Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you Should Know. And this is a fairly rare edition where we do an episode that we decided to do within the last few episodes. We don't usually turn it around that fast. Usually it's like seven to eight years.
Yeah, this is a quick one. Then Julia turned this around for us, pretty Staddy. I just made that up, Sure, but I get it. I think everyone knows what you mean. But we're talking about UNESCO World Heritage Sites, UNESCO standing for which I never knew. I'm glad I know this now. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization whom in nineteen seventy two drafted this treaty to preserve of world heritage as a whole, you know, whether it's as we'll see,
like a place or a thing. And they even expanded later into like, you know, cultural processes and customs and traditions.
Yeah, and that's where this idea came from. We were doing our episode on contortionism, and we found that Mongolia was turned down for getting world heritage protection for their contortionist history didn't make They were like, what the age? So we started looking into this and it is pretty interesting.
One of the things that apparently is a fairly common misunderstanding is that if you have like a heritage site, like something is identified and labeled a World Heritage site, that that is no longer sovereign territory in your country
could not be wronger, that still belongs to you. But what's happened is that the world, essentially everybody who's a member of UNESCO, has agreed to say, like, we want to preserve this in your country, it's yours, but it really we're all agreeing that this belongs to humanity because it's so important to human culture, so unique that we
need to preserve it. And it takes more than just one country to preserve things like this, So we're all going to get together and take shared responsibility for this important part of human culture.
Yeah, and also a little bit of protection, Like you know, you've got something valuable on yourself there. We're all watching you right as you as you juggle your way through the room.
In mint condition.
That's right. There's one quote here that I think kind of nails. It is. It's it's things that have outstanding universal value. So it's the universality of it all, as far as you know, needing to cherish and care for these things. And I think it's kind of a kind of a cool deal. I mean, some people might criticize it as a big sort of political thing to get tourist dollars headed your way, but I think it's actually pretty great.
Oh I do too. I think it's good too. I think it's both. Though I think the ideal of it is awesome. I think that in practice lately it's.
It's yeah, great in trouble.
The thing is the idea that is outstanding universal value. I get that again as an ideal, but in practice that is not always the case. And I draw your attention to the US Dunkerque, which is horseback shrimp fishing in Belgium. And if that sounds obscure to you, you're right, because only twelve families practiced this. Still, that is a protected and tangible heritage that is not of universal value, although it is super interesting and I'm glad it's protected
because why not. But I just thought that that was There's a lot of different things that contradict the idea that it's of universal value.
Yeah, for sure. This all got started post World War Two, after the world got together and decided to wreck everything again for the second time in about thirty years, and everyone kind of looked up and we're like, geez, you know, we lost a lot of museums and churches and monuments and entire cities sometimes or huge portions of cities are just gone, and maybe we need as a world nation to get together and sort of start caring for these
things a little bit more so. The UN kind of led the brigade on this, and UNESCO was formed in nineteen forty five. I think I said that nineteen seventy two was when the World Heritage Treaty or whatever came about. UNESCO was around, you know, quite a while before this came around. So starting in nineteen forty five is when UNESCO was formed and they basically started a campaign to
start protecting these places from a few things. It's not always just like war, that is definitely one of them, but also human development and natural disaster.
Right for sure. First thing, I think they were really kind of focused on learning from like archaeology was a big thing. They were into for a while, but it really started to take the shape that we understand it today in nineteen fifty nine, when Egypt went to UNESCO and said, hey, man, like, we want to build this dam. It's really important though we have a reservoir of water. But when we build the dam, there's a lot of like really old like Egyptian Furonic Arab dynastic monuments that
are going to be underwater. So can you help us figure this out? And UNESCO said, this is it. We've been waiting for this for fourteen years.
Yeah. They said, we need to raise some money, so they got about eighty million dollars together and said, all right, let's move these two temples, specifically to higher ground. So they moved they disassembled these temples, moved them about six hundred and fifty feet, which it was higher and out of harm's way, and that sort of, like you said, that just sort of started this idea of like, wait a minute, we can get together and make great things
happen and protect great places. And that kind of continued through the sixties until nineteen seventy two. On November sixteenth, at their seventeenth General Conference, when they adopted the Convention concerning the protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, which culminated the center of all that is basically this World Heritage List.
