KYUDAI NEWS KYUSHU UNIVERSITY CAMPUS MAGAZINE Spring 2014 No.25

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Kyushu University has obtained the Ofcial Development Assistance Grants for UNESCO Activities through the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan to carry out this technical cooperation since the scal year of 2011.In October 2012, in order to further enhance the collaboration between the three concerned parties, Kyushu University, the DoC and UNESCO Delhi signed for the cooperation framework to establish a formal working relationship. Through a series of discussions with the concerned stakeholders in Bhutan taken place since the technical cooperation started in March 2011, it has been gured out that the complexity in protection of cultural heritage in Bhutan is existing not just in absence of legal framework but rather in a fundamental subject in how heritage shall be dened and sustained. For instance, the people of Bhutan have never perceived ancient buildings as ‘heritage’, but something more pragmatic which could evolve and be upgraded to best serve the needs of the people’s lives. In the case of religious buildings, the people accumulate spiritual merit and virtue through renovation works applying the best embellishment on the structure. With this reasoning, improvement of the transportation system and the advancement in the availability of construction materials in recent years have accelerated the change of authentic materials and original design of the ancient buildings.This may be understood as a reection of the cultural intactness in Bhutan that tangible and intangible aspects of heritage are interconnected inseparably from each other. Furthermore, acknowledging that continuity of cultures has been ensured in its dynamism of adapting socio-economic changes and inuences from other cultures over time, the Royal Government of Bhutan’s endeavor to establish holistic framework for protection of evolving heritage is immensely signicant. This signicance is further underlined when it is considered in association with the recent international discussion on reviewing the denition of heritage value and authenticity. Within the international heritage theory, heritage has been preserved rather in static manner and material authenticity has been the critical condition by which the property is recognized as a heritage. It was only after the Nara document in 1994 that the scope of authenticity has been expanded by acknowledging cultural diversity. Establishing a heritage protection framework in Bhutan is, thus, the process of interpreting its dynamism into the international understanding of heritage conservation that may in turn require further conceptual shift to accommodate more diverse meanings of heritage and authenticity. Therefore, Kyushu University has determined to take comprehensive approaches of technical cooperation beyond just the support to draft the bills, but also which could facilitate interactive discussion about heritage value and authenticity in the international and local context. This includes contribution of technical views from legal aspect to the consultative meeting on the authenticity of Bhutanese heritage buildings between the Cabinet and Parliament members and bureaucrats of the Bhutanese Government and international experts which was held in Thimphu, Bhutan on February 2012. The collaboration between the Royal Government of Bhutan and Kyushu University has stepped into the new dimension to mainstream the discussion with regard to the alternative approaches for better understanding cultural diversity and heritage in line with the Bhutanese challenges.16Kyudai News No.251ThimphuToshiyuki KonoDistinguished Professor, Faculty of LawChallenges in heritage protection in BhutanComprehensive approach of the technical cooperationClose Up

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