April 23, 2026 • 41 mins
Humanity’s created a lot of neat things over the eons and starting in the 1940s, the UN created an agency focused on preserving those things for the whole world and future people. But that mission is in danger of becoming only about branding and money.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
Charles w Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you Should Know.
And this is a fairly rare edition where we do
an episode that we decided to do within the last
few episodes. We don't usually turn it around that fast.
Usually it's like seven to eight years.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah, this is a quick one. Then Julia turned this
around for us, pretty Staddy. I just made that up, Sure,
but I get it. I think everyone knows what you mean.
But we're talking about UNESCO World Heritage Sites, UNESCO standing
for which I never knew. I'm glad I know this now.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization whom in
(00:55):
nineteen seventy two drafted this treaty to preserve of world
heritage as a whole, you know, whether it's as we'll see,
like a place or a thing. And they even expanded
later into like, you know, cultural processes and customs and traditions.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, and that's where this idea came from. We were
doing our episode on contortionism, and we found that Mongolia
was turned down for getting world heritage protection for their
contortionist history didn't make They were like, what the age?
So we started looking into this and it is pretty interesting.
One of the things that apparently is a fairly common
misunderstanding is that if you have like a heritage site,
(01:40):
like something is identified and labeled a World Heritage site,
that that is no longer sovereign territory in your country
could not be wronger, that still belongs to you. But
what's happened is that the world, essentially everybody who's a
member of UNESCO, has agreed to say, like, we want
(02:00):
to preserve this in your country, it's yours, but it
really we're all agreeing that this belongs to humanity because
it's so important to human culture, so unique that we
need to preserve it. And it takes more than just
one country to preserve things like this, So we're all
going to get together and take shared responsibility for this
important part of human culture.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, and also a little bit of protection, Like you know,
you've got something valuable on yourself there. We're all watching
you right as you as you juggle your way through
the room.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
In mint condition.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
That's right. There's one quote here that I think kind
of nails. It is. It's it's things that have outstanding
universal value. So it's the universality of it all, as
far as you know, needing to cherish and care for
these things. And I think it's kind of a kind
of a cool deal. I mean, some people might criticize
it as a big sort of political thing to get
(02:57):
tourist dollars headed your way, but I think it's actually
pretty great.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Oh I do too. I think it's good too. I
think it's both. Though I think the ideal of it
is awesome. I think that in practice lately it's.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's yeah, great in trouble.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
The thing is the idea that is outstanding universal value.
I get that again as an ideal, but in practice
that is not always the case. And I draw your
attention to the US Dunkerque, which is horseback shrimp fishing
in Belgium. And if that sounds obscure to you, you're right,
(03:32):
because only twelve families practiced this. Still, that is a
protected and tangible heritage that is not of universal value,
although it is super interesting and I'm glad it's protected
because why not. But I just thought that that was
There's a lot of different things that contradict the idea
that it's of universal value.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, for sure. This all got started post World War Two,
after the world got together and decided to wreck everything
again for the second time in about thirty years, and
everyone kind of looked up and we're like, geez, you know,
we lost a lot of museums and churches and monuments
and entire cities sometimes or huge portions of cities are
(04:14):
just gone, and maybe we need as a world nation
to get together and sort of start caring for these
things a little bit more so. The UN kind of
led the brigade on this, and UNESCO was formed in
nineteen forty five. I think I said that nineteen seventy
two was when the World Heritage Treaty or whatever came about.
(04:38):
UNESCO was around, you know, quite a while before this
came around. So starting in nineteen forty five is when
UNESCO was formed and they basically started a campaign to
start protecting these places from a few things. It's not
always just like war, that is definitely one of them,
but also human development and natural disaster.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Right for sure. First thing, I think they were really
kind of focused on learning from like archaeology was a
big thing. They were into for a while, but it
really started to take the shape that we understand it
today in nineteen fifty nine, when Egypt went to UNESCO
and said, hey, man, like, we want to build this dam.
It's really important though we have a reservoir of water.
(05:19):
But when we build the dam, there's a lot of
like really old like Egyptian Furonic Arab dynastic monuments that
are going to be underwater. So can you help us
figure this out? And UNESCO said, this is it. We've
been waiting for this for fourteen years.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah. They said, we need to raise some money, so
they got about eighty million dollars together and said, all right,
let's move these two temples, specifically to higher ground. So
they moved they disassembled these temples, moved them about six
hundred and fifty feet, which it was higher and out
of harm's way, and that sort of, like you said,
(05:59):
that just sort of started this idea of like, wait
a minute, we can get together and make great things
happen and protect great places. And that kind of continued
through the sixties until nineteen seventy two. On November sixteenth,
at their seventeenth General Conference, when they adopted the Convention
concerning the protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, which
(06:21):
culminated the center of all that is basically this World
Heritage List.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, and there was one other aspect of that nineteen
fifty nine Asuan Damn Initiative. I guess dozens of countries
like donated to make this happen, Like this was eighty
million dollars in nineteen fifty nine dollars. This is a
significant amount of money. Egypt was really the only country
that was going to benefit from this, but countries are
(06:46):
while in the world, said no, we want to help
take responsibility for this because we think that these are
that important. They transcend just Egyptian importance.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, for sure. And that leads to the second part
of that. What happened in nineteen seven to there was
the Heritage List and the Heritage Fund and that fund.
You know, without money, none of this really matters that much.
You know, it takes a lot of dough sometimes to
do things like this.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, for sure, because like you said, a lot of
it's threatened in One of the big things is preservation,
protection and restoration. So that World Heritage Convention from seventy two,
it created the World Heritage List, and now here, finally
we have reached like the actual modern incarnation of what
UNESCO's largely involved in, or at least known for.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
That's right. As far as the nuts and bolts of
it all goes. There is the World Heritage Committee, which
is twenty one member countries at this point that are
elected for six year terms, and they're the ones that
are sort of in charge of overseeing all this. The
United States has been a member country before and not
been a member country depending on which politician is in
(07:53):
the White House. You can probably figure that one out.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well, no, nuts is probably there's some surprising dates in
there if you ask me.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, but we're not in there now. I think when
did we drop off? Twenty eleven, yeah, but we were
back on then back off again in like twenty one, right,
twenty eighteen, twenty eighteen, Okay, I can't get my years straight.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
That's because of COVID.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
So you know, if you are they call it hosting.
But if you have a World Heritage site in your country,
you have to You can't just say give us all
the money and don't worry about it after that. You
have to provide annual reports. You have to, you know,
deliver reports on like how the property is, the state
of the property, any concerns like moving forward, basically kind
(08:41):
of how things are going. And if you're a member country,
you get the whopping sum of four million dollars a
year from the World Heritage Fund, and that is I mean,
some of that is preservation, but I get the feeling
a lot of that is like just sort of functioning
and identifying places and promoting your own world heritage.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, probably paying for Docince is a chunk of that.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Too, Yeah, probably so.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
But also if something happens acute disaster from human or
natural causes, you'll get some emergency assistance. And then this
is another big one that I think probably really comes
in handy. There are experts who work at UNESCO who
can train your staff, right. You don't have to figure
out you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time
and be like, this is an archaeological site. Let's figure
(09:28):
out how to train you the staff to preserve it
and explain it and all that stuff. You can send
them off to I guess New York and have them
trained up to do those things.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, for sure. And tourism it's a big deal if
you get one of your if you are a country,
when you have a site, did you get put on
this list? It's a big deal because people I think
that don't know a ton about this kind of look
at it as like a seven Wonders of the World
list in some ways, and like here's a place like
we got a visit before we die.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, there's hundreds of wonders of the world as far
as the World Heritage List is concerned.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So originally, Chuck, there were just like physical places and
features that were on the World Heritage List called sites,
and they were divided essentially into two categories, cultural or natural.
And you can kind of generally guess what the criteria
was for each.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, Like if it's a natural Heritage site, that means
there's just universal value, maybe scientifically or maybe even just esthetically.
