Acknowledgement and Positionality Statement
I acknowledge and pay my respects to Te Āti Awa and to Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika, the tangata whenua and mana whenua of the lands on which I work and live. I am here as a guest and ally, and any contribution I make is shaped by their generosity. I further acknowledge and thank the Sydney Indigenous Research Hub on Gadigal Country at the University of Sydney for providing a culturally and intellectually safe space that fosters Indigenous public scholarship and truth-telling.
To situate my work on Indigenous justice and heritage governance, I write as a proud Boarisch-Schwob (Bavarian-Swabian). The Bavarian and Swabian Peoples are the two Altstämme (Original Nations or ancient tribes/stems) and Stammesherzogtümer (tribal/stem duchies) of my region, now part of southern Germany.Footnote 1 Our ancestors have lived on our homelands as distinct peoples for thousands of years, long before the emergence of the modern German state. As the Bavarian State Government notes, Bavaria is among Europe’s oldest surviving expressions of continuous peoplehood, with a recorded state-centered political history spanning over 1,500 years.Footnote 2
The Kingdom of Bavaria abolished its monarchy in 1918 and, after the Second World War, became part of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, despite voting against adopting Germany’s Basic Law (Constitution).Footnote 3
Our languages, Boarisch (Bavarian) and Schwäbisch (Swabian), date back to at least the 8th century, with over 1,300 years of recorded written history, yet remain unrecognized by Germany. Generations of structural linguistic genocide (linguicide) and enduring linguistic assimilation have led the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to classify our linguistic heritage as endangered, underscoring the urgency of sustaining ancestral knowledge systems.Footnote 4 If we lose our Indigenous languages, we lose part of ourselves. Language is the homeland: It is central to our peoplehood and shapes our Weltanschauung – our worldview and way of being. As we say in Boarisch-Schwob , “ Miar blaibet miar ” and “ Bayern-Schwoabm, des semma miar ” – “We remain who we are” and “Bavaria-Swabia is who we are” – expressions that affirm cultural survival and deep-rooted belonging.Footnote 5
The Boarisch-Schwob Peoples are recognized in leading scholarship as Original Nations, stateless nations, and Fourth World Indigenous nations.Footnote 6 Reflecting the diversity of Indigenous Peoples globally, Jeff Corntassel (Cherokee Nation) and Tomas Hopkins Primeau explain:
The term [I]ndigenous is used to describe more than 5,000 groups in the international system … In the past, these [I]ndigenous populations have received many different designations: [A]borigines, Indians, [N]atives … [F]irst [P]eople, and the “Fourth World”.Footnote 7
Within this context, I understand my Indigeneity through a Fourth World perspective.Footnote 8 Political geographer Richard Griggs, one of the foremost authorities in this field, defines Fourth World Indigenous nations as culturally distinct, politically and internationally unrecognized nations that exist within the borders of modern states, while maintaining historical claims to self-determination and the continuity of self-governance over their ancestral homelands.Footnote 9
As Griggs explains:
[P]rejudices and misconceptions regarding the terms “[A]boriginal” and “[I]ndigenous” abound including an exclusive association with New World “Indians.” In this manner, many [I]ndigenous nations (descendants of the original inhabitants of a “conquered” territory) in Europe … such as … Bavaria … and hundreds more are forgotten or discarded. This is particularly unfortunate in the case of Europe because so much can be learned from examining the experience of Fourth World nations at the core of the European-derived system of states. Thus, defining the “Fourth World” as internationally unrecognised nations is based on the desire to be more inclusive and to avoid terms that have more exclusive associations.Footnote 10
Recent scholarship has further underscored this position.Footnote 11 The Boarisch-Schwob Peoples illustrate how Original Nations within a European democracy – with ancestral sovereignty, cultural continuity, and ethnocultural distinctiveness that long predate the modern state system – remain largely unrecognized within contemporary structures. This reality is mirrored in foundational United Nations studies, most notably by Special Rapporteurs Martínez Cobo and Erica-Irene Daes, which emphasize historical continuity, cultural distinctiveness, Indigenous language, and self-identification as the central pillars of Indigeneity in international law.Footnote 12
These reflections hold great personal significance. I carry this heritage not as a romanticized past but as a living responsibility that informs my research, advocacy, and relational accountability. I offer this statement to foster a respectful space for recognizing the many forms of ethnocultural distinctiveness, cultural survival, historical continuity, dispossession, assimilation, and erasure that frame this commentary.
My positionality informs how I perceive and critique the structural marginalization of Indigenous Peoples within heritage frameworks, and it underpins the analytical lens applied throughout this commentary.Footnote 13
Indeed, this publication is offered as an act of Boarisch-Schwob resurgence, of truth-telling, and of intellectual sovereignty.
Introduction: Decolonizing World Heritage in practice
In January 2025, I participated in the international symposium “Further Evolution of Authenticity Through the Lens of Heritage Ecosystems: Heritage, Communities, and Sustainable Development”, held in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. The World Heritage symposium was convened by Japan’s National Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS Japan) – a statutory advisory body to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee on matters relating to cultural heritage – in collaboration with Gunma Prefecture and with funding support from Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs.Footnote 14 The significance of the event was underscored by the presence of senior national and local government representatives, who delivered opening remarks.Footnote 15 The international gathering led to the drafting and adoption of a new normative World Heritage framework: the Gunma Declaration on Heritage Ecosystems.Footnote 16
The ICOMOS symposium coincided with the 30th anniversary of the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity.Footnote 17 The Nara Document broadened the scope of heritage “authenticity” (cultural heritage values and characteristics) – a cultural criterion for inscription on the World Heritage List under the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention (Operational Guidelines) – by recognizing that cultural heritage must be understood within its own specific context.Footnote 18 It introduced the understanding that values, expressions, and meanings attributed to cultural heritage may differ across societies and should be respected as such.Footnote 19 The symposium aimed to revisit and build on this understanding by reimagining how relationships between heritage, communities, and management approaches might be better recognized within the World Heritage system. The ICOMOS event proposed doing so through an under-recognized lens: the “heritage ecosystem” approach.
