of the 2009 World Heritage Pacific Islands Workshop in Maupiti want to inform UNESCO, the State parties and the Advisory Bodies, ICOMOS and IUCN, of the World Heritage Convention, and witness of the commitment of many representatives of the Polynesian, Melanesians and Micronesians communities attending the Workshop and united in a mutual Declaration enclosed, namely “The Ocean Declaration of Maupiti”
This Declaration affirm the importance of knowledge and cultural tradition of the island societies, united by a vast Ocean who has been a condition of the common history, related to the settlement of these islands linked by the navigation, which today constitutes the cement and the living connection of cultural exchanges to be preserved and to be promoted to the benefit of increased knowledge of today’s oceanic cultural diversity.
This Declaration warns about the risks of disappearing of the cultural heritage, tangible and intangible and on the importance of a World support, in particular through the Pacific WH Action Plan 2010-2015, maintaining these cultures particularly threatened by climate change and some negative effects of the globalization of economic and social exchanges.
Indeed, if the threats of the disappearing of these societies have been historically related to war, sickness or colonialism, today they are particularly exposed to climate warming which, by the fast rising level of the ocean will make disappear many coastal sites of significance, admittedly indispensable for the cultural, leisure or tourism activities, but also and mainly to the survival of many species and especially for the islands communities.
The Maupiti Ocean Declaration is particularly illustrative of links and connections to be reaffirmed between heritages, cultural and natural, tangible and intangible, in particular spiritual, that is especially indivisible in those cultures.
Click here to download the Declaration
Maupiti Ocean Declaration delivered in Tahitian by a children of Maupiti :
Direct link to the UNESCO's Official website about the Pacific Islands World Heritage 2009 in Maupiti :
