The ambitious project of the submission for the inclusion of the Atri-Cerrano site on the UNESCO World Heritage List had a setback in the negative response to the procedure by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities.
The difficulty in having a positive reply to this kind of initiative was known from the beginning. Unfortunately, the awareness of the necessary work for pursuing it competitively was not enough. However this result cannot be considered a complete defeat.
In fact, the Ministry first specifies its competence only on cultural aspects: so only two criteria out of four (iii e v), concerning the cultural heritage, have been evaluated (see the previous post in which the suggested criteria have been explained). Finally, the Ministry affirms that “the proposal does not look feasible in substance because the uniqueness is not analytically shown on the base of values that you want to present”.
This means that, on the one hand, the proposal valuation remains partial and only limited to the cultural aspect, excluding the naturalistic one. On the other hand, this response does not exclude any uniqueness beforehand, but it highlights the lack of an impressive analysis to support the proposals.
Anyway, as confirmed by the committee “spokesman”, President of the Town Council Mr. Ernesto Iezzi, the undertaken way has made possible the collection of a large amount of information which might be useful for some other initiatives on the territorial integration of this site.
At this stage the participation to the UNESCO Programme The Man and the Biosphere (MAB) should be desirable, taking into account the natural heritage of Atri-Cerrano site, in order to obtain the recognition of large part of the territory as Biosphere Reserve, given that there are all potentialities: the already established protected areas, the naturalistic value of other neighbouring areas, the promotion policies oriented towards a balanced relation between the human community and the ecosystem, are all solid elements for the recognition purpose.
Finally, on the other hand, in order to value the cultural heritage in its possible uniqueness, a purpose should be investing more in research, in order to be really competitive in an analytic demonstration of the assets’ value.