The Gunma Declaration represents a notable shift in global heritage discourse. For the first time since the adoption of the 1972 World Heritage Convention, Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and natural heritage are expressly recognized under the World Heritage system’s authenticity criterion.Footnote 20 This recognition is both long overdue and potentially transformative. Nonetheless, the Gunma Declaration also raises pressing questions about implementation, representation, and accountability, particularly given the World Heritage system’s persistent exclusion of Indigenous Peoples from meaningful participation in heritage decision making.
With reference to the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity, the ICOMOS symposium – and the resulting Gunma Declaration – “drew on three decades of critical thinking regarding issues of Authenticity, Outstanding Universal Value (OUV), and the integration of tangible and intangible heritage.”Footnote 21 Applying a similar retrospective lens – but one long articulated by Indigenous Peoples themselves – this commentary engages extensively with the landmark 1993 United Nations study on the discrimination against, and the protection of, the cultural and intellectual heritage of Indigenous Peoples – undertaken by Erica-Irene Daes, former chairperson of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations and Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.Footnote 22 In line with the aims of this special issue on “Decolonizing Cultural Property: Indigenous Perspectives and Challenges,” this commentary highlights the persistent failure to meaningfully recognize Indigenous heritage over the past decades and examines the opportunities and limitations the Gunma Declaration presents in this regard.
This analytical commentary adopts a reflexive, practice-based methodology grounded in my participation in the ICOMOS symposium. The analysis is based on in situ, insider observation and interpretive engagement with developing draft texts, along with reflective practice informed by contemporaneous notes and discussions. This approach is well established within decolonial research, Indigenous methodologies, and critical heritage studies, which center positionality, relational accountability, and attentiveness to how institutional processes reproduce or resist structural inequalities.Footnote 23 This practice-based approach also aligns with ethnographic methods that explore institutional behavior, discourse, and decision making from within the system. My participation in the ICOMOS event offers insights into the Gunma Declaration’s discursive, procedural, and power dynamics – aspects often hidden in official records. As such, this reflexive analysis provides an essential perspective on how heritage norms are negotiated in practice and how the declaration’s strengths and weaknesses emerged.
My contributions to the Gunma Declaration were grounded in a substantial body of Indigenous and critical scholarship.Footnote 24 These works – along with longstanding calls for the World Heritage system to comply with UNDRIP – informed both my written submissions and oral interventions throughout the symposium process.
It is important to clarify that while I am a member of both ICOMOS and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), I did not attend the event as an official representative of any organization or Indigenous nation.Footnote 25 Rather, I participated as an engaged Boarisch-Schwob scholar and advocate whose work is grounded in Indigenous justice, decolonial research, and human rights-based frameworks.Footnote 26 I hope that the developments reflected in the Gunma Declaration – imperfect though they may be – mark a meaningful step toward addressing the longstanding Indigenous Peoples’ rights violations within the World Heritage system and contribute to broader efforts to decolonize heritage governance frameworks.
While I use the term “Indigenous Peoples” – a category shaped by English language and contemporary legal frameworks – I acknowledge that many Original Nations and autochthonous peoples remain unrecognized under such frameworks. I use the term with this diversity in mind, and with an awareness of the plurality of Indigenous identities, histories, and relationships to heritage and self-determination.
Despite this diversity, the unifying thread for many Indigenous Peoples is a shared struggle for survival against ongoing colonial pressures. As scholars Taiaiake Alfred (Kanien’kehá:ka, Kahnawà:ke) and Jeff Corntassel (Cherokee Nation) remind us:
There are, of course, vast differences among the world’s Indigenous [P]eoples in their cultures, political-economic situations, and in their relationships with colonising Settler societies. But the struggle to survive as distinct peoples on foundations constituted in their unique heritages, attachments to their homelands, and natural ways of life is what is shared by all Indigenous [P]eoples, as well as the fact that their existence is in large part lived as determined acts of survival against colonising states’ efforts to eradicate them culturally, politically and physically.Footnote 27
The term “Indigenous Peoples” is capitalized in accordance with the United Nations Editorial Manual.Footnote 28 The term “World Heritage system” encompasses all States Parties and nonstate actors involved in implementing the World Heritage Convention and its associated frameworks.
Context: Indigenous Peoples’ rights violations within the World Heritage system
Although the World Heritage Convention has shaped global heritage governance more than any other international instrument, it remains rooted in a Western-centric system that continues to violate the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples.Footnote 29 Enacted in 1972, thirty-five years before the adoption of UNDRIP in 2007, the convention was developed without Indigenous participation or perspectives, reinforcing colonial conceptions of heritage, conservation, and Indigenous Peoples’ homelands.Footnote 30
Indigenous Peoples have long critiqued the World Heritage system’s entrenched colonial legacies, including the failure to uphold Indigenous self-determination, exclusion from meaningful decision making, the displacement and dispossession of Indigenous Peoples through conservation-based land claims, and the failure to meaningfully recognize the interdependent relationships between Indigenous Peoples and natural, cultural, and intangible heritage.Footnote 31 While some incremental reforms have been introduced – including updates to the Operational Guidelines and the development of a Sustainable Development Policy – serious rights violations persist.Footnote 32 This not only underscores the urgent need for reform but also for structural transformation grounded in the recognition of Indigenous Peoples, their rights, and their full participation in heritage governance.Footnote 33
These critiques are not new, a reality Special Rapporteur Daes already emphasized in her landmark 1993 UN study:
European exploration and colonisation of other regions beginning in the fifteenth century led to the rapid appropriation, by major European empires, of [I]ndigenous [P]eoples’ lands and natural resources … Indigenous [P]eoples were, in succession, despoiled of their lands, sciences, ideas, arts and cultures … This process is being repeated today, in all parts of the world, as non-European States expand their activities into regions previously considered remote, inaccessible or worthless, such as deserts, Arctic tundra, mountain peaks, and rainforests.Footnote 34
Further erosion of [I]ndigenous [P]eoples’ heritage will not only be destructive of their self-determination and development, but undermine the future development of the countries in which they live. For many … countries, [I]ndigenous [P]eoples’ knowledge may hold the key to achieving sustainable national development, without greater dependence on imported capital, materials and technologies.Footnote 35
There is an urgent need, then, for measures to enable [I]ndigenous [P]eoples to retain control over their remaining cultural and intellectual, as well as natural, wealth, so that they have the possibility of survival and self-development.Footnote 36
The ICOMOS symposium offered an important opportunity to address these issues through the lens of heritage ecosystems.