You know, we're talking about the Great Barrier Reef of
Australia or Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, stuff like that,
and it's you know, it's about protecting these natural wonders
(10:49):
of the world generally.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, And I mean we just take for granted that
the Serengeti National Park is like amazing, but the reason
why specifically. It was chosen because it's one of the
best examples of large predator prey interactions. Like you just
do not see lions chasing down antelope in Kansas. You
don't see it unless the zoo's gone crazy. And that's
(11:12):
one reason why it's protected. It's basically the main reason
why it's protected. But then there's also an intersecting thing
too that it's also gorgeous. So this fulfills a couple
of things. It's biologically important to science, but it's also
esthetically amazing too.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, for sure. And this goes you know, every single
one of these things. And we're not just going to
go through and list a ton of different places. But
if you're talking about the Yellowstone National Park, or the
Galapagos Islands or like I mentioned, the Great Barrier Reef,
these all seem like pretty obvious inclusions.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
For sure, and they were probably included pretty early on
in the list's existence.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Oh geez.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
So that's the natural site. There's also the cultural site,
and these are essentially, you know, human made environments or
structures or places of human occupation where humans did something
impressive important, or it was just part of a larger culture.
For example, there's a crossroads and I think, oh, I
(12:11):
don't remember where it was, but it was just a
crossroads back on the in the like the third century CE,
and it was just really important at the time. It
doesn't seem all that important now, but it was, and
you want to preserve it because the future generations can
learn from it and experience it and appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, it can also be
a building or a sculpture, like the Statue of Liberty
is on there under cultural heritage under that, but so
is like Venice, Italy. So it can be a whole
city that's sort of an ancient modern well not maybe
not ancient, but a modern wonder.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You know, right, and then it can be ancient two.
And then also like how the esthetics and scientific importance
intersect in the Serengeti National Park, that can happen, and
cultural sites too, like it can be where archaeology and
intersects with you know, humans like making shaping the natural environment,
(13:11):
like the Kohoki amounts are on the list yea to
where like all these different boxes can be checked and
those are they call the the money sites where there's
just a bunch of different criteria going on.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, and when I said not ancient Venice specifically.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I see, I see have you been to Venice.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I've never been there. It's on a big time on
the list. But I also just realized, I don't know
when all that was engineered.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
I wanted to say, like the sixteenth century, but it
could be like agent that's ancient is now.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
No, I don't even know what ancient means now I
think about.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
It, but it's you're gonna love it. You will love Venice.
And when you do, go there, go to Harry's Bar.
It's where the Bellini was invented. Okay, they save Hemingway's
seat at the bar, it's preserved. But their martinis are really,
really good. They're outrageously expensive just because they know that
(14:08):
you'll pay it because you're a tourist. But it's still
worth getting.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Well, maybe I can grow the beer back out and
put some weight back on and convince everyone on the
ghost of Hemingway and take that seat.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Finally, well, bring a multi extra toad cat with you
or are they cross eyed? What is it about those
cats too to?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I don't know. Are they polydactyl.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I think so there's some unique feature that the Hemingway
cats on Key West. I'll share. Yeah, okay, I want
to say it's an extra toe. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well, moving on, we'll figure that out. There are total
a total of twelve hundred and forty eight World Heritage
sites right now. The vast amount of those are cultural.
I think seventy eight percent, nineteen percent are natural, and
three percent are mixed. And Europe in North America have
almost half of them. They have forty six percent, compared
(15:03):
to Latin in the Caribbean, Latin American Caribbean at twelve percent,
Asia and the Pacific twenty five percent, the Arab States
eight percent, an African nine percent, although we should say
Africa holds twenty percent of all the natural sites, which
is pretty impressive and not surprising.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
That is cool. I say we take a break. But
first I also wanted to point out that not all
of these are you know, just like up with humanity like.
They also preserve some pretty dark stuff too. One good
example is the Navy School of Mechanics in Argentina, which
has turned into a Site of Memory, a museum where
(15:39):
they basically preserved the fact that this was a place
where people were abducted, tortured, and murdered by dictatorships in
Latin America in the nineteen seventies and eighties. And this
is a World Heritage site because it's important to remember.
People will do this, like people will vote people like
this into office and keep them there, and those people
(16:00):
can turn on their own people, and you can be
abducted and disappeared and murdered by the state that happens.
That to me is like one of the big driving
I guess it drives home the point of the World
Heritage lists more than some of these others. Right to remember, right,
but you don't have to just remember the dark stuff.
(16:21):
You can remember all the stuff, but you can't ignore
the dark stuff, I guess, is what I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Well said, just like Lord Vader himself.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
What do you say, like, come on over, baby, the
dark side's feeling great?
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I think so that was the line. Should we take
that break?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, I think we should.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
All right, We'll be right back, everybody, all right. So
(17:02):
we mentioned early we're back by the way, that UNESCO
would eventually adopt stuff like oral traditions and performing arts
and social rituals and practices and things like that. That
happened in two thousand and three specifically, and you know,
this was a very valuable ad. I think, like a
skill set or a knowledge, or just some irreplaceable custom
(17:25):
or traditional craft or skill or something that you know,
could be in danger of being lost, you know, if
not for stuff like this.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, and again it can be twelve families shrimp fishing
on horseback in Belgium.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
I want to see that. What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It looks like somebody with a horse and a shrimp
net on a beach. I saw a picture of it.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I mean I kind of figured that, but you know,
I bet the shrimp are good.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
But I think this is it's worth preserving too, because
this is important to like these people. It's not saying
like was this this is what America thinks is cool
or this is what you know Zimbabwe thinks is cool?
Like this is this is important to this culture. There's
a culture on planet Earth and this is important to
them and we should preserve it just for that very reason.
(18:14):
Plus also, really, what is supporting horseback shrimp fishing among
twelve families in Belgium really costing the world to support?
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Agreed? One part about being included on this part of
the list is that And I think this is kind
of cool is it can be inherited from the past,
but it also is applied to a contemporary setting, and
so that means, you know, it can't be the lost
art of whatever if it's like truly really no one
is even doing this at all anymore. Like you can
(18:44):
be dlisted and we're gonna talk about that in a minute.
Not d listed is in d dash, but d E dash.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Oh you've seen you know that site?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Well, no, wasn't that a TV show?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Oh? I don't know. There's a really mean like burn
blog or there used to be called you Listed. That
was hilarious but also really cruel.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
No, I was never on that. But if you are included,
that means this practice or this ritual or custom is
passed through generations and communities and very community based overall.
Like it's recognized, it's recognized within that community and outside
that community as something of value, kind of like the
(19:25):
trimp people.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Trimp people just because it's interesting, you know, Yeah, let's
talk about we dug up some other ones. You want
to just kind of throw a few of these out.
I found basically all these interesting movies should probably just
pick some.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, I'll go with the bagpipes. Bulgarian bagpipe making and
bag pipe playing. Apparently it's a very big thing in Bulgaria,
passed down through the families for generations, and it used
to be like a father to something. Now they will
teach all genders, which is kind of great, and you know,
it's in social clubs, they teach it in schools and
they're like, we need to protect this, and it is
(20:00):
on that list.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It's also there's some very famous ones too that it's
not just as obscure as horseback shrimp fishing. Artisanal baguette
making in France is protected, Coffee's protected sauna culture and
Finland's protected. Gingerbread crafting in Croatia, and then it does
get a little more niche loincloth weaving and cote de
(20:22):
voir human power creation. They're called castles in Spain to
where people just stack up on other people. And then
there's also an annual grass mowing competition in Bosnia Hertzgevina,
and it is using a scythe they're not just like
riding John Deere tractors or anything like that, and it's
(20:44):
exactly what it sounds like it's a grass mowing competition
that's protected. Also, so is yodeling in Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, great list, thank you, So check.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I don't know if you said there's a danger list.
