TIRANA, Oct. 11 – Butrint is set to become the first Albanian UNESCO World Heritage site that will have an integrated management plan with a focus on its sustainable economic development and addressing challenges facing the country’s largest archeological park.
UK-based Prince & Pearce has been hired to draft the Butrint integrated management plan for seven months until April 2019 through funding of $250,000 by the Albanian-American Development Foundation, AADF, in a project that is expected to transform current management of one of the country’s key heritage sites and set a sustainable development model for other important sites in the country.
Situated in southernmost Albania, close to the Greek island of Corfu, Butrint is one of the main tourist attractions in Saranda and along the Albanian Riviera with an estimated 170,000 tourists visiting it last year.
The Butrint integrated management plan is the first of its kind in the country after Albania adopted a new law on cultural heritage and museums earlier this year.
“The integrated management plan will conform to UNESCO terms and provide fresh and innovative perspectives with tangible and measurable framework for the sustainability of the site. In the longer term, the project aims to offer a new approach to heritage sites in the country by addressing issues relating to years of neglect, lack of adequate financing, sustainable conservation, increasing tourism, local capacity building and community outreach,” says the Albanian-American Development Foundation which has been supporting Albania cultural heritage and tourism projects for about a decade.
UK-based Prince & Pearce says it will lead a team of experts in the fields of Graeco-Roman archaeology, natural history and biodiversity, tourism and infrastructure, cultural heritage management, business and operational planning, museology and interpretation as part of a project that will balance the conservation needs of the Butrint site with sustainable tourism to optimize public access and the economic potential of the region.
Albania’s culture ministry says the new management plan will offer guidance and policy, provide proposals on the possibility of economic development in the site and around it including travel and entertainment, propose a new management structure and increase the capacity of the park’s managing staff.
The new project will also produce a new business plan on the Butrint UNESCO World Heritage site and prepare updated GIS mapping on the whole Butrint territory of around 9,000 hectares.
“The drafting of this plan is a great responsibility for this new stage of cultural heritage development. At the same time this is also a moment to provide an answer to some questions, dilemmas or attacks concerning Butrint,” says Culture Minister Mirela Kumbaro, adding that preparatory work on the plan has been made in constant communication with UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural body.
According to her, the new Butrint integrated management plan will duly address all challenges facing Butrint, the first Albanian site to make it to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1992.
Last year, heritage activists protested the construction of a restaurant bar inside the park’s facilities as a threat to the park’s development, but the ministry argued there was nothing illegal and the project served tourists to the site.
Inhabited since prehistoric times, Butrint, a UNESCO site in southernmost Albania, has been the site of a Greek colony, a Roman city and a bishopric. Following a period of prosperity under Byzantine administration, then a brief occupation by the Venetians, the city was abandoned in the late middle Ages after marshes formed in the area. The present archaeological site is a repository of ruins representing each period in the city’s development, according to UNESCO.
Excavations have brought to light many objects – plates, vases, ceramic candlesticks – as well as sculptures including a remarkable ‘Goddess of Butrint’ which seems to completely embody, in the perfection of its features, the Greek ideal of physical beauty.
The Ksamil islands and the city of Saranda are just off the Butrint archaeological park, which has been under UNESCO protection since the early 1990s after the collapse of communist regime.
UNESCO has earlier warned that due to their geographical location or materials, structure and condition of the buildings, Albania’s three World Heritage sites of Berat, Gjirokastra and Butrint are exposed to various natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, fires and flooding.
Several factors that further increase the vulnerability of exposed populations and cultural heritage at these sites include limited awareness, public knowledge and training for disaster preparedness, inadequate infrastructure to address these hazards as well as the necessary resources to maintain them, unsafe buildings and exploitation of natural resources, says UNESCO.