The heritage ecosystem approach: A relational turn?
The Gunma Declaration introduces an under-recognized approach within the World Heritage system – that of heritage ecosystems – as a response to growing calls for more integrated, inclusive, and dynamic approaches to heritage governance.Footnote 37 Although the declaration does not provide a single formal definition, “heritage ecosystems” are described as dynamic and interconnected networks of tangible and intangible, cultural and natural, and human and more-than-human elements that together sustain the characteristics, meanings, and values of heritage.Footnote 38 They encompass relationships across peoples,Footnote 39 places, practices, and knowledge systems and promote holistic, interdisciplinary governance at both the local and global levels. Rather than treating heritage as isolated concepts or categories, the heritage ecosystem approach reflects the evolving, layered, and interdependent elements of heritage as a single integrated whole.Footnote 40
The heritage ecosystem approach resonates deeply with Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews and governance frameworks, which understand lands, waters, resources, Indigenous communities, cultures, and knowledge systems as deeply interconnected and inseparable. As Daes observes:
[I]ndigenous [P]eoples do not view their heritage in terms of property … but in terms of community and individual responsibility … For [I]ndigenous [P]eoples, heritage is a bundle of relationships … whether it is a physical object such as a sacred site or ceremonial tool, or an intangible such as a song or story … Possessing a song, story or … knowledge carries with it certain responsibilities to show respect to and maintain a reciprocal relationship with the human beings, animals, plants and places with which [they are] connected … The songs, stories, designs, artworks and ecological wisdom … are all interrelated elements of this same heritage.Footnote 41
These ways of knowing and relating are not new for Indigenous Peoples. They have been practiced and protected for millennia. For example, the Gunditjmara Peoples, an Aboriginal nation of the region now known as Victoria in Australia, have developed and managed one of the world’s oldest and most extensive aquacultural systems as part of their traditional territory – Budj Bim – for at least 6,600 years, illustrating the interdependence of Indigenous Peoples, their heritage, and their lands throughout time.Footnote 42
Inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2019, the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape holds sacred significance for the Gunditjmara Peoples, embodying their cosmology and relationship with Budj Bim from “deep time.” This concept goes beyond merely referring to ancient times, reflecting the Gunditjmara Peoples’ belief that they have always been an inseparable part of their homeland.Footnote 43 Through oral traditions, cultural practices, and management methods – passed down from generation to generation – Budj Bim is viewed as a living, sentient being that connects people, spirits, animals, and plants.Footnote 44
In their own words, the Gunditjmara Peoples explain their interconnected relationship with their traditional territory (Country):
For Gunditjmara [P]eople, “Country” includes all living things – none better than the other but equal in its importance in forming this diverse natural landscape that is Gunditjmara Country.
Country means people, plants and animals alike. It embraces the seasons, stories and spirits of the creation. This flowing, connected cultural landscape possesses its own sacred places, languages, ceremonies, totems, art, clan groupings and law.Footnote 45
Recognizing Indigenous heritage as an interrelated and integrated whole is therefore vital for Indigenous Peoples’ survival and cultural continuity. Daes also emphasizes this by noting:
It is thus … inappropriate to try to subdivide the heritage of [I]ndigenous [P]eoples into separate legal categories such as “cultural”, “artistic” or “intellectual”, or into separate elements such as songs, stories, science or sacred sites. This would imply giving different levels of protection to different elements of heritage. All elements of heritage should be managed and protected as a single, interrelated and integrated whole.Footnote 46
Yet meaningful recognition of Indigenous heritage within the World Heritage system remains limited, often sidelined by dominant Western-centric frameworks that separate and categorize heritage rather than understand and connect.Footnote 47 With these shortcomings in mind, the Gunma Declaration on Heritage Ecosystems may offer a pathway forward, centering Indigenous heritage, worldviews, and relational management.
In view of the interdependent relationships of Indigenous heritage, the Gunma Declaration correspondingly recognizes the diverse cultural, social, environmental, and economic values of heritage,Footnote 48 emphasizing that “[o]ne of the important objectives of the heritage ecosystem approach is to deepen our understanding of the values and benefits of the heritage shared by local peoples and its central role.”Footnote 49 This objective is of great significance as it centers Indigenous Peoples’ roles – and recognizes both their legal and political status – within the World Heritage system.