Did you mention that. I don't think we have yet. No.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I talked about being delisted. But before you're delisted, you
can be in danger.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, and you can be in danger from we did
kind of talk about you can be in danger from
armed conflict, war, from climate change, from all like just
a complete change of the surrounding area can can get
you delisted. In danger is where this is the step
before delisting, and essentially UNESCO steps in and says, hey,
(21:28):
we need to do something about this because the site
is deteriorating, or we need to figure out how to
lift the Statue of Liberty one hundred feet so that
sea level rise doesn't you know, wash it away. And
there's two kinds. There's ascertained danger, which is like this
is going to happen, and then there's potential danger, like
say stuff coming from climate change, or if it's you know,
(21:51):
a civil conflict is starting to heat up and it
looks like a civil war is going to break out
and there's a heritage site right in the crossfire.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Yeah for sure. And you know, one good example of
something they might do is they are these national parks
and I guess they're all national parks in the Democratic
Republic of Congo. That was, they were all made the
Danger List between ninety four and ninety seven, so they
you know, kind of put up the warning flag and
(22:21):
UNESCO came in with their fat Bank account. There were
some NGOs involved that wanted to get involved and donate
some money, and they had a four year rehabilitation campaign
for these parks and then a second campaign, and this
kind of goes to show how the international community comes together.
These are all in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But
(22:41):
in two thousand and four the second campaign got funded
from Belgium and Japan. They're like, let's take care of
these places.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yeah. There's another site, the Remains of Bamiyan Valley in
Afghanistan is what it's called. It went from not on
any World Heritage list immediately to the danger list. The
Taliban back in two thousand and one blew up these
two I think ten and fifteen story tall cliff carved
(23:11):
I guess statues are reliefs of Buddha from the sixth century.
They were beautiful, and the Taliban blew them up by
shooting them with shoulder launched rocket launchers that were probably
provided by the CIA back in the eighties when they
were fighting the Russians. And this was an enormous thing.
Like people were like, what are you doing? What is
(23:33):
the problem here? Is this part of this kind of
ethnic cleansing campaign against the Hazara people who live in
the area, And so they're like, I guess UNESCO was like,
all right, we can't let anything like that happened again.
Let's get in here and try to preserve this valley.
And it was put on the danger list and they
started a campaign in two thousand and nine to just
basically go in there and figure out how to move
(23:54):
forward and keep this valley from getting worse off than
it was.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, I think there is a big deal. So part
of their you know, UNESCO getting involved theres is identifying
and getting rid of those land mines first and foremost.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yep, let's see.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Everglades National Park, Florida's treasure that's on there. Yeah, very
sadly on the danger list.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, there's also like civil conflicts really target stuff or
in danger sites like the historic center of Odessa and
Ukraine is on the list. Ancient Aleppo in Syria is
on the list. It can Yeah, that's a big It
seems like armed conflict and climate change are the two
(24:38):
biggest threats to world here sites.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah, I think so. You know, we did talk about
being delisted, and thankfully that's only happened a few times,
because if you're deleted from the list, that means like
that means you're probably done as a thing, and that
like there's no point in protecting you anymore because it
doesn't exist. And one one good example of that is
(25:02):
the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City. It was delisted in twenty
twenty one. This was the historic docklands of Liverpool, very big,
you know, port town obviously in England, and they built
a stadium there. Everton Stadium was built and it was
it basically kind of wiped all that out. So they
were like, well, there's no reason for this being on
(25:22):
the list anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah. The Tower of London is not on the Danger list,
but it's on the pre danger list for the same reason.
The development that's going on in the area threatens to
basically take away its natural or historic I mean, identity.
Even just being built around They're not talking about knocking
down the Tower of London, but just building around it
(25:44):
can change the built environment enough that UNESCO's like it's done.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah. Sometimes it's very sad. In this case in Oman,
the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary was delisted in two thousand and
seven that had a popular of Arabian Orx antelope and
that you know, that was decimated so much, that population
such that I believe it fell down to like sixty
five of them in two thousand and seven. And I
(26:12):
guess that was and this was because of poaching, obviously
in habitat destruction, which makes it super sad, but I
guess that was low enough to where they were like,
all right, you know, no more protection from US, I know.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And that's sad because it seems like that's when they
should swoop in and be like, we're we're going to
occupy this area, Oman, we are, this is no longer
sovereign Oman.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, I mean, I think there are other organizations that
do and protect species like that, so hopefully they weren't
just sort of left out in the wind.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that they were on the
danger list first and then they just did yeah, follow through.
But that's that we should say. It's not a It's
pretty dishonorable for a country to let one of its
sites end up on the danger list, even worse to
have it delisted. So countries tend to work hard to
(27:03):
get off of the danger list, and that does actually happen.
That happened in twenty twenty five to three different spots,
the rainforest of Atsananana in madayascar Abu Mena in Egypt,
think that was the crossroads. And then in the old
town of Gadamis in Libya that was the crossroads. It
(27:26):
was the crossroads between Africa and the Mediterranean years ago.
But those were all for different, various reasons on the
danger list, and those countries worked very hard and aggressively
to address all of those issues and get them back
off of the danger list. So it is possible to
(27:46):
get off the danger list and certainly not be delisted.
And usually countries who take this stuff seriously will work
hard to do that.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah, you don't want to be on the naughty list.
Exactly earlier, when you said cross roads, I thought genuinely
thought you were gonna say the Mississippi Crossroads where Robert
Johnson sold his soul to the devil.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Do they have that one crossroad identified?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
It sure seems like it should be a World Heritage site.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure if they actually
had the actual crossroads, or if it's more of a
not apocryphal but or maybe it is apocryphal. It could
be both, yeah, or ephemeral, could be all three.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Have we taken our second break? I don't think we
have have.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
No, let's take it. It's perfect timing. Look at us
thirty minutes in.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Okay, we'll be right back, So, Chuck, politics plays a
(29:02):
huge part in UNESCO and the World Heritage List. You
would probably not be surprised to think because this is
a bunch of different nations coming together and they don't
always play super well together, or when they do play
super well together, it's often like gaming the system. And
that seems to be what is going on today with
(29:22):
UNESCO and the World Heritage Convention, that it's basically been
creeping slowly toward a way for countries to make more
money through their tourism industry. Get some sites on the
World Heritage list, you can go promote it worldwide and
bring more people to your country where they're going to
spend a bunch of drachmas.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, for sure. There is a professor of anthropology at
Stanford name Lynn Meskel who basically said it's entirely about
political and economic gain at this point, just a tool
in a much larger arsenal of non sorry of nation
state politics. And you know, the politics of it all
can't be ignored these days. It's you know, there's an
(30:04):
interesting thing that happens, you know, in terms of like repatriation.
You know, we've talked at some point here and there
about like, you know, when there's plundering from wars and
things like that, and all of a sudden the countries
own things, or at least have possession of them in
place of them in museums they weren't there to begin with,
(30:26):
like giving this stuff back. There's a big movement for that,
but there's also this sort of idea on the other
side of like, well, we will take care of that
stuff because it is in London or New York City
and we're not going to give it back to you.
And that same sort of mentality has been sort of
the same thing has sort of applied to World herited sites.
(30:49):
I think a little bit where indigenous peoples are kind
of moved out of the conversation because the attitude is like, well,
you just don't know what's best for your stuff, right.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It's kind of like, if you're a bunch of Westerners
coming along as tourists to tour this world heritage site
that's of immense cultural value to this local group, if
current people from the local group show up, they kind
of push them out of their way by their face
and they're like, out of the way, you're ruining the diorama.
This took place a thousand years ago. We don't care
(31:21):
what's going on with you today, even though you're directly
related to this. I think is that mentality.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Right, Yeah, that's a good way to say it.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I think sadly, there's also like a whole I talked
about gaming the system. One of the ways that you
can game the system is essentially withdraw, like the United
States has done twice now in the eighties and in
twenty eighteen. You can withdraw from UNESCO and this convention.
