PANAMA PREMIT DOCUMENT FOR A GLOBAL FAMILY DECLARATORY

The Ministry of Culture will step up its efforts to have Panama's "Transitory Colonial Route" declared as World Heritage by 2024.

That was the primordial goal of a meeting held by MiCultura leaders led by Minister Carlos Aguilar Navarro with Ambassador Elia Del Carmen Guerra, who presides with Panama's permanent delegation to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), where strategies to achieve this were outlined.

The Transitory Colonial Route of Panama includes the sites of San Lorenzo and Portobelo, the Royal Way and the Way of Cruces, as well as the archaeological site of Old Panama and the historic district of Casco Antiguo of Panama, currently known as the "Strategic Triangle of Panama."

Dr. Katti OSorio, Senior Cultural Heritage Advisor, participates as a specialist in efforts to get Panama's world heritage "Caribbean Coast Fortifications of Panama: Portobelo and San Lorenzo" removed from the "List of World Heritage in Danger."

Dr. OSorio explained that in 2019 Panama brought the project to register with the Intergovernmental Committee on World Heritage of the 1972 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage with the World Heritage List.

The Committee differed its proposal to give the country a two-year period "to improve and improve the proposal" but because of the impact of the COVID19 pandemic on the economy as well as the prioritization of the use of State resources to safeguard the lives and health of the inhabitants, including the periods of quartering and also because of administrative complexities during the creation and training of the Ministry of Culture, among other reasons, work on improving the proposal is currently under way.

Panama remains firmly committed to the registration of Panama's Transitory Colonial Route as a Panamanian contribution to the prestigious World Heritage List, so that Panama's presentation will be to the cycle of assessment leading up to 2024.

It will be the 21 countries of the UNESCO's Intergovernmental Committee on World Heritage that will evaluate the registration of the Panamanian proposal.

For her part, Panamanian diplomat at UNESCO, Elia del Carmen Guerra held that the meeting with Minister Aguilar Navarro and his work team served to "coordinate work at UNESCO and support for the activities of the Ministry of Culture."

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The ambassador emphasized the co-ordination that exists between the embassy and MiCultura to achieve that goal that is very important for the country because the initiative aims to give "universal value" to these points as are Portobelo San Lorenzo and Old Panama.

The declaration also entails a commitment from the country to preserve and give proper maintenance to the locations included in the Transitory Colonial Route.

Linette Montenegro, national director of Cultural Heritage at MiCultura felt that "the work meeting with the ambassador was highly enriching," as the country's representative at the world body can help to facilitate the declaration processes as requested by Panama.

The Republic of Panama has five declared World Heritage sites of which two are of a cultural character, with these being The Caribbean Coast with its components Portobelo and San Lorenzo and the archaeological site of Panama and the Casco Antiguo and three of a natural character that are the International Park of Friendship (pILA) and the Darién and Coiba National Park.