Yeah, and there was one other aspect of that nineteen fifty nine Asuan Damn Initiative. I guess dozens of countries like donated to make this happen, Like this was eighty million dollars in nineteen fifty nine dollars. This is a significant amount of money. Egypt was really the only country that was going to benefit from this, but countries are while in the world, said no, we want to help take responsibility for this because we think that these are
that important. They transcend just Egyptian importance.
Yeah, for sure. And that leads to the second part of that. What happened in nineteen seven to there was the Heritage List and the Heritage Fund and that fund. You know, without money, none of this really matters that much. You know, it takes a lot of dough sometimes to do things like this.
Yeah, for sure, because like you said, a lot of it's threatened in One of the big things is preservation, protection and restoration. So that World Heritage Convention from seventy two, it created the World Heritage List, and now here, finally we have reached like the actual modern incarnation of what UNESCO's largely involved in, or at least known for.
That's right. As far as the nuts and bolts of it all goes. There is the World Heritage Committee, which is twenty one member countries at this point that are elected for six year terms, and they're the ones that are sort of in charge of overseeing all this. The United States has been a member country before and not been a member country depending on which politician is in the White House. You can probably figure that one out.
Well, no, nuts is probably there's some surprising dates in there if you ask me.
Yeah, but we're not in there now. I think when did we drop off? Twenty eleven, yeah, but we were back on then back off again in like twenty one, right, twenty eighteen, twenty eighteen, Okay, I can't get my years straight.
That's because of COVID.
So you know, if you are they call it hosting. But if you have a World Heritage site in your country, you have to You can't just say give us all the money and don't worry about it after that. You have to provide annual reports. You have to, you know, deliver reports on like how the property is, the state of the property, any concerns like moving forward, basically kind
of how things are going. And if you're a member country, you get the whopping sum of four million dollars a year from the World Heritage Fund, and that is I mean, some of that is preservation, but I get the feeling a lot of that is like just sort of functioning and identifying places and promoting your own world heritage.
Yeah, probably paying for Docince is a chunk of that.
Too, Yeah, probably so.
But also if something happens acute disaster from human or natural causes, you'll get some emergency assistance. And then this is another big one that I think probably really comes in handy. There are experts who work at UNESCO who can train your staff, right. You don't have to figure out you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time and be like, this is an archaeological site. Let's figure out how to train you the staff to preserve it
and explain it and all that stuff. You can send them off to I guess New York and have them trained up to do those things.
Yeah, for sure. And tourism it's a big deal if you get one of your if you are a country, when you have a site, did you get put on this list? It's a big deal because people I think that don't know a ton about this kind of look at it as like a seven Wonders of the World list in some ways, and like here's a place like we got a visit before we die.
Yeah, there's hundreds of wonders of the world as far as the World Heritage List is concerned.
Yeah.
So originally, Chuck, there were just like physical places and features that were on the World Heritage List called sites, and they were divided essentially into two categories, cultural or natural. And you can kind of generally guess what the criteria was for each.
Yeah, Like if it's a natural Heritage site, that means there's just universal value, maybe scientifically or maybe even just esthetically. You know, we're talking about the Great Barrier Reef of Australia or Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, stuff like that, and it's you know, it's about protecting these natural wonders of the world generally.
Yeah, And I mean we just take for granted that the Serengeti National Park is like amazing, but the reason why specifically. It was chosen because it's one of the best examples of large predator prey interactions. Like you just do not see lions chasing down antelope in Kansas. You don't see it unless the zoo's gone crazy. And that's one reason why it's protected. It's basically the main reason why it's protected. But then there's also an intersecting thing
too that it's also gorgeous. So this fulfills a couple of things. It's biologically important to science, but it's also esthetically amazing too.
Yeah, for sure. And this goes you know, every single one of these things. And we're not just going to go through and list a ton of different places. But if you're talking about the Yellowstone National Park, or the Galapagos Islands or like I mentioned, the Great Barrier Reef, these all seem like pretty obvious inclusions.
For sure, and they were probably included pretty early on in the list's existence.
Oh geez.
So that's the natural site. There's also the cultural site, and these are essentially, you know, human made environments or structures or places of human occupation where humans did something impressive important, or it was just part of a larger culture. For example, there's a crossroads and I think, oh, I don't remember where it was, but it was just a crossroads back on the in the like the third century CE,
and it was just really important at the time. It doesn't seem all that important now, but it was, and you want to preserve it because the future generations can learn from it and experience it and appreciate it.
