HERITAGE AT RISK REGISTER AS A TOOL FOR MANAGING CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES IN KOSOVO

Abstract

Kosovo is a country with an ancient history and wealthy cultural heritage. The Ministry of Culture is responsible to manage a list of over 1500 protected assets. However, cultural heritage sites in Kosovo are in a degraded state, mainly because of lack of maintenance, awareness, and improper management. Significant numbers of heritage sites are at risk of being completely ruined. The fragile institutions are heavily suffering due to the lack of human capacities. They failed to create a monitoring mechanism that would provide data of current condition of heritage sites. The local communities are almost ignored in relation to decision-making process. This situation resulted with investments in the field of cultural heritage not being based on the actual needs. Cultural Heritage without Borders, a local NGO working for the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage since 2001, has recently launched a project aiming to map cultural heritage sites in Kosovo. For nearly one year of work, more than 800 architectural and archaeological monuments were identified and documented. The data was collected by field and desktop study, which included information regarding location, protection status, ownership, category and type, statement of significance, physical access, communication of owners with institutions, potential for development and physical condition of assets surveyed on visual basis. The collected data was put in a digital platform, which can generate various reports based on the field of concern and this whole process represents the interaction of heritage to technology. As a result of data collected and analyzed through mapping, was developed the Heritage at Risk, an online digital platform, which consists of the list of assets on a poor physical condition. This platform is a new opportunity to inform the public, relevant institutions and stakeholders about the condition of cultural heritage sites, and also intends to include them in its assessment and preservation. Apart from this, the platform also offers the possibility for everyone to report online the heritage at risk. This paper will give an overview of the condition of cultural heritage sites in Kosovo, its management and legal protection. In addition, it will describe the need and process of mapping of assets, as well as the results of Heritage at Risk register. It is essential for every country to have such a platform, to ease the identification and data collection of heritage assets. In addition, the level of damage of cultural heritage assets should be one of the main criteria of every investment and project related to the cultural heritage field. Furthermore, the results of research analysis will give direct recommendations to owners as well as relevant institutions of cultural heritage. Both these parties are given recommendations on the possible ways of preservation and promotion of cultural heritage

Keywords

• Cultural Heritage,Assets,Heritage at Risk,Mapping,Digital Platform

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