To meet this objective, the declaration aims to advance a framework that recognizes and sustains the multifaceted functions of heritage, ranging from traditional to innovative, including “perceptions, knowledge, expectations, identity, and pride that peoples have developed for their heritage of the land and society as a whole.”Footnote 50 This framing represents a meaningful departure from the World Heritage system’s Western-centric understanding of heritage toward an approach that captures the diversity of Indigenous heritage. As Daes explains, Indigenous heritage includes:
everything that belongs to the distinct identity of a people … It includes all of those things which international law regards as the creative production of human thought and craftsmanship, such as songs, stories, scientific knowledge and artworks. It also includes inheritances from the past and from nature, such as human remains, the natural features of the landscape, and naturally-occurring species of plants and animals with which a people has long been connected.Footnote 51
[Overall, what] tangible and intangible items constitute the heritage of a particular [I]ndigenous [P]eople must be decided by the people themselves.Footnote 52
While the ICOMOS symposium initially presented the heritage ecosystem approach as novel, which became especially apparent during early conversations, it was later acknowledged that the approach closely aligns with traditional and Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews and approaches.Footnote 53 This shift is also clearly evident when comparing the “pre-final” draft declaration, shared in December 2024, with the adopted Gunma Declaration; all references to Indigenous Peoples are excluded from the former, which instead promoted national and international cooperation on industrial heritage as a foundation for the heritage ecosystem approach.Footnote 54
The adopted Gunma Declaration now affirms that “traditional heritage management systems, including Indigenous Peoples’ practices in deep time,” serve as an early context for the declaration.Footnote 55 This framing marks an important step forward – one that validates Indigenous knowledge not as supplementary to heritage discourse but as foundational to it.
Setting the scene: Symposium themes, early drafts, and tensions
The ICOMOS event was organized around four thematic pillars: (1) mechanisms and systems of the heritage ecosystem, (2) heritage communities, (3) the preservation and management of modern buildings and industrial heritage, and (4) technology and the future of heritage.Footnote 56
While broad in scope, the call for abstracts reflected a markedly Western institutional lens, with significant emphasis on industrial-era heritage and technological innovation.Footnote 57 This dominant Western-centric understanding of heritage is part of the broader challenge in recognizing and safeguarding Indigenous Peoples’ heritage, including natural and intangible heritage. The symposium’s framing risked sidelining the relational, living, and place-based heritage approaches of Indigenous Peoples.Footnote 58
This became especially apparent in the pre-final draft declaration. The draft document privileged institutional mechanisms, the “legacy of industry,” “industrial heritage ecosystems,” built heritage infrastructure, and the relationship between “communities and industrial heritage assets.”Footnote 59 While its tone was forward-looking and a brief reference to “rights-holders” was made, it offered no meaningful recognition of human rights–based approaches, nor did it adequately recognize the interdependent relationships between people and natural, cultural, and intangible heritage.Footnote 60 Critically, there was no reference to Indigenous Peoples or UNDRIP.
Already critiquing this institutional approach to heritage governance back in 1993, Daes emphasizes:
Above all, it is clear that existing forms of legal protection of cultural and intellectual [heritage] … are not only inadequate for the protection of [I]ndigenous [P]eoples’ heritage but inherently unsuitable … Subjecting [I]ndigenous [P]eoples to such a legal scheme would have the same effect on their identities, as the individualisation of land ownership, in many countries, has had on their territories – that is, fragmentation into pieces, and the sale of the pieces, until nothing remains.Footnote 61
Indigenous [P]eoples are the true collective owners of their [heritage], and no alienation of … their heritage should be recognised by national or international law.Footnote 62
In this context, the four-page executive summary I submitted in advance of the ICOMOS symposium, a requirement for all participants, functioned not merely as a summary of case studies, but also:
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• Called for the explicit inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and alignment with UNDRIP;
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• Stressed the inseparability of culture and nature, and the importance of recognizing human–nature relationships as legal and political, not merely symbolic;
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• Advocated for clear redress mechanisms and dispute resolution processes; and
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• Proposed concrete case studies – specifically, the Gunditjmara Peoples’ Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in Australia and the Ifugao Peoples’ rice terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras – demonstrating Indigenous-led heritage governance in practice.Footnote 63
These contributions sought to shift the narrative from a Western-centric perspective to a more inclusive, human rights–centered approach to heritage governance. Many of these contributions were subsequently, to some degree, integrated into the adopted Gunma Declaration. This is further addressed below .
In addition to the symposium’s initial industrial-era lens, the development of the declaration also unveiled the exclusionary structural dynamics inherent within the World Heritage system. Most notably, Indigenous Peoples were not represented on the ICOMOS symposium’s scientific committee – responsible for drafting the declaration’s early texts – despite the event’s emphasis on “heritage communities” and its assertion that it would reflect on the past three decades of heritage governance and envisage the future.Footnote 64 While some committee members and participants demonstrated a deep commitment to inclusion during the event, the absence of formal Indigenous representation on the symposium committee raises challenging questions about legitimacy, voice, and procedural justice.
The exclusion of Indigenous Peoples from the committee became particularly puzzling during the adoption of the Gunma Declaration at the end of the symposium, when it was revealed that the idea to develop the heritage ecosystem framework emerged during the 21st ICOMOS General Assembly, held in Sydney in 2023, which had adopted a series of “progressive” resolutions on Indigenous Peoples. These resolutions, particularly on “Indigenous Peoples’ Inclusion Throughout ICOMOS” (Resolution 21GA 2023/21), “Recognising Indigenous Peoples’ Values and Interconnections Between Culture and Nature in the Outstanding Universal Value of World Heritage Sites” (Resolution 21GA 2023/18), and “Climate Change and Indigenous Heritage” (Resolution 21GA 2023/15), appear to have been overlooked during the establishment of the symposium’s committee and the drafting of the early declaration texts.Footnote 65
Ironically, the 21st ICOMOS General Assembly Resolutions are now referenced in the adopted Gunma Declaration.Footnote 66 While this reference is significant, it must be recognized that the development of the Gunma Declaration underscores the imperative for future ICOMOS processes to incorporate Indigenous representation from the outset – not merely as contributors or consultants, but as co-designers and rights-holders. Without this shift, even well-intentioned declarations risk perpetuating the same Western-centric dynamics they purport to transcend. As legal pioneer Sheryl Lightfoot (Anishinaabe; Lake Superior Band of Ojibwe, Keweenaw Bay) – current vice-chair and past chair of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – notes, the inherent challenge for Indigenous Peoples is that they must continually navigate deeply rooted Western and colonial norms within international systems in an effort to advance equity and self-determination, yet these systems are the very ones that sustain Indigenous suffering.Footnote 67
Such structural contradictions were not abstract; they were experienced acutely during the symposium itself.