You can still nominate sites, including sites in your own country, right, Yeah,
(31:53):
so you're getting the best of both worlds where you
can get those tourism dollars for getting new World Heritage sites,
and you're also not paying dues or you're not spending
any of your own money to support other sites. But
if you need help with your sites because of World
Heritage site, you can get other countries' money who are
(32:14):
doing the right thing and paying their dues.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah, for sure, not a cool thing to do, if
you ask me. The other thing that they've seen, I
think kind of starting in like the nineteen nineties, it
seems like, is when countries are getting together and voting together,
like forming packs and voting blocks to either get listed
or to block maybe a site from getting on the
(32:40):
Danger list, because we said that's kind of like being
on the Naughty List.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, exactly. So, like Latin American countries will frequently band
together and vote in one another's best interests. Or also
I think even countries that aren't members anymore, say the
US can basically be like, hey, vote for us for
this thing, and you know, we'll make sure that we
up are oil imports from your country by ten percent
(33:02):
or so.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Oh interesting, you know.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
So I think the more the more juice you have,
the more you can get stuff done even if you're
not a member anymore.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, like you said, this
is big money. Like if you're included on this list,
they will you'll be a part of their advertising campaign
and then you can also create your own around that,
you know, touting inclusion.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
You know, Yeah, I can tell you that I want
to go see them in no impalatial centers in Greece.
Six Bronze Age sites that were part of the late
Bronze Age collapse. They're about to be or they were
just in twenty twenty five put on. So that's the
tourism's working already.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
So you might not have known about that had it
not been included.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Probably, yes, I did not know those sites existed.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, I'm sure they have a robust website with lots
of pretty pictures.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
So yeah, and that's basically like being there in person, right,
but it's free.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah, exactly. Speaking of the danger list, there are a
few sites that you know, you can be removed from
the danger list. That's the that's the goal, I guess
before being delisted, and that happened last year. The Rainforest
and Madagascar are those the ones that you're talking about. Yeah,
they're not on the danger list. And then that town
(34:16):
in Libya was that where the.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Crossroads was, That's the crossroads.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
So they, I guess, what do you do? Just raise
enough hay or prove that you're actually protecting it in
such a way.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Well, I'll give you the example of the crossroads. The
old town of Gamities, I believe is what it is. Acadamiescatamies,
thank you. Their irrigation techniques were raising the water table
and some of the very ancient buildings were in danger
of crumbling from the water exposure. So Libya went in
(34:48):
and basically came up with different irrigation techniques that they
taught to the locals lower the water table. And now
the site is no longer in jeopardy and it's off
of the danger list.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
All right.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
It's essentially just a question of the host country having
the will to spend a few bucks to remedy the situation.
That's all it is.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
I wonder if one member country has enough places like
that make that danger list, if there's any sort of
maybe not even official penalty, but like hey, hey listen, guys,
you need to You got three on the danger list.
Now you need to get it together.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It's a really bad look.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
It is a bad look.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Kind of talking about the politics of this too. There
was a really startling turn of events in twenty twenty
where Rejet Erdowan, the President of Turkey nilatterally said, Hey,
the Hagia Sophia, this part this part of world heritage.
It was a cathedral and then a mosque and now
(35:53):
it's a museum. We're turning it back into a mosque.
And UNESCO's like, we didn't talk about this, and Iwan said,
it doesn't matter, we're doing that. And this is like,
I mean, this thing was built in the five thirties.
It's one of the more amazing buildings in the world.
And in the nineteen thirties the court in Turkey said,
this is a museum. This is no longer a mosque.
(36:15):
Turkey is secular and that's all there is to it.
So it's a museum until Airdwank came along in twenty
twenty and changed it back.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, and you know, unilaterally decided this on his own,
and UNESCO was like, hey, not only did you shouldn't
have done this, but you didn't tell us you were
doing this, and you're using this as like, this is
a World Heritage site. Now you can't use it for
your own political gain. You can't try and curry favor
with the Turkish Islamic Turkish conservatives. And he was like, well,
(36:46):
you know, what do you say. It's not a museum
anymore and we're not charging entry fees anymore. Yep. Was
that as like comeback?
Speaker 2 (36:55):
I guess it was a comeback of sorts or a
defense or something. He's like, where you don't have to
pay to get in anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, it's pretty weak.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
But that was twenty twenty and absolutely nothing happened. That's
the other problem. This is a problem with almost everything
that has to do with the UN. It's like, what
are you going to do? Really? Yeah, Like, I'm fine,
I don't care about peer pressure, you know, the international
community being mad at me. That's all it takes, and
there's nothing that can be done about it.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, for sure. Let me see what else is on
the danger list. You mentioned the Statue of Liberty right
as far as some of the big dogs m see, Yeah,
great barrier reef that's been threatened for a long time,
as our reefs all over the world.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Bury very sad ocean bleaching. Also, the Sydney Opera House
is coming close to the danger list because of the
arise as well.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Oh man, it's right there on the water. You got
to protect that thing, I know.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Man, I say we go out. I just want to
throw out a couple more of these amazing and tangible
ones that are protected. Okay, great midwifery from Germany to Togo.
Sometimes this can cross cultures.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yea, it should have been from like Albania Desaire. That's
how you got to do.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Those great I called tiki horse breeding in tur Kamenistan.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Yeah, I like that one.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Here's a good one, savice preparation in Peru.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
I'm all about that.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
I am too. You'll also like this one, the Da
de los Moritos in Mexico, the Day of the Dead.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yeah for sure. Hey. You know what, here's a tip
for especially for you and me and Emily. If you go,
if you love that Savica, you just got to make
sure you got to say no pulpo. Oh really yeah,
I think we You don't need octopus?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Right? Oh? Is that what that is?
Speaker 1 (38:49):
No?
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I definitely do not there too. Intelligence. Yeah it's cool.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, we learned that in Mexico. City that pulpo is
the words. We're like, oh, okay, so that's what we
need to avoid.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So you say, hold the pulpo, yeah, or just get
the one without it, okay.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Like I would never go to another country and say,
can you not put this thing in there that you
traditionally eat, Like you can find a savica that's probably
just a fish or tramp or scalop or whatever.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Oh really, I feel like I take the burger king
approach to tourism, where I was like, I'll have it
my way. You got anything else, I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
This was a fun one. I know there's something I
knew nothing about, and now I feel like I know enough,
which is our charge as a show to like talk
a little bit about it intelligently around to dinner table.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
And to attend UNESCO World Heritage meetings and speak up.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Yeah, where do they have those New York?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah, let's go. All right, I'm sure anybody can just
walk in. If you want to know more about UNESCO
World Heritage, go check out some sites. You can tour
the world from your computer again for free. And in
the meantime, I think it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah, this is from Stephen Cook from Halifax, Nova Scotia,
who visited the Kowloon Walled City.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Oh cool, or.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
At least the park. Hey guys visited that Kowloon Wall
City Park this past December on our first trip to
Hong Kong, and it's a delightful spot with sports facilities
for nearby residents, some remnants of the original building foundations
as a reminder of its bass, and the one original
building that is now a museum. That's the one we
talked about. Yeah. Plus, there's a special exhibit that recreates
(40:29):
a streetscape in the community using sets from the twenty
twenty four film Twilight of the Warriors colon Walled in
which stars Hong Kong action legend sam O Hung as
a local crime boss named mister Big. I guess when
you're this big they call you mister. The set recreates
a whole block with a barbershop can means store, a
shoe repair stand, and a fish ball making factory with
(40:52):
period props into corps. A visit is highly recommended, and
Stephen included a few photos which are great.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Can't wait to see this because I looked all over
for the exhibit and I couldn't find any photos that
I saw mention of it at some point.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Yeah, search search that email, buddy and it'll come up.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Thanks Steven. That's a great one. Yeah, if you have
been to Kowloon, Walt City, let us know. We want
to hear from all of you, and if you have
anything to say, really even hi, right Chuck.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Hi and Hello is a great thing to hear always.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Yes, you can send it via email to stuff podcast
at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
Charles w Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you Should Know.
And this is a fairly rare edition where we do
an episode that we decided to do within the last
few episodes. We don't usually turn it around that fast.
Usually it's like seven to eight years.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah, this is a quick one. Then Julia turned this
around for us, pretty Staddy. I just made that up, Sure,
but I get it. I think everyone knows what you mean.
