Under the patronage of H.E. Director-General Mohamed Ould Amar, the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization held, on April 7, 2021, a training workshop on “The Conservation and Restoration of Underwater Cultural Heritage”.
The workshop was attended by Mr. François Langlois, Head of the Underwater Cultural Heritage Unit at UNESCO, along with experts from Italy, Tunisia, Croatia and Egypt, and heritage directors from the Arab countries.
In his welcoming statement, Dr. Mohamed Ould Amar stressed the importance of the theme of the workshop, and reaffirmed ALECSO’s continuous readiness to cooperate with relevant institutions and organizations to support Arab countries in the conservation and protection of underwater cultural heritage. He recalled, in this regard, the studies, trainings, workshop and conferences implemented by ALECSO’s Culture Department to help Arab researchers to engage in this promising field of research, and urged all relevant stakeholders to step up efforts so as to safeguard, valorize, and promote this type of heritage.
The workshop addressed various themes related to the methods, tools, and techniques for the conservation and restoration of underwater cultural heritage, especially that this field is still in its beginnings in a number of Arab countries. Some relevant experiences carried out in specialized international institutions were presented.
The workshop concluded with recommendations for increasing cooperation in the field of underwater cultural heritage, encouraging the holding of seminars and conferences with the participation of relevant officials and specialists, and urging the Arab countries that are not signatories to the “2001 Convention on the Underwater Cultural Heritage” to ratify this convention.
In her closing statement, Dr. Hayat Guermazi, Director of ALECSO’s Culture Department, expressed her appreciation of the participants’ significant interventions, and thanked all the participating experts and professors. She called for further intensifying Arab cooperation to promote underwater cultural heritage and for encouraging investment in this field. She promised to convey the voice of experts to decision-makers and to all relevant stakeholders for the benefit of Arab cultural heritage in general, and underwater heritage in particular.