The ICOMOS symposium: Complexities of recognizing Indigenous Peoples
Historically, even the most fundamental acknowledgement of Indigenous Peoples was contested within the World Heritage system.Footnote 68 Despite three decades of “progress” since the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity, the failure to genuinely include Indigenous Peoples persists.Footnote 69 I witnessed this firsthand while participating in the ICOMOS symposium.Footnote 70
During one small-group discussion, I was confronted by the argument that there was no need to explicitly recognize Indigenous Peoples in the Gunma Declaration because, as it was claimed, Indigenous cultures are “contaminated.” In this view, because Indigenous Peoples have survived colonization, adapted, or intermingled with other cultures over time, they are now represented within broader society and culture and no longer require explicit recognition.
I found this language deeply offensive. It reflects not only a misunderstanding of Indigeneity but also a logic of eradication: First colonize and disrupt Indigenous cultures, then use the resulting genocide, assimilation, and change to deny their distinctiveness. This is not representation or recognition; it is contemporary colonialism – a continuation of Indigenous Peoples’ exclusion, silencing, and erasure. As Special Rapporteur Daes explains, failing to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ distinctiveness within heritage governance frameworks has serious implications:
The very concept of “[I]ndigenous” embraces the notion of a distinct and separate culture and way of life, based upon long-held traditions and knowledge which are connected, fundamentally, to a specific territory. Indigenous [P]eoples cannot survive, or exercise their fundamental human rights as distinct nations, societies and peoples, without the ability to conserve, revive, develop and teach the wisdom they have inherited from their ancestors.Footnote 71
Alfred and Corntassel further explain:
Indigenousness is an identity constructed, shaped and lived in the politicised context of contemporary colonialism. It is this oppositional, place-based existence, along with the consciousness of being in struggle against the dispossessing and demeaning fact of colonisation by foreign peoples, that fundamentally distinguishes Indigenous [P]eoples from other peoples of the world.
The challenge of “being Indigenous”, in a psychic and cultural sense, forms the crucial question facing Indigenous [P]eoples today in the era of contemporary colonialism – a form of post-modern imperialism in which domination is still the Settler imperative but where colonisers have designed and practise more subtle means (in contrast to the earlier forms of missionary and militaristic colonial enterprises) of accomplishing their objectives. Contemporary Settlers follow the mandate provided for them by their imperial forefathers’ colonial legacy, not by attempting to eradicate the physical signs of Indigenous [P]eoples as human bodies, but by trying to eradicate their existence as peoples through the erasure of the histories and geographies that provide the foundation for Indigenous cultural identities and sense of self.Footnote 72
Viewing Indigenous cultures as contaminated is therefore a manifestation of this eradication – a continuation of epistemic violence and racism that Indigenous Peoples have long endured. This reflects what scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Māori; Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou, Tūhourangi) describes as the deliberate acts of domination through the use of Western knowledge systems to marginalize and erase Indigenous existence, lived realities, and ways of knowing until nothing remains.Footnote 73
In response to my strong protest against such terminology and the hurt it causes, I was told that referring to the World Heritage system as “Western” or “Western-centric” was equally inappropriate, as other cultural traditions are also represented. Yet the architecture of the system – and its implementation – remains dominated by Western and contemporary colonial legal, academic, and political structures. Attempting to equate the terms “contaminated” and “Western” as equally offensive underscored a profound unawareness of, and indifference to, the many persistent Indigenous Peoples’ rights violations within the World Heritage system. Asserting such false equivalence serves to sanitize the World Heritage system’s colonial foundations while simultaneously pathologizing Indigenous survival, distinctiveness, and adaptation.
The sentiment of Indigenous Peoples’ exclusion, silencing, and erasure was echoed repeatedly throughout the three-day gathering.Footnote 74 Several participants argued that including Indigenous Peoples would cause division. Some questioned whether living away from ancestral homelands – particularly in urban environments – undermines one’s claim to Indigenous identity. Others asked whether individuals who do not maintain traditional lifestyles or ancestral knowledge could still be recognized as Indigenous. This echoed the earlier claim that Indigenous cultures are contaminated – subtly reinforcing the idea that cultural adaptation disqualifies a people from being Indigenous. These views not only reflect a deep misunderstanding of what Indigeneity means but also reveal the persistence of colonial narratives that define Indigenous legitimacy through purity, nonadaptation, and rural isolation. Such “legitimacy tactics,” as scholars Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene) and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg; Alderville First Nation) argue, are used to tactfully distract, disrupt, and dominate Indigenous Peoples, denying their distinctiveness and inherent self-determination while disingenuously offering symbolic recognition and illusory inclusion designed to sustain Western and contemporary colonial power dynamics.Footnote 75
This same colonial logic was evident when some participants questioned whether Indigenous Peoples even wanted recognition or to be referred to as such. One concern raised was that explicitly recognizing Indigenous Peoples in the declaration might marginalize those who prefer to keep their identity private – essentially forcing them to disclose it. Others went further, suggesting that many Indigenous Peoples are ashamed of their heritage or have mixed Indigenous and non-Indigenous ancestry and would prefer not to be identified as Indigenous at all. According to this logic, including the term “Indigenous Peoples” in the declaration would force them to “live a life they do not want” – as if recognition and equity were an imposition rather than a fundamental human right.