But we're talking about UNESCO World Heritage Sites, UNESCO standing
for which I never knew. I'm glad I know this now.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization whom in
(00:55):
nineteen seventy two drafted this treaty to preserve of world
heritage as a whole, you know, whether it's as we'll see,
like a place or a thing. And they even expanded
later into like, you know, cultural processes and customs and traditions.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, and that's where this idea came from. We were
doing our episode on contortionism, and we found that Mongolia
was turned down for getting world heritage protection for their
contortionist history didn't make They were like, what the age?
So we started looking into this and it is pretty interesting.
One of the things that apparently is a fairly common
misunderstanding is that if you have like a heritage site,
(01:40):
like something is identified and labeled a World Heritage site,
that that is no longer sovereign territory in your country
could not be wronger, that still belongs to you. But
what's happened is that the world, essentially everybody who's a
member of UNESCO, has agreed to say, like, we want
(02:00):
to preserve this in your country, it's yours, but it
really we're all agreeing that this belongs to humanity because
it's so important to human culture, so unique that we
need to preserve it. And it takes more than just
one country to preserve things like this, So we're all
going to get together and take shared responsibility for this
important part of human culture.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, and also a little bit of protection, Like you know,
you've got something valuable on yourself there. We're all watching
you right as you as you juggle your way through
the room.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
In mint condition.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
That's right. There's one quote here that I think kind
of nails. It is. It's it's things that have outstanding
universal value. So it's the universality of it all, as
far as you know, needing to cherish and care for
these things. And I think it's kind of a kind
of a cool deal. I mean, some people might criticize
it as a big sort of political thing to get
(02:57):
tourist dollars headed your way, but I think it's actually
pretty great.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Oh I do too. I think it's good too. I
think it's both. Though I think the ideal of it
is awesome. I think that in practice lately it's.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's yeah, great in trouble.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
The thing is the idea that is outstanding universal value.
I get that again as an ideal, but in practice
that is not always the case. And I draw your
attention to the US Dunkerque, which is horseback shrimp fishing
in Belgium. And if that sounds obscure to you, you're right,
(03:32):
because only twelve families practiced this. Still, that is a
protected and tangible heritage that is not of universal value,
although it is super interesting and I'm glad it's protected
because why not. But I just thought that that was
There's a lot of different things that contradict the idea
that it's of universal value.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, for sure. This all got started post World War Two,
after the world got together and decided to wreck everything
again for the second time in about thirty years, and
everyone kind of looked up and we're like, geez, you know,
we lost a lot of museums and churches and monuments
and entire cities sometimes or huge portions of cities are
(04:14):
just gone, and maybe we need as a world nation
to get together and sort of start caring for these
things a little bit more so. The UN kind of
led the brigade on this, and UNESCO was formed in
nineteen forty five. I think I said that nineteen seventy
two was when the World Heritage Treaty or whatever came about.
(04:38):
UNESCO was around, you know, quite a while before this
came around. So starting in nineteen forty five is when
UNESCO was formed and they basically started a campaign to
start protecting these places from a few things. It's not
always just like war, that is definitely one of them,
but also human development and natural disaster.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Right for sure. First thing, I think they were really
kind of focused on learning from like archaeology was a
big thing. They were into for a while, but it
really started to take the shape that we understand it
today in nineteen fifty nine, when Egypt went to UNESCO
and said, hey, man, like, we want to build this dam.
It's really important though we have a reservoir of water.
(05:19):
But when we build the dam, there's a lot of
like really old like Egyptian Furonic Arab dynastic monuments that
are going to be underwater. So can you help us
figure this out? And UNESCO said, this is it. We've
been waiting for this for fourteen years.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah. They said, we need to raise some money, so
they got about eighty million dollars together and said, all right,
let's move these two temples, specifically to higher ground. So
they moved they disassembled these temples, moved them about six
hundred and fifty feet, which it was higher and out
of harm's way, and that sort of, like you said,
(05:59):
that just sort of started this idea of like, wait
a minute, we can get together and make great things
happen and protect great places. And that kind of continued
through the sixties until nineteen seventy two. On November sixteenth,
at their seventeenth General Conference, when they adopted the Convention
concerning the protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, which
(06:21):
culminated the center of all that is basically this World
Heritage List.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, and there was one other aspect of that nineteen
fifty nine Asuan Damn Initiative. I guess dozens of countries
like donated to make this happen, Like this was eighty
million dollars in nineteen fifty nine dollars. This is a
significant amount of money. Egypt was really the only country
that was going to benefit from this, but countries are
(06:46):
while in the world, said no, we want to help
take responsibility for this because we think that these are
that important. They transcend just Egyptian importance.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, for sure. And that leads to the second part
of that. What happened in nineteen seven to there was
the Heritage List and the Heritage Fund and that fund.
You know, without money, none of this really matters that much.
You know, it takes a lot of dough sometimes to
do things like this.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, for sure, because like you said, a lot of
it's threatened in One of the big things is preservation,
protection and restoration. So that World Heritage Convention from seventy two,
it created the World Heritage List, and now here, finally
we have reached like the actual modern incarnation of what
UNESCO's largely involved in, or at least known for.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
That's right. As far as the nuts and bolts of
it all goes. There is the World Heritage Committee, which
is twenty one member countries at this point that are
elected for six year terms, and they're the ones that
are sort of in charge of overseeing all this. The
United States has been a member country before and not
been a member country depending on which politician is in
(07:53):
the White House. You can probably figure that one out.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well, no, nuts is probably there's some surprising dates in
there if you ask me.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, but we're not in there now. I think when
did we drop off? Twenty eleven, yeah, but we were
back on then back off again in like twenty one, right,
twenty eighteen, twenty eighteen, Okay, I can't get my years straight.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
That's because of COVID.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
So you know, if you are they call it hosting.
But if you have a World Heritage site in your country,
you have to You can't just say give us all
the money and don't worry about it after that. You
have to provide annual reports. You have to, you know,
deliver reports on like how the property is, the state
of the property, any concerns like moving forward, basically kind
(08:41):
of how things are going. And if you're a member country,
you get the whopping sum of four million dollars a
year from the World Heritage Fund, and that is I mean,
some of that is preservation, but I get the feeling
a lot of that is like just sort of functioning
and identifying places and promoting your own world heritage.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, probably paying for Docince is a chunk of that.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Too, Yeah, probably so.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
But also if something happens acute disaster from human or
natural causes, you'll get some emergency assistance. And then this
is another big one that I think probably really comes
in handy. There are experts who work at UNESCO who
can train your staff, right. You don't have to figure
out you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time
and be like, this is an archaeological site. Let's figure
(09:28):
out how to train you the staff to preserve it
and explain it and all that stuff. You can send
them off to I guess New York and have them
trained up to do those things.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, for sure. And tourism it's a big deal if
you get one of your if you are a country,
when you have a site, did you get put on
this list? It's a big deal because people I think
that don't know a ton about this kind of look
at it as like a seven Wonders of the World
list in some ways, and like here's a place like
we got a visit before we die.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, there's hundreds of wonders of the world as far
as the World Heritage List is concerned.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So originally, Chuck, there were just like physical places and
features that were on the World Heritage List called sites,
and they were divided essentially into two categories, cultural or natural.
And you can kind of generally guess what the criteria
was for each.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, Like if it's a natural Heritage site, that means
there's just universal value, maybe scientifically or maybe even just esthetically.