Yeah, for sure. And you know, it can also be a building or a sculpture, like the Statue of Liberty is on there under cultural heritage under that, but so is like Venice, Italy. So it can be a whole city that's sort of an ancient modern well not maybe not ancient, but a modern wonder.
You know, right, and then it can be ancient two.
And then also like how the esthetics and scientific importance intersect in the Serengeti National Park, that can happen, and cultural sites too, like it can be where archaeology and intersects with you know, humans like making shaping the natural environment, like the Kohoki amounts are on the list yea to where like all these different boxes can be checked and those are they call the the money sites where there's just a bunch of different criteria going on.
Yeah, and when I said not ancient Venice specifically.
I see, I see have you been to Venice.
I've never been there. It's on a big time on the list. But I also just realized, I don't know when all that was engineered.
I wanted to say, like the sixteenth century, but it could be like agent that's ancient is now.
No, I don't even know what ancient means now I think about.
It, but it's you're gonna love it. You will love Venice. And when you do, go there, go to Harry's Bar. It's where the Bellini was invented. Okay, they save Hemingway's seat at the bar, it's preserved. But their martinis are really, really good. They're outrageously expensive just because they know that you'll pay it because you're a tourist. But it's still worth getting.
Well, maybe I can grow the beer back out and put some weight back on and convince everyone on the ghost of Hemingway and take that seat.
Finally, well, bring a multi extra toad cat with you or are they cross eyed? What is it about those cats too to?
I don't know. Are they polydactyl.
I think so there's some unique feature that the Hemingway cats on Key West. I'll share. Yeah, okay, I want to say it's an extra toe. I'm not sure.
Well, moving on, we'll figure that out. There are total a total of twelve hundred and forty eight World Heritage sites right now. The vast amount of those are cultural. I think seventy eight percent, nineteen percent are natural, and three percent are mixed. And Europe in North America have
almost half of them. They have forty six percent, compared to Latin in the Caribbean, Latin American Caribbean at twelve percent, Asia and the Pacific twenty five percent, the Arab States eight percent, an African nine percent, although we should say Africa holds twenty percent of all the natural sites, which is pretty impressive and not surprising.
That is cool. I say we take a break. But first I also wanted to point out that not all of these are you know, just like up with humanity like. They also preserve some pretty dark stuff too. One good example is the Navy School of Mechanics in Argentina, which has turned into a Site of Memory, a museum where they basically preserved the fact that this was a place where people were abducted, tortured, and murdered by dictatorships in
Latin America in the nineteen seventies and eighties. And this is a World Heritage site because it's important to remember. People will do this, like people will vote people like this into office and keep them there, and those people can turn on their own people, and you can be abducted and disappeared and murdered by the state that happens. That to me is like one of the big driving I guess it drives home the point of the World
Heritage lists more than some of these others. Right to remember, right, but you don't have to just remember the dark stuff. You can remember all the stuff, but you can't ignore the dark stuff, I guess, is what I mean.
Well said, just like Lord Vader himself.
What do you say, like, come on over, baby, the dark side's feeling great?
I think so that was the line. Should we take that break?
Yeah, I think we should.
All right, We'll be right back, everybody, all right. So we mentioned early we're back by the way, that UNESCO would eventually adopt stuff like oral traditions and performing arts and social rituals and practices and things like that. That happened in two thousand and three specifically, and you know,
this was a very valuable ad. I think, like a skill set or a knowledge, or just some irreplaceable custom or traditional craft or skill or something that you know, could be in danger of being lost, you know, if not for stuff like this.
Yeah, and again it can be twelve families shrimp fishing on horseback in Belgium.
I want to see that. What does that look like?
It looks like somebody with a horse and a shrimp net on a beach. I saw a picture of it.
I mean I kind of figured that, but you know, I bet the shrimp are good.
But I think this is it's worth preserving too, because this is important to like these people. It's not saying like was this this is what America thinks is cool or this is what you know Zimbabwe thinks is cool? Like this is this is important to this culture. There's a culture on planet Earth and this is important to them and we should preserve it just for that very reason.