The reluctance to include Indigenous Peoples in the Gunma Declaration reached one of its most surreal moments when an older, non-Indigenous community member shared that, now in his 80s, he believed younger generations might view him as Indigenous due to his age. He expressed discomfort with this possibility and, on that basis, opposed including Indigenous Peoples in the declaration. This response reflected – yet again – a fundamental misunderstanding of what Indigeneity means – old age does not confer Indigenous identity. Such logic effectively strips Indigeneity of its historical, economic, political, legal, spiritual, and cultural depth.
Overall, the discussions at the ICOMOS symposium exposed a broader lack of awareness, ongoing resistance, and, in some cases, outright denial of Indigenous Peoples’ existence, rights, and lived realities – not only within heritage governance frameworks but across civil society at large.
As the sole participant actively advocating for the explicit inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and alignment with UNDRIP, the experience was emotionally confronting. It remains deeply concerning that an official ICOMOS event – attended by global senior heritage experts – could produce declaration texts lacking meaningful representation of, and commitment to, Indigenous Peoples and their rights. This is despite the adoption of the 21st ICOMOS General Assembly Resolutions in 2023 on Indigenous heritage, rights, and “inclusion throughout ICOMOS” – adopted during the same event where the idea of the symposium and the Gunma Declaration were first conceived – and despite the Operational Guidelines’ clearly stated obligations to Indigenous Peoples.Footnote 76 These challenges highlight the persistent reluctance within heritage governance frameworks to engage meaningfully with Indigenous heritage, voices, and rights. They also underscore the significant labor often required to challenge the systemic inertia of heritage frameworks that continue to prioritize Western and contemporary colonial narratives over Indigenous self-determination and cultural continuity.
The persistent reluctance to recognize Indigenous Peoples and their rights within heritage frameworks was already addressed in Daes’s landmark 1993 UN study, published one year before the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity was finalized, urging the need:
… to educate the public, as well as scientific and academic associations, to respect the rights of [I]ndigenous [P]eoples to privacy, cultural integrity and control of their own heritage through their own laws and institutions.Footnote 77
The symposium’s effort to draw on 30 years of critical thinking about heritage governance appears to have thoroughly overlooked Indigenous suffering within the World Heritage system.
Through sustained advocacy, the adopted Gunma Declaration now explicitly recognizes Indigenous Peoples and UNDRIP.Footnote 78
A global pattern: Indigenous recognition and inclusion denied
My experience at the 2025 ICOMOS symposium is not unique. Similar patterns of exclusion, silencing, and erasure are repeated throughout the World Heritage system.
In 2024, a Survival International campaign to “decolonise UNESCO” documented repeated cases of Indigenous Peoples’ exclusion, forced removal, and violence in the name of heritage conservation. Indigenous Peoples and their communities, such as the Maasai in Tanzania and the Baka in the Congo Basin, were denied their right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) and displaced from World Heritage sites under state-led processes that UNESCO endorses.Footnote 79 These patterns underscore that this is not merely a matter of oversight – it is embedded in the World Heritage system’s structural design.
During the 2015 World Heritage Committee debate on the Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex’s nomination to the World Heritage List, the draft decision originally included a clause requiring Thailand to obtain FPIC from the Indigenous Karen Peoples. This clause was removed at the request of Vietnam, whose delegate stated: “number one, [FPIC is] not necessary, and number two, Madam Chair, we are here at a prestigious Committee of culture and heritage, we are not in Geneva on the Human Rights Council”.Footnote 80 In agreement, the committee reduced its language to a general call, requesting Thailand “to reach the widest possible support of local communities, governmental, non-governmental and private organisations and other stakeholders for the nomination,” erasing the distinct legal status of the Karen Peoples.Footnote 81
Similarly, during debates in the early 2000s concerning the establishment of a World Heritage Indigenous Peoples Council of Experts (WHIPCOE), intended as an advisory body to the World Heritage Committee similar to ICOMOS, India declared that there were no Indigenous Peoples in Asia, while China issued a lengthy legal objection, and several African countries strongly opposed the proposal.Footnote 82 Thailand emphasized that “[I]ndigenous issues are a domestic, national question, and best handled on that level”.Footnote 83 Likewise, France and Finland raised legal, financial, and procedural objections, and other countries questioned whether the term “Indigenous” was sufficiently defined to justify the creation of an advisory body.Footnote 84 The proposal was ultimately rejected.
These are but a few examples, but they illustrate well how Indigenous Peoples are routinely excluded, silenced, and erased within the World Heritage system. Until Indigenous Peoples are recognized as full self-determining rights-holders, the legitimacy of the World Heritage system remains fundamentally compromised.
As Special Rapporteur Daes emphasises:
In most parts of the world, [I]ndigenous [P]eoples have already been subjected to extreme hardships and interference with their social and cultural life. This has undermined the ability of [I]ndigenous [P]eoples to transmit their knowledge and [heritage] from generation to generation … The future integrity of [I]ndigenous [P]eoples’ heritage therefore depends fundamentally and inescapably on recognition and strengthening of the right of each [I]ndigenous [P]eople … [T]he precise determination and application of these laws must be left to each [I]ndigenous [P]eople itself.Footnote 85
Indeed, at the heart of the exclusionary tactics within heritage governance frameworks lies a deeply rooted refusal to recognize Indigenous Peoples as peoples in the legal and political sense.
Peoples: Recognizing Indigenous Peoples as self-determining rights-holders
While the development of the Gunma Declaration presented challenges, the framework also marks an important development by incorporating UNDRIP and aligning with human rights–based approaches to heritage governance.