You know, we're talking about the Great Barrier Reef of
Australia or Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, stuff like that,
and it's you know, it's about protecting these natural wonders
(10:49):
of the world generally.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, And I mean we just take for granted that
the Serengeti National Park is like amazing, but the reason
why specifically. It was chosen because it's one of the
best examples of large predator prey interactions. Like you just
do not see lions chasing down antelope in Kansas. You
don't see it unless the zoo's gone crazy. And that's
(11:12):
one reason why it's protected. It's basically the main reason
why it's protected. But then there's also an intersecting thing
too that it's also gorgeous. So this fulfills a couple
of things. It's biologically important to science, but it's also
esthetically amazing too.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, for sure. And this goes you know, every single
one of these things. And we're not just going to
go through and list a ton of different places. But
if you're talking about the Yellowstone National Park, or the
Galapagos Islands or like I mentioned, the Great Barrier Reef,
these all seem like pretty obvious inclusions.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
For sure, and they were probably included pretty early on
in the list's existence.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Oh geez.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
So that's the natural site. There's also the cultural site,
and these are essentially, you know, human made environments or
structures or places of human occupation where humans did something
impressive important, or it was just part of a larger culture.
For example, there's a crossroads and I think, oh, I
(12:11):
don't remember where it was, but it was just a
crossroads back on the in the like the third century CE,
and it was just really important at the time. It
doesn't seem all that important now, but it was, and
you want to preserve it because the future generations can
learn from it and experience it and appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, it can also be
a building or a sculpture, like the Statue of Liberty
is on there under cultural heritage under that, but so
is like Venice, Italy. So it can be a whole
city that's sort of an ancient modern well not maybe
not ancient, but a modern wonder.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You know, right, and then it can be ancient two.
And then also like how the esthetics and scientific importance
intersect in the Serengeti National Park, that can happen, and
cultural sites too, like it can be where archaeology and
intersects with you know, humans like making shaping the natural environment,
(13:11):
like the Kohoki amounts are on the list yea to
where like all these different boxes can be checked and
those are they call the the money sites where there's
just a bunch of different criteria going on.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, and when I said not ancient Venice specifically.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I see, I see have you been to Venice.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I've never been there. It's on a big time on
the list. But I also just realized, I don't know
when all that was engineered.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
I wanted to say, like the sixteenth century, but it
could be like agent that's ancient is now.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
No, I don't even know what ancient means now I
think about.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
It, but it's you're gonna love it. You will love Venice.
And when you do, go there, go to Harry's Bar.
It's where the Bellini was invented. Okay, they save Hemingway's
seat at the bar, it's preserved. But their martinis are really,
really good. They're outrageously expensive just because they know that
(14:08):
you'll pay it because you're a tourist. But it's still
worth getting.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Well, maybe I can grow the beer back out and
put some weight back on and convince everyone on the
ghost of Hemingway and take that seat.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Finally, well, bring a multi extra toad cat with you
or are they cross eyed? What is it about those
cats too to?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I don't know. Are they polydactyl.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I think so there's some unique feature that the Hemingway
cats on Key West. I'll share. Yeah, okay, I want
to say it's an extra toe. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well, moving on, we'll figure that out. There are total
a total of twelve hundred and forty eight World Heritage
sites right now. The vast amount of those are cultural.
I think seventy eight percent, nineteen percent are natural, and
three percent are mixed. And Europe in North America have
almost half of them. They have forty six percent, compared
(15:03):
to Latin in the Caribbean, Latin American Caribbean at twelve percent,
Asia and the Pacific twenty five percent, the Arab States
eight percent, an African nine percent, although we should say
Africa holds twenty percent of all the natural sites, which
is pretty impressive and not surprising.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
That is cool. I say we take a break. But
first I also wanted to point out that not all
of these are you know, just like up with humanity like.
They also preserve some pretty dark stuff too. One good
example is the Navy School of Mechanics in Argentina, which
has turned into a Site of Memory, a museum where
(15:39):
they basically preserved the fact that this was a place
where people were abducted, tortured, and murdered by dictatorships in
Latin America in the nineteen seventies and eighties. And this
is a World Heritage site because it's important to remember.
People will do this, like people will vote people like
this into office and keep them there, and those people
(16:00):
can turn on their own people, and you can be
abducted and disappeared and murdered by the state that happens.
That to me is like one of the big driving
I guess it drives home the point of the World
Heritage lists more than some of these others. Right to remember, right,
but you don't have to just remember the dark stuff.
(16:21):
You can remember all the stuff, but you can't ignore
the dark stuff, I guess, is what I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Well said, just like Lord Vader himself.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
What do you say, like, come on over, baby, the
dark side's feeling great?
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I think so that was the line. Should we take
that break?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, I think we should.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
All right, We'll be right back, everybody, all right. So
(17:02):
we mentioned early we're back by the way, that UNESCO
would eventually adopt stuff like oral traditions and performing arts
and social rituals and practices and things like that. That
happened in two thousand and three specifically, and you know,
this was a very valuable ad. I think, like a
skill set or a knowledge, or just some irreplaceable custom
(17:25):
or traditional craft or skill or something that you know,
could be in danger of being lost, you know, if
not for stuff like this.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, and again it can be twelve families shrimp fishing
on horseback in Belgium.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
I want to see that. What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It looks like somebody with a horse and a shrimp
net on a beach. I saw a picture of it.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I mean I kind of figured that, but you know,
I bet the shrimp are good.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
But I think this is it's worth preserving too, because
this is important to like these people. It's not saying
like was this this is what America thinks is cool
or this is what you know Zimbabwe thinks is cool?
Like this is this is important to this culture. There's
a culture on planet Earth and this is important to
them and we should preserve it just for that very reason.
(18:14):
Plus also, really, what is supporting horseback shrimp fishing among
twelve families in Belgium really costing the world to support?
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Agreed? One part about being included on this part of
the list is that And I think this is kind
of cool is it can be inherited from the past,
but it also is applied to a contemporary setting, and
so that means, you know, it can't be the lost
art of whatever if it's like truly really no one
is even doing this at all anymore. Like you can
(18:44):
be dlisted and we're gonna talk about that in a minute.
Not d listed is in d dash, but d E dash.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Oh you've seen you know that site?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Well, no, wasn't that a TV show?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Oh? I don't know. There's a really mean like burn
blog or there used to be called you Listed. That
was hilarious but also really cruel.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
No, I was never on that. But if you are included,
that means this practice or this ritual or custom is
passed through generations and communities and very community based overall.
Like it's recognized, it's recognized within that community and outside
that community as something of value, kind of like the
(19:25):
trimp people.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Trimp people just because it's interesting, you know, Yeah, let's
talk about we dug up some other ones. You want
to just kind of throw a few of these out.
I found basically all these interesting movies should probably just
pick some.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, I'll go with the bagpipes. Bulgarian bagpipe making and
bag pipe playing. Apparently it's a very big thing in Bulgaria,
passed down through the families for generations, and it used
to be like a father to something. Now they will
teach all genders, which is kind of great, and you know,
it's in social clubs, they teach it in schools and
they're like, we need to protect this, and it is
(20:00):
on that list.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It's also there's some very famous ones too that it's
not just as obscure as horseback shrimp fishing. Artisanal baguette
making in France is protected, Coffee's protected sauna culture and
Finland's protected. Gingerbread crafting in Croatia, and then it does
get a little more niche loincloth weaving and cote de
(20:22):
voir human power creation. They're called castles in Spain to
where people just stack up on other people. And then
there's also an annual grass mowing competition in Bosnia Hertzgevina,
and it is using a scythe they're not just like
riding John Deere tractors or anything like that, and it's
(20:44):
exactly what it sounds like it's a grass mowing competition
that's protected. Also, so is yodeling in Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, great list, thank you, So check.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I don't know if you said there's a danger list.
Did you mention that. I don't think we have yet. No.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I talked about being delisted. But before you're delisted, you
can be in danger.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, and you can be in danger from we did
kind of talk about you can be in danger from
armed conflict, war, from climate change, from all like just
a complete change of the surrounding area can can get
you delisted. In danger is where this is the step
before delisting, and essentially UNESCO steps in and says, hey,
(21:28):
we need to do something about this because the site
is deteriorating, or we need to figure out how to
lift the Statue of Liberty one hundred feet so that
sea level rise doesn't you know, wash it away. And
there's two kinds. There's ascertained danger, which is like this
is going to happen, and then there's potential danger, like
say stuff coming from climate change, or if it's you know,
(21:51):
a civil conflict is starting to heat up and it
looks like a civil war is going to break out
and there's a heritage site right in the crossfire.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Yeah for sure. And you know, one good example of
something they might do is they are these national parks
and I guess they're all national parks in the Democratic
Republic of Congo. That was, they were all made the
Danger List between ninety four and ninety seven, so they
you know, kind of put up the warning flag and
(22:21):
UNESCO came in with their fat Bank account. There were
some NGOs involved that wanted to get involved and donate
some money, and they had a four year rehabilitation campaign
for these parks and then a second campaign, and this
kind of goes to show how the international community comes together.
