VMF
Heritage and Sustainable Development: the VMF Symposium
July, 02 2008
Recently I had the privilege of participating in an international symposium in Paris organized and hosted by VMF, Les Vieilles Maisons Francaises. VMF was celebrating its 50th anniversary as an organization committed to preserving France's incredible built heritage. The theme of the symposium was "Heritage and Sustainable Development: a Question of Education"."
As I have written before (30 May 08) the link between sustainable development and heritage conservation is not well understood in North America, but much more so in Europe (and much of the developing world). More education is an obvious part of the question in the US and Canada.
And no doubt that's true in Europe as well, but the quality and nuanced sophistication of this issue was clearly evident during this conference which was held at UNESCO headquarters in Paris and appropriately opened by Kiochiro Matsuura, the Director-General of UNESCO.
The officers and staff of VMF were wonderful hosts. Their delightful Secretaire Generale, Lilibeth Dewavrin is perhaps the most gracious and delightful hostess I've ever encountered. And the President, Philippe Toussaint, was generous with both his time and his hospitality at every event related to the symposium. Anne Ridard as the project manager did an excellent job of juggling the logistics for 20 or so speakers and a couple hundred participants.
The substance of the symposium was superb and, as usual, I learned far more than I imparted. I learned something from each presentation and it would be presumptuous to try to summarize them here. VMF has posted abstracts of each presentation which I highly recommend reading.
In my next blog I'll write about some of the people and their organizations that I was fortunate to meet at the symposium. But I want to mention one in this blog. Professor Xavier Greffe is an economics professor at the Sorbonne, and well known internationally in the world of cultural heritage economics. Professor Greffe made a two part presentation of an extensive survey he conducted earlier this year about French attitudes toward the protection of the built heritage. The results of the survey certainly demonstrated the commitment of the French people to heritage conservation and may well serve as a blueprint for action of the government and the private sector for the future. Other countries should undertake this kind of important original research. At least in the US there is often an impression that the support for historic preservation is rather limited. I doubt that is actually true, but we should be demonstrating that here as Professor Greffe and VMF have done in France.
Finally, the symposium concluded with a commitment of VMF to pursue 15 measurable and doable (even if difficult) specific actions to advance the further integration of heritage conservation into sustainable development. Every conference should do that - it gives direction, it sets priorities, it establishes the grounds for accountability.
Congratulations to VMF on their 50th Anniversary and on the superb symposium they hosted. Thank you for having included me.
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