Plus also, really, what is supporting horseback shrimp fishing among twelve families in Belgium really costing the world to support? You know?
Agreed? One part about being included on this part of the list is that And I think this is kind of cool is it can be inherited from the past, but it also is applied to a contemporary setting, and so that means, you know, it can't be the lost art of whatever if it's like truly really no one is even doing this at all anymore. Like you can be dlisted and we're gonna talk about that in a minute. Not d listed is in d dash, but d E dash.
Oh you've seen you know that site?
Well, no, wasn't that a TV show?
Oh? I don't know. There's a really mean like burn blog or there used to be called you Listed. That was hilarious but also really cruel.
No, I was never on that. But if you are included, that means this practice or this ritual or custom is passed through generations and communities and very community based overall. Like it's recognized, it's recognized within that community and outside that community as something of value, kind of like the trimp people.
Trimp people just because it's interesting, you know, Yeah, let's talk about we dug up some other ones. You want to just kind of throw a few of these out. I found basically all these interesting movies should probably just pick some.
Yeah, I'll go with the bagpipes. Bulgarian bagpipe making and bag pipe playing. Apparently it's a very big thing in Bulgaria, passed down through the families for generations, and it used to be like a father to something. Now they will teach all genders, which is kind of great, and you know, it's in social clubs, they teach it in schools and they're like, we need to protect this, and it is on that list.
It's also there's some very famous ones too that it's not just as obscure as horseback shrimp fishing. Artisanal baguette making in France is protected, Coffee's protected sauna culture and Finland's protected. Gingerbread crafting in Croatia, and then it does get a little more niche loincloth weaving and cote de voir human power creation. They're called castles in Spain to
where people just stack up on other people. And then there's also an annual grass mowing competition in Bosnia Hertzgevina, and it is using a scythe they're not just like riding John Deere tractors or anything like that, and it's exactly what it sounds like it's a grass mowing competition that's protected. Also, so is yodeling in Switzerland.
Yeah, great list, thank you, So check.
I don't know if you said there's a danger list. Did you mention that. I don't think we have yet. No.
I talked about being delisted. But before you're delisted, you can be in danger.
Yeah, and you can be in danger from we did kind of talk about you can be in danger from armed conflict, war, from climate change, from all like just a complete change of the surrounding area can can get you delisted. In danger is where this is the step before delisting, and essentially UNESCO steps in and says, hey, we need to do something about this because the site is deteriorating, or we need to figure out how to lift the Statue of Liberty one hundred feet so that
sea level rise doesn't you know, wash it away. And there's two kinds. There's ascertained danger, which is like this is going to happen, and then there's potential danger, like say stuff coming from climate change, or if it's you know, a civil conflict is starting to heat up and it looks like a civil war is going to break out and there's a heritage site right in the crossfire.
Yeah for sure. And you know, one good example of something they might do is they are these national parks and I guess they're all national parks in the Democratic Republic of Congo. That was, they were all made the Danger List between ninety four and ninety seven, so they you know, kind of put up the warning flag and
UNESCO came in with their fat Bank account. There were some NGOs involved that wanted to get involved and donate some money, and they had a four year rehabilitation campaign for these parks and then a second campaign, and this kind of goes to show how the international community comes together. These are all in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But in two thousand and four the second campaign got funded from Belgium and Japan. They're like, let's take care of these places.
Yeah. There's another site, the Remains of Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan is what it's called. It went from not on any World Heritage list immediately to the danger list. The Taliban back in two thousand and one blew up these two I think ten and fifteen story tall cliff carved I guess statues are reliefs of Buddha from the sixth century.
They were beautiful, and the Taliban blew them up by shooting them with shoulder launched rocket launchers that were probably provided by the CIA back in the eighties when they were fighting the Russians. And this was an enormous thing. Like people were like, what are you doing? What is
the problem here? Is this part of this kind of ethnic cleansing campaign against the Hazara people who live in the area, And so they're like, I guess UNESCO was like, all right, we can't let anything like that happened again. Let's get in here and try to preserve this valley. And it was put on the danger list and they started a campaign in two thousand and nine to just basically go in there and figure out how to move forward and keep this valley from getting worse off than it was.
Yeah, I think there is a big deal. So part of their you know, UNESCO getting involved theres is identifying and getting rid of those land mines first and foremost.