Within this context, a prominent feature of the Gunma Declaration is the recurrent use of the term “peoples.”Footnote 86 In international law, the term “peoples” carries a distinct legal and political meaning. It features prominently in the United Nations Charter, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), UNDRIP, and the World Heritage Convention, where it is tied to collective rights, particularly the right to self-determination. This includes Indigenous Peoples’ right to freely pursue their cultural, social, economic, and political development.Footnote 87
The United Nations Charter, for instance, declares that the purpose of the United Nations is “to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples,” as well as to promote “international cultural and educational cooperation,” and ensure “universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction.”Footnote 88
The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues equally notes that:
Indigenous [P]eoples have been a distinct constituency at the United Nations since 1977 and, with the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the General Assembly in 2007, their inherent rights were affirmed as the international minimum standard.Footnote 89
This recognition is foundational; the category of “peoples” is inseparable from the collective rights and self-determination of Indigenous Peoples, including the right to decide over their own lands, laws, heritage, and governance. As Daes explains:
Indigenous groups are unquestionably “peoples” in every political, social, cultural and ethnological meaning of this term. They have their own specific languages, laws, values and traditions; their own long histories as distinct societies and nations; and a unique economic, religious and spiritual relationship with the territories in which they have lived. It is neither logical nor scientific to treat them as the same “peoples” as their neighbours, who obviously have different languages, histories and cultures.Footnote 90
Special Rapporteur Daes further emphasizes:
Indigenous [P]eoples have been particularly vulnerable to the loss of their heritage as distinct peoples. Usually viewed as “backward” … they have been the targets of aggressive policies of cultural assimilation.Footnote 91
The protection of cultural and intellectual [heritage] is connected fundamentally with the realisation of the territorial rights and self-determination of [I]ndigenous [P]eoples.Footnote 92 Indigenous [P]eoples have always had their own laws and procedures for protecting their heritage and for determining when and with whom their heritage can be shared … each [I]ndigenous [P]eople must remain free to interpret its own system of laws, as it understands them … [and] must retain permanent control over all elements of its own heritage … This continuing, collective right to manage heritage is critical to the identity, survival and development of each [I]ndigenous society.Footnote 93
In this light, the use of the term “peoples” in the Gunma Declaration signifies more than inclusive phrasing. It reflects a crucial shift from demographic or cultural descriptions to the recognition of the legal and political identity of Indigenous Peoples. It challenges the state-centric tendency to frame Indigenous Peoples as mere stakeholders and instead affirms their status as self-determining rights-holders over their heritage, traditional territories, and resources – and as possessing collective authority, political–legal orders, and ancestral sovereignty. This is of great significance as it acknowledges Indigenous Peoples as rights-holding decision makers within the World Heritage system alongside States Parties to the World Heritage Convention. In this sense, the language of the Gunma Declaration has concrete implications for how participation, consent, and governance are understood in practice.
The declaration’s use of “peoples” and explicit reference to UNDRIP also aligns with the ICOMOS resolution on the “Implementation of a Human Rights-Based Approach in Cultural Heritage Management” (ICOMOS Resolution 21GA 2023/17), which promotes Indigenous Peoples’ right to FPIC and emphasizes human rights–based approaches to heritage governance.Footnote 94
Gunma: Recognizing the continuous relationships with ancestral homelands
The Gunma Declaration further stresses that meaningful engagement with rights-holders is essential for maintaining heritage ecosystems. To achieve this, the declaration recommends aligning the World Heritage system with both human and planetary rights, and emphasizes “the understanding and continuation of local and Indigenous Peoples’ traditions and practices in transmitting heritage.”Footnote 95 In this context, the Gunma Declaration recognizes:
the extended impact and involvement of communities beyond the immediate setting of heritage places, including communities located far away, which contribute to, or are influenced by, the heritage values through cultural, social, environmental, economic, or historical connections.Footnote 96
This commitment is particularly significant in light of the ongoing patterns of Indigenous Peoples’ forced relocations, land dispossession, and heritage governance exclusion, particularly in the context of natural World Heritage sites and conservation policies that promote the alienation of Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral homelands.Footnote 97 The Gunma Declaration affirms that Indigenous Peoples maintain interrelated relationships with their traditional territories, even when physically separated, and that the World Heritage system must honor these enduring bonds. It shifts heritage governance from a model of separation and isolation to one of relational continuity, where Indigenous rights, voices, and responsibilities are inseparable from natural and cultural heritage sites.
Reflecting on the relational worldview of Indigenous Peoples, Special Rapporteur Daes stresses:
All of the aspects of heritage are interrelated and cannot be separated from the traditional territory of the people concerned … [This includes] all expressions of the relationship between the people, their land and the other living beings and spirits which share the land, and is the basis for maintaining social, economic and diplomatic relationships.Footnote 98
All lands and resources are, to a greater or lesser extent, sacred and integral to [I]ndigenous [P]eoples’ cultures and spiritual life … It must be presumed that everything within the traditional territory of a specific people has a traditional cultural and spiritual value and importance to them.Footnote 99
This reality is also supported by Principle 22 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, which affirms that:
[I]ndigenous [P]eoples and their communities … have a vital role in environmental management and development because of their knowledge and traditional practices. States should recognise and duly support their identity, culture and interests and enable their effective participation in the achievement of sustainable development.Footnote 100
Indeed, this emphasis on historical continuity and enduring bonds with homelands also reshapes how heritage authenticity is understood.
Redefining “authenticity”: Overcoming the nature–culture heritage divide
The Gunma Declaration also advances important language, principles, and priorities that bridge the nature–culture heritage divide within the World Heritage system.
