PARIS, December 3. /TASS/. A total of 47 new entries were added to the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage by a relevant committee that convened in Rabat, Morocco, on Friday.
The Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity now includes the tea culture of Azerbaijan and Turkey, traditional technologies of tea leaf processing and related social practices in China and the French culture of baguette bread.
The committee also designated Kazakhstan’s traditional performing art Orteke, the straw weaving art of Belarus, Turkmen crafts, traditional embroidery of the United Arab Emirates, the practice of modern dance in Germany and manual bell ringing in Spain.
One third of the new inscriptions are about practices related to environmental protection, often concerning ancestral agricultural techniques that are mindful of the sustainable use of resources, as well as rituals and festive events that celebrate nature, UNESCO said. According to the organization, these elements are a reminder that ancestral knowledge can be crucial in meeting the new challenges of our age, such as climate change.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay congratulated the states that had put forward these proposals.
"This living heritage plays an essential role in bringing people together and making peace grow in the minds of men," she said.
UNESCO, as the United Nations organization in charge of culture, ensures the safeguarding and transmission of intangible cultural heritage, i.e. traditional knowledge, arts and skills.
In 2003, it created a dedicated instrument: the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, ratified by 180 States, which has already allowed for the inscription of more than 600 elements throughout the world.
The 17th session of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, chaired by the Kingdom of Morocco, is meeting in Rabat from November 28 to December 3.