These are all in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But
(22:41):
in two thousand and four the second campaign got funded
from Belgium and Japan. They're like, let's take care of
these places.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yeah. There's another site, the Remains of Bamiyan Valley in
Afghanistan is what it's called. It went from not on
any World Heritage list immediately to the danger list. The
Taliban back in two thousand and one blew up these
two I think ten and fifteen story tall cliff carved
(23:11):
I guess statues are reliefs of Buddha from the sixth century.
They were beautiful, and the Taliban blew them up by
shooting them with shoulder launched rocket launchers that were probably
provided by the CIA back in the eighties when they
were fighting the Russians. And this was an enormous thing.
Like people were like, what are you doing? What is
(23:33):
the problem here? Is this part of this kind of
ethnic cleansing campaign against the Hazara people who live in
the area, And so they're like, I guess UNESCO was like,
all right, we can't let anything like that happened again.
Let's get in here and try to preserve this valley.
And it was put on the danger list and they
started a campaign in two thousand and nine to just
basically go in there and figure out how to move
(23:54):
forward and keep this valley from getting worse off than
it was.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, I think there is a big deal. So part
of their you know, UNESCO getting involved theres is identifying
and getting rid of those land mines first and foremost.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yep, let's see.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Everglades National Park, Florida's treasure that's on there. Yeah, very
sadly on the danger list.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, there's also like civil conflicts really target stuff or
in danger sites like the historic center of Odessa and
Ukraine is on the list. Ancient Aleppo in Syria is
on the list. It can Yeah, that's a big It
seems like armed conflict and climate change are the two
(24:38):
biggest threats to world here sites.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah, I think so. You know, we did talk about
being delisted, and thankfully that's only happened a few times,
because if you're deleted from the list, that means like
that means you're probably done as a thing, and that
like there's no point in protecting you anymore because it
doesn't exist. And one one good example of that is
(25:02):
the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City. It was delisted in twenty
twenty one. This was the historic docklands of Liverpool, very big,
you know, port town obviously in England, and they built
a stadium there. Everton Stadium was built and it was
it basically kind of wiped all that out. So they
were like, well, there's no reason for this being on
(25:22):
the list anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah. The Tower of London is not on the Danger list,
but it's on the pre danger list for the same reason.
The development that's going on in the area threatens to
basically take away its natural or historic I mean, identity.
Even just being built around They're not talking about knocking
down the Tower of London, but just building around it
(25:44):
can change the built environment enough that UNESCO's like it's done.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah. Sometimes it's very sad. In this case in Oman,
the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary was delisted in two thousand and
seven that had a popular of Arabian Orx antelope and
that you know, that was decimated so much, that population
such that I believe it fell down to like sixty
five of them in two thousand and seven. And I
(26:12):
guess that was and this was because of poaching, obviously
in habitat destruction, which makes it super sad, but I
guess that was low enough to where they were like,
all right, you know, no more protection from US, I know.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And that's sad because it seems like that's when they
should swoop in and be like, we're we're going to
occupy this area, Oman, we are, this is no longer
sovereign Oman.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, I mean, I think there are other organizations that
do and protect species like that, so hopefully they weren't
just sort of left out in the wind.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that they were on the
danger list first and then they just did yeah, follow through.
But that's that we should say. It's not a It's
pretty dishonorable for a country to let one of its
sites end up on the danger list, even worse to
have it delisted. So countries tend to work hard to
(27:03):
get off of the danger list, and that does actually happen.
That happened in twenty twenty five to three different spots,
the rainforest of Atsananana in madayascar Abu Mena in Egypt,
think that was the crossroads. And then in the old
town of Gadamis in Libya that was the crossroads. It
(27:26):
was the crossroads between Africa and the Mediterranean years ago.
But those were all for different, various reasons on the
danger list, and those countries worked very hard and aggressively
to address all of those issues and get them back
off of the danger list. So it is possible to
(27:46):
get off the danger list and certainly not be delisted.
And usually countries who take this stuff seriously will work
hard to do that.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah, you don't want to be on the naughty list.
Exactly earlier, when you said cross roads, I thought genuinely
thought you were gonna say the Mississippi Crossroads where Robert
Johnson sold his soul to the devil.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Do they have that one crossroad identified?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
It sure seems like it should be a World Heritage site.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure if they actually
had the actual crossroads, or if it's more of a
not apocryphal but or maybe it is apocryphal. It could
be both, yeah, or ephemeral, could be all three.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Have we taken our second break? I don't think we
have have.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
No, let's take it. It's perfect timing. Look at us
thirty minutes in.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Okay, we'll be right back, So, Chuck, politics plays a
(29:02):
huge part in UNESCO and the World Heritage List. You
would probably not be surprised to think because this is
a bunch of different nations coming together and they don't
always play super well together, or when they do play
super well together, it's often like gaming the system. And
that seems to be what is going on today with
(29:22):
UNESCO and the World Heritage Convention, that it's basically been
creeping slowly toward a way for countries to make more
money through their tourism industry. Get some sites on the
World Heritage list, you can go promote it worldwide and
bring more people to your country where they're going to
spend a bunch of drachmas.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, for sure. There is a professor of anthropology at
Stanford name Lynn Meskel who basically said it's entirely about
political and economic gain at this point, just a tool
in a much larger arsenal of non sorry of nation
state politics. And you know, the politics of it all
can't be ignored these days. It's you know, there's an
(30:04):
interesting thing that happens, you know, in terms of like repatriation.
You know, we've talked at some point here and there
about like, you know, when there's plundering from wars and
things like that, and all of a sudden the countries
own things, or at least have possession of them in
place of them in museums they weren't there to begin with,
(30:26):
like giving this stuff back. There's a big movement for that,
but there's also this sort of idea on the other
side of like, well, we will take care of that
stuff because it is in London or New York City
and we're not going to give it back to you.
And that same sort of mentality has been sort of
the same thing has sort of applied to World herited sites.
(30:49):
I think a little bit where indigenous peoples are kind
of moved out of the conversation because the attitude is like, well,
you just don't know what's best for your stuff, right.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It's kind of like, if you're a bunch of Westerners
coming along as tourists to tour this world heritage site
that's of immense cultural value to this local group, if
current people from the local group show up, they kind
of push them out of their way by their face
and they're like, out of the way, you're ruining the diorama.
This took place a thousand years ago. We don't care
(31:21):
what's going on with you today, even though you're directly
related to this. I think is that mentality.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Right, Yeah, that's a good way to say it.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I think sadly, there's also like a whole I talked
about gaming the system. One of the ways that you
can game the system is essentially withdraw, like the United
States has done twice now in the eighties and in
twenty eighteen. You can withdraw from UNESCO and this convention.
You can still nominate sites, including sites in your own country, right, Yeah,
(31:53):
so you're getting the best of both worlds where you
can get those tourism dollars for getting new World Heritage sites,
and you're also not paying dues or you're not spending
any of your own money to support other sites. But
if you need help with your sites because of World
Heritage site, you can get other countries' money who are
(32:14):
doing the right thing and paying their dues.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah, for sure, not a cool thing to do, if
you ask me. The other thing that they've seen, I
think kind of starting in like the nineteen nineties, it
seems like, is when countries are getting together and voting together,
like forming packs and voting blocks to either get listed
or to block maybe a site from getting on the
(32:40):
Danger list, because we said that's kind of like being
on the Naughty List.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, exactly. So, like Latin American countries will frequently band
together and vote in one another's best interests. Or also
I think even countries that aren't members anymore, say the
US can basically be like, hey, vote for us for
this thing, and you know, we'll make sure that we
up are oil imports from your country by ten percent
(33:02):
or so.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Oh interesting, you know.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
So I think the more the more juice you have,
the more you can get stuff done even if you're
not a member anymore.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, like you said, this
is big money. Like if you're included on this list,
they will you'll be a part of their advertising campaign
and then you can also create your own around that,
you know, touting inclusion.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
You know, Yeah, I can tell you that I want
to go see them in no impalatial centers in Greece.