Yep, let's see.
Everglades National Park, Florida's treasure that's on there. Yeah, very sadly on the danger list.
Yeah, there's also like civil conflicts really target stuff or in danger sites like the historic center of Odessa and Ukraine is on the list. Ancient Aleppo in Syria is on the list. It can Yeah, that's a big It seems like armed conflict and climate change are the two biggest threats to world here sites.
Yeah, I think so. You know, we did talk about being delisted, and thankfully that's only happened a few times, because if you're deleted from the list, that means like that means you're probably done as a thing, and that like there's no point in protecting you anymore because it doesn't exist. And one one good example of that is the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City. It was delisted in twenty
twenty one. This was the historic docklands of Liverpool, very big, you know, port town obviously in England, and they built a stadium there. Everton Stadium was built and it was it basically kind of wiped all that out. So they were like, well, there's no reason for this being on the list anymore.
Yeah. The Tower of London is not on the Danger list, but it's on the pre danger list for the same reason. The development that's going on in the area threatens to basically take away its natural or historic I mean, identity. Even just being built around They're not talking about knocking down the Tower of London, but just building around it can change the built environment enough that UNESCO's like it's done.
Yeah. Sometimes it's very sad. In this case in Oman, the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary was delisted in two thousand and seven that had a popular of Arabian Orx antelope and that you know, that was decimated so much, that population such that I believe it fell down to like sixty
five of them in two thousand and seven. And I guess that was and this was because of poaching, obviously in habitat destruction, which makes it super sad, but I guess that was low enough to where they were like, all right, you know, no more protection from US, I know.
And that's sad because it seems like that's when they should swoop in and be like, we're we're going to occupy this area, Oman, we are, this is no longer sovereign Oman.
Yeah, I mean, I think there are other organizations that do and protect species like that, so hopefully they weren't just sort of left out in the wind.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that they were on the danger list first and then they just did yeah, follow through. But that's that we should say. It's not a It's pretty dishonorable for a country to let one of its sites end up on the danger list, even worse to have it delisted. So countries tend to work hard to get off of the danger list, and that does actually happen. That happened in twenty twenty five to three different spots, the rainforest of Atsananana in madayascar Abu Mena in Egypt,
think that was the crossroads. And then in the old town of Gadamis in Libya that was the crossroads. It was the crossroads between Africa and the Mediterranean years ago. But those were all for different, various reasons on the danger list, and those countries worked very hard and aggressively to address all of those issues and get them back off of the danger list. So it is possible to get off the danger list and certainly not be delisted.
And usually countries who take this stuff seriously will work hard to do that.
Yeah, you don't want to be on the naughty list. Exactly earlier, when you said cross roads, I thought genuinely thought you were gonna say the Mississippi Crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil.
Do they have that one crossroad identified?
I don't know.
It sure seems like it should be a World Heritage site.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure if they actually had the actual crossroads, or if it's more of a not apocryphal but or maybe it is apocryphal. It could be both, yeah, or ephemeral, could be all three.
Have we taken our second break? I don't think we have have.
No, let's take it. It's perfect timing. Look at us thirty minutes in.
Okay, we'll be right back, So, Chuck, politics plays a huge part in UNESCO and the World Heritage List. You would probably not be surprised to think because this is a bunch of different nations coming together and they don't always play super well together, or when they do play
super well together, it's often like gaming the system. And that seems to be what is going on today with UNESCO and the World Heritage Convention, that it's basically been creeping slowly toward a way for countries to make more money through their tourism industry. Get some sites on the World Heritage list, you can go promote it worldwide and bring more people to your country where they're going to spend a bunch of drachmas.
Yeah, for sure. There is a professor of anthropology at Stanford name Lynn Meskel who basically said it's entirely about political and economic gain at this point, just a tool in a much larger arsenal of non sorry of nation state politics. And you know, the politics of it all can't be ignored these days. It's you know, there's an interesting thing that happens, you know, in terms of like repatriation.
You know, we've talked at some point here and there about like, you know, when there's plundering from wars and things like that, and all of a sudden the countries own things, or at least have possession of them in place of them in museums they weren't there to begin with,
like giving this stuff back. There's a big movement for that, but there's also this sort of idea on the other side of like, well, we will take care of that stuff because it is in London or New York City and we're not going to give it back to you. And that same sort of mentality has been sort of the same thing has sort of applied to World herited sites.
