One of the key activities of the DUNC project is to ensure that local residents and stakeholders play an active role in the UNESCO sites’ governance – so that their needs and ideas are taken into account within management plans and their sense of ownership towards their heritage sites is increased.
During the past few months, our team has been very successful in building new and stronger relationships within the local communities.
In particular, the work done by our partners, the Municipality of Karlskrona and the Curonian Spit National Park Administration, provides us with two examples of different strategies which have both led to great results!
Karlskrona
The concept of ambassador training was developed in Karlskrona through different workshops with stakeholders involved in tourism and the World Heritage. The target groups were future World Heritage Guides and people, who in different ways, work with tourism or the World Heritage.
The training was divided into three sessions: two sessions including lectures about DUNC, the Word Heritage, history of the Town of Karlskrona, sustainability, presentation techniques etc. and a third session consisted of a guided tour of the town, including the naval yard.
The Ambassador training initiative will continue in the future to make sure that there is a constant influx of new ambassadors on into the future. The participants were also eager to stay in touch with each other, to get more inspiration and to find ways of building an international network.
Curonian Spit National Park
At the Curonian Spit National Park, many actors working in the natural, cultural, scientific and historical sector were invited to become local ambassadors of their internationally well-known heritage. Our partners decided to split the ambassadorship into three different categories:
Gold dunes ambassadors – ORGANIZATIONS
Grey dunes ambassadors – INDIVIDUAL PERSONS
White dunes ambassadors – GROUPS, FAMILIES
32 ambassadors – including organizations, folklore ensembles, families, individual persons were recongnised during a ceremony by the National Park director Ausra Feser.
All three levels of ambassadors will frame the Curonian Spit´s Ambassadors Club, which will be coordinated by CSNP Administration. In the near future, other actors will be able to join the club and it is also expected that some of the actors will be trained to be professional ambassadors.