Six Bronze Age sites that were part of the late
Bronze Age collapse. They're about to be or they were
just in twenty twenty five put on. So that's the
tourism's working already.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
So you might not have known about that had it
not been included.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Probably, yes, I did not know those sites existed.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, I'm sure they have a robust website with lots
of pretty pictures.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
So yeah, and that's basically like being there in person, right,
but it's free.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah, exactly. Speaking of the danger list, there are a
few sites that you know, you can be removed from
the danger list. That's the that's the goal, I guess
before being delisted, and that happened last year. The Rainforest
and Madagascar are those the ones that you're talking about. Yeah,
they're not on the danger list. And then that town
(34:16):
in Libya was that where the.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Crossroads was, That's the crossroads.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
So they, I guess, what do you do? Just raise
enough hay or prove that you're actually protecting it in
such a way.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Well, I'll give you the example of the crossroads. The
old town of Gamities, I believe is what it is. Acadamiescatamies,
thank you. Their irrigation techniques were raising the water table
and some of the very ancient buildings were in danger
of crumbling from the water exposure. So Libya went in
(34:48):
and basically came up with different irrigation techniques that they
taught to the locals lower the water table. And now
the site is no longer in jeopardy and it's off
of the danger list.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
All right.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
It's essentially just a question of the host country having
the will to spend a few bucks to remedy the situation.
That's all it is.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
I wonder if one member country has enough places like
that make that danger list, if there's any sort of
maybe not even official penalty, but like hey, hey listen, guys,
you need to You got three on the danger list.
Now you need to get it together.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It's a really bad look.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
It is a bad look.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Kind of talking about the politics of this too. There
was a really startling turn of events in twenty twenty
where Rejet Erdowan, the President of Turkey nilatterally said, Hey,
the Hagia Sophia, this part this part of world heritage.
It was a cathedral and then a mosque and now
(35:53):
it's a museum. We're turning it back into a mosque.
And UNESCO's like, we didn't talk about this, and Iwan said,
it doesn't matter, we're doing that. And this is like,
I mean, this thing was built in the five thirties.
It's one of the more amazing buildings in the world.
And in the nineteen thirties the court in Turkey said,
this is a museum. This is no longer a mosque.
(36:15):
Turkey is secular and that's all there is to it.
So it's a museum until Airdwank came along in twenty
twenty and changed it back.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, and you know, unilaterally decided this on his own,
and UNESCO was like, hey, not only did you shouldn't
have done this, but you didn't tell us you were
doing this, and you're using this as like, this is
a World Heritage site. Now you can't use it for
your own political gain. You can't try and curry favor
with the Turkish Islamic Turkish conservatives. And he was like, well,
(36:46):
you know, what do you say. It's not a museum
anymore and we're not charging entry fees anymore. Yep. Was
that as like comeback?
Speaker 2 (36:55):
I guess it was a comeback of sorts or a
defense or something. He's like, where you don't have to
pay to get in anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, it's pretty weak.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
But that was twenty twenty and absolutely nothing happened. That's
the other problem. This is a problem with almost everything
that has to do with the UN. It's like, what
are you going to do? Really? Yeah, Like, I'm fine,
I don't care about peer pressure, you know, the international
community being mad at me. That's all it takes, and
there's nothing that can be done about it.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, for sure. Let me see what else is on
the danger list. You mentioned the Statue of Liberty right
as far as some of the big dogs m see, Yeah,
great barrier reef that's been threatened for a long time,
as our reefs all over the world.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Bury very sad ocean bleaching. Also, the Sydney Opera House
is coming close to the danger list because of the
arise as well.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Oh man, it's right there on the water. You got
to protect that thing, I know.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Man, I say we go out. I just want to
throw out a couple more of these amazing and tangible
ones that are protected. Okay, great midwifery from Germany to Togo.
Sometimes this can cross cultures.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yea, it should have been from like Albania Desaire. That's
how you got to do.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Those great I called tiki horse breeding in tur Kamenistan.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Yeah, I like that one.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Here's a good one, savice preparation in Peru.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
I'm all about that.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
I am too. You'll also like this one, the Da
de los Moritos in Mexico, the Day of the Dead.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yeah for sure. Hey. You know what, here's a tip
for especially for you and me and Emily. If you go,
if you love that Savica, you just got to make
sure you got to say no pulpo. Oh really yeah,
I think we You don't need octopus?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Right? Oh? Is that what that is?
Speaker 1 (38:49):
No?
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I definitely do not there too. Intelligence. Yeah it's cool.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, we learned that in Mexico. City that pulpo is
the words. We're like, oh, okay, so that's what we
need to avoid.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So you say, hold the pulpo, yeah, or just get
the one without it, okay.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Like I would never go to another country and say,
can you not put this thing in there that you
traditionally eat, Like you can find a savica that's probably
just a fish or tramp or scalop or whatever.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Oh really, I feel like I take the burger king
approach to tourism, where I was like, I'll have it
my way. You got anything else, I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
This was a fun one. I know there's something I
knew nothing about, and now I feel like I know enough,
which is our charge as a show to like talk
a little bit about it intelligently around to dinner table.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
And to attend UNESCO World Heritage meetings and speak up.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Yeah, where do they have those New York?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah, let's go. All right, I'm sure anybody can just
walk in. If you want to know more about UNESCO
World Heritage, go check out some sites. You can tour
the world from your computer again for free. And in
the meantime, I think it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah, this is from Stephen Cook from Halifax, Nova Scotia,
who visited the Kowloon Walled City.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Oh cool, or.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
At least the park. Hey guys visited that Kowloon Wall
City Park this past December on our first trip to
Hong Kong, and it's a delightful spot with sports facilities
for nearby residents, some remnants of the original building foundations
as a reminder of its bass, and the one original
building that is now a museum. That's the one we
talked about. Yeah. Plus, there's a special exhibit that recreates
(40:29):
a streetscape in the community using sets from the twenty
twenty four film Twilight of the Warriors colon Walled in
which stars Hong Kong action legend sam O Hung as
a local crime boss named mister Big. I guess when
you're this big they call you mister. The set recreates
a whole block with a barbershop can means store, a
shoe repair stand, and a fish ball making factory with
(40:52):
period props into corps. A visit is highly recommended, and
Stephen included a few photos which are great.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Can't wait to see this because I looked all over
for the exhibit and I couldn't find any photos that
I saw mention of it at some point.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Yeah, search search that email, buddy and it'll come up.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Thanks Steven. That's a great one. Yeah, if you have
been to Kowloon, Walt City, let us know. We want
to hear from all of you, and if you have
anything to say, really even hi, right Chuck.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Hi and Hello is a great thing to hear always.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Yes, you can send it via email to stuff podcast
at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
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Kingdom of Fraud
It’s the unlikeliest of criminal partnerships: a devout polygamist from an insular Utah sect joining forces with a shadowy Armenian tycoon from LA. The result - a billion dollar fraud conspiracy. In Kingdom of Fraud, investigative reporter Michele McPhee traces the origins of the extraordinary alliance between Jacob Kingston and Levon Termendzhyan. Together, the two men trigger the largest tax investigation in American history and weave around themselves a web of dirty cops, influential political relationships and transnational money laundering. All this is set against the backdrop of Jacob Kingston’s clan – The Order. A powerful and secretive polygamist organization in Salt Lake City. To whom Jacob is desperate to prove his worth. Kingdom of Fraud is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of Kingdom of Fraud completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!