I think a little bit where indigenous peoples are kind of moved out of the conversation because the attitude is like, well, you just don't know what's best for your stuff, right.
It's kind of like, if you're a bunch of Westerners coming along as tourists to tour this world heritage site that's of immense cultural value to this local group, if current people from the local group show up, they kind of push them out of their way by their face and they're like, out of the way, you're ruining the diorama. This took place a thousand years ago. We don't care what's going on with you today, even though you're directly related to this. I think is that mentality.
Right, Yeah, that's a good way to say it.
I think sadly, there's also like a whole I talked about gaming the system. One of the ways that you can game the system is essentially withdraw, like the United States has done twice now in the eighties and in twenty eighteen. You can withdraw from UNESCO and this convention.
You can still nominate sites, including sites in your own country, right, Yeah, so you're getting the best of both worlds where you can get those tourism dollars for getting new World Heritage sites, and you're also not paying dues or you're not spending any of your own money to support other sites. But if you need help with your sites because of World Heritage site, you can get other countries' money who are doing the right thing and paying their dues.
Yeah, for sure, not a cool thing to do, if you ask me. The other thing that they've seen, I think kind of starting in like the nineteen nineties, it seems like, is when countries are getting together and voting together, like forming packs and voting blocks to either get listed or to block maybe a site from getting on the Danger list, because we said that's kind of like being on the Naughty List.
Yeah, exactly. So, like Latin American countries will frequently band together and vote in one another's best interests. Or also I think even countries that aren't members anymore, say the US can basically be like, hey, vote for us for this thing, and you know, we'll make sure that we up are oil imports from your country by ten percent or so.
Oh interesting, you know.
So I think the more the more juice you have, the more you can get stuff done even if you're not a member anymore.
Yeah, for sure. And you know, like you said, this is big money. Like if you're included on this list, they will you'll be a part of their advertising campaign and then you can also create your own around that, you know, touting inclusion.
You know, Yeah, I can tell you that I want to go see them in no impalatial centers in Greece. Six Bronze Age sites that were part of the late Bronze Age collapse. They're about to be or they were just in twenty twenty five put on. So that's the tourism's working already.
So you might not have known about that had it not been included.
Probably, yes, I did not know those sites existed.
Yeah, I'm sure they have a robust website with lots of pretty pictures.
So yeah, and that's basically like being there in person, right, but it's free.
Yeah, exactly. Speaking of the danger list, there are a few sites that you know, you can be removed from the danger list. That's the that's the goal, I guess before being delisted, and that happened last year. The Rainforest and Madagascar are those the ones that you're talking about. Yeah, they're not on the danger list. And then that town in Libya was that where the.
Crossroads was, That's the crossroads.
So they, I guess, what do you do? Just raise enough hay or prove that you're actually protecting it in such a way.
Well, I'll give you the example of the crossroads. The old town of Gamities, I believe is what it is. Acadamiescatamies, thank you. Their irrigation techniques were raising the water table and some of the very ancient buildings were in danger of crumbling from the water exposure. So Libya went in and basically came up with different irrigation techniques that they taught to the locals lower the water table. And now the site is no longer in jeopardy and it's off of the danger list.
All right.
It's essentially just a question of the host country having the will to spend a few bucks to remedy the situation. That's all it is.
I wonder if one member country has enough places like that make that danger list, if there's any sort of maybe not even official penalty, but like hey, hey listen, guys, you need to You got three on the danger list. Now you need to get it together.
It's a really bad look.
It is a bad look.
Kind of talking about the politics of this too. There was a really startling turn of events in twenty twenty where Rejet Erdowan, the President of Turkey nilatterally said, Hey, the Hagia Sophia, this part this part of world heritage. It was a cathedral and then a mosque and now it's a museum. We're turning it back into a mosque. And UNESCO's like, we didn't talk about this, and Iwan said, it doesn't matter, we're doing that. And this is like, I mean, this thing was built in the five thirties.
It's one of the more amazing buildings in the world. And in the nineteen thirties the court in Turkey said, this is a museum. This is no longer a mosque. Turkey is secular and that's all there is to it. So it's a museum until Airdwank came along in twenty twenty and changed it back.
