Opportunities and challenges in protecting our Cultural Heritage: ICOMOS´ international collaboration trajectory
The International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), an advisory body to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, has a network of 10,000+ professionals worldwide. Established over 50 years ago, ICOMOS’ trajectory has produced a philosophical and doctrinal framework for protecting heritage on an international level. The resulting achievements have offered great opportunities, but also many challenges. Conflict, climate disasters, development pressures, and now the pandemic are threatening the overall integrity of cultural heritage in ways never seen before. ICOMOS is striving to offer technical expertise independently that is in keeping with the ethical rules that could mitigate these threats.
Mario Santana-Quintero is a professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carleton University. He is also the Director of the NSERC Create program Heritage Engineering and faculty member of the Carleton Immersive Media Studio Lab (CIMS). Besides his academic work in Canada, he is a guest professor at the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (University of Leuven). Along with his academic activities, he serves as Secretary General of the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), and is a past president of the ICOMOS Scientific Committee on Heritage Documentation (CIPA). Mario is a Getty Conservation Institute scholar and has collaborated in several international projects in the field of heritage documentation for The Getty, UNESCO, Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, ICCROM, World Monuments Fund, UNDP, Welfare Association, and the Department of Culture and Tourism of Abu Dhabi.