Yeah, and you know, unilaterally decided this on his own, and UNESCO was like, hey, not only did you shouldn't have done this, but you didn't tell us you were doing this, and you're using this as like, this is a World Heritage site. Now you can't use it for your own political gain. You can't try and curry favor with the Turkish Islamic Turkish conservatives. And he was like, well, you know, what do you say. It's not a museum
anymore and we're not charging entry fees anymore. Yep. Was that as like comeback?
I guess it was a comeback of sorts or a defense or something. He's like, where you don't have to pay to get in anymore.
Yeah, it's pretty weak.
But that was twenty twenty and absolutely nothing happened. That's the other problem. This is a problem with almost everything that has to do with the UN. It's like, what are you going to do? Really? Yeah, Like, I'm fine, I don't care about peer pressure, you know, the international community being mad at me. That's all it takes, and there's nothing that can be done about it.
Yeah, for sure. Let me see what else is on the danger list. You mentioned the Statue of Liberty right as far as some of the big dogs m see, Yeah, great barrier reef that's been threatened for a long time, as our reefs all over the world.
Bury very sad ocean bleaching. Also, the Sydney Opera House is coming close to the danger list because of the arise as well.
Oh man, it's right there on the water. You got to protect that thing, I know.
Man, I say we go out. I just want to throw out a couple more of these amazing and tangible ones that are protected. Okay, great midwifery from Germany to Togo. Sometimes this can cross cultures.
Yea, it should have been from like Albania Desaire. That's how you got to do.
Those great I called tiki horse breeding in tur Kamenistan.
Yeah, I like that one.
Here's a good one, savice preparation in Peru.
I'm all about that.
I am too. You'll also like this one, the Da de los Moritos in Mexico, the Day of the Dead.
Yeah for sure. Hey. You know what, here's a tip for especially for you and me and Emily. If you go, if you love that Savica, you just got to make sure you got to say no pulpo. Oh really yeah, I think we You don't need octopus?
Right? Oh? Is that what that is?
No?
I definitely do not there too. Intelligence. Yeah it's cool.
Yeah, we learned that in Mexico. City that pulpo is the words. We're like, oh, okay, so that's what we need to avoid.
So you say, hold the pulpo, yeah, or just get the one without it, okay.
Like I would never go to another country and say, can you not put this thing in there that you traditionally eat, Like you can find a savica that's probably just a fish or tramp or scalop or whatever.
Oh really, I feel like I take the burger king approach to tourism, where I was like, I'll have it my way. You got anything else, I got nothing else.
This was a fun one. I know there's something I knew nothing about, and now I feel like I know enough, which is our charge as a show to like talk a little bit about it intelligently around to dinner table.
And to attend UNESCO World Heritage meetings and speak up.
Yeah, where do they have those New York?
Yeah, let's go. All right, I'm sure anybody can just walk in. If you want to know more about UNESCO World Heritage, go check out some sites. You can tour the world from your computer again for free. And in the meantime, I think it's time for listener mail.
Yeah, this is from Stephen Cook from Halifax, Nova Scotia, who visited the Kowloon Walled City.
Oh cool, or.
At least the park. Hey guys visited that Kowloon Wall City Park this past December on our first trip to Hong Kong, and it's a delightful spot with sports facilities for nearby residents, some remnants of the original building foundations as a reminder of its bass, and the one original building that is now a museum. That's the one we
talked about. Yeah. Plus, there's a special exhibit that recreates a streetscape in the community using sets from the twenty twenty four film Twilight of the Warriors colon Walled in which stars Hong Kong action legend sam O Hung as a local crime boss named mister Big. I guess when you're this big they call you mister. The set recreates a whole block with a barbershop can means store, a shoe repair stand, and a fish ball making factory with
period props into corps. A visit is highly recommended, and Stephen included a few photos which are great.
Can't wait to see this because I looked all over for the exhibit and I couldn't find any photos that I saw mention of it at some point.
Yeah, search search that email, buddy and it'll come up.
Thanks Steven. That's a great one. Yeah, if you have been to Kowloon, Walt City, let us know. We want to hear from all of you, and if you have anything to say, really even hi, right Chuck.
Hi and Hello is a great thing to hear always.
Yes, you can send it via email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
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