The declaration marks a historic shift; for the first time since the adoption of the World Heritage Convention in 1972, Indigenous Peoples, UNDRIP, and natural heritage are explicitly recognized as part of the World Heritage system’s heritage “authenticity” criterion – a criterion historically reserved for the Western-centric understanding of cultural heritage alone.Footnote 101
This development is highly significant. Indigenous Peoples have long critiqued the concept of authenticity and the Western-centric approach of treating natural and cultural heritage as separate categories.Footnote 102 In 2011, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues emphasized:
We are concerned that the concepts of “outstanding universal value”, “integrity” and “authenticity” are interpreted and applied in ways that are disrespectful of Indigenous [P]eoples and their cultures, inconsiderate of their circumstances and needs, preclude cultural adaptations and changes, and serve to undermine their human rights.Footnote 103
The UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples similarly stated in 2015 that:
Heritage policies, programmes and activities affecting [I]ndigenous [P]eoples should be based on full recognition of the inseparability of natural and cultural heritage, and the deep-seated interconnectedness of intangible cultural heritage and tangible cultural and natural heritage.Footnote 104
This was further emphazised in 2022 by Special Rapporteur José Francisco Calí Tzay (Maya Kaqchikel), who elaborated that the nature–culture heritage divide is “highly problematic where [I]ndigenous [P]eoples’ territories and heritage are concerned” and that Indigenous “cultural and natural values are inseparably interwoven and should be managed and protected in a holistic manner.”Footnote 105
In light of these longstanding critiques, the Gunma Declaration on Heritage Ecosystems – and the reconceptualization of the heritage authenticity criterion – offer a solution. The declaration broadens the application of heritage authenticity and acknowledges that Indigenous Peoples and their cultural, natural, and intangible heritage are inseparably interwoven as a single, relational whole.Footnote 106
In this context, the Gunma Declaration importantly affirms that:
The Nara Document on Authenticity (1994) fostered the recognition of differences in societal beliefs and values, as well as the consideration of intangible heritage. The concept of heritage authenticity continues to evolve as the integration of tangible and intangible [heritage], nature and culture, local and global [perspectives], and humanity and more-than-human life [relationships] progresses in increasingly holistic ways.Footnote 107
Today, heritage is often fragmented and needs to be better connected to places, peoples, and values to ensure its endurance into the future. The heritage ecosystem [framework] promotes interdisciplinary and integrated approaches to achieve this … [and] lays the ground for integrating heritage into building the future of our planet.Footnote 108
The heritage ecosystem approach provides a framework to integrate and mutually support valued heritage of various types, significance, and authenticity. It takes a holistic view of the diverse elements of heritage … [and] expresses multiple heritage places, practices, and peoples …. It addresses the persistence and evolution of heritage values and their continuous, responsible management and transmission into the future, functioning as an interconnected group.Footnote 109
The Gunma Declaration further emphasizes that the heritage ecosystem approach links “tangible and intangible heritage, honouring traditions and practices, inclusive of Indigenous Peoples … in managing heritage ecosystems” to overcome “the existing divisions between cultural and natural heritage.”Footnote 110 It fosters the “documentation of, and respect for, Indigenous Peoples’ traditions and practices that have sustained heritage for generations” and seeks to “develop means for consensus building and dispute resolution for contested heritage.”Footnote 111
This recognition holds significant transformational power. It emphasizes Indigenous Peoples’ vital role within the World Heritage system and the governance of heritage sites. The Gunma Declaration’s expanded application of the heritage authenticity criterion redefines the Western-centric categorization and understanding of heritage. This should, in turn, amend the processes and standards governing the nomination, assessment, and management of World Heritage sites.Footnote 112
Within this understanding, the heritage ecosystem approach should also prevent the future exclusion and forced relocation of Indigenous Peoples from natural World Heritage sites – a direct result of the World Heritage system’s existing nature–culture heritage divide. This shift means that if a “natural” site with Indigenous heritage is nominated but fails to recognize or uphold Indigenous cultural values, laws, or governance, the Gunma Declaration’s revised authenticity criterion would not be satisfied, and the nomination should therefore be unsuccessful. Similarly, inscribed World Heritage sites could face removal from the World Heritage List on the same principle – for failing to preserve Indigenous rights, values, and connection to their lands.
Indeed, extending the concept of authenticity to encompass natural heritage is not entirely new. In 1993, unaware that the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity was being developed for cultural heritage, ecologist Nigel Dudley proposed using the term “authenticity” to recognize the characteristics and values of natural ecosystems, including their interconnected intangible cultural and spiritual relationships.Footnote 113 Dudley’s reflections complement both Indigenous heritage and worldviews, and they strongly resonate with the Gunma Declaration’s heritage ecosystem approach.
Supporting this understanding of nature-culture interdependence, and emphasizing that the alienation of Indigenous Peoples from their homelands is inconceivable, Special Rapporteur Daes stresses:
Indigenous [P]eoples regard all products of the human mind and heart as interrelated, and as flowing from the same source: the relationships between the people and their land, their kinship with the other living creatures that share the land, and with the spirit world. Since the ultimate source of knowledge and creativity is the land itself, all of the art and science of a specific people are manifestations of the same underlying relationships, and can be considered as manifestations of the people as a whole.Footnote 114
A song, for example, is … one of the manifestations of an ancient and continuing relationship between the people and their territory. Because it is an expression of a continuing relationship between the particular people and their territory, moreover, it is inconceivable that a song, or any other element of the people’s collective identity, could be alienated permanently or completely.Footnote 115
Thus, the heritage ecosystem approach – and the reconceptualization of the heritage authenticity criterion – offer an important opportunity to address the World Heritage system’s fundamental questions surrounding the nature–culture heritage divide. Through the heritage ecosystem approach, the Gunma Declaration expressly recognizes Indigenous Peoples’ interdependent relationships with their lands, communities, nature, and intangible heritage.
Yet the extent to which this reconceptualization reshapes heritage practice depends on how the declaration is interpreted and applied.
Beyond symbolism? Legal limits of the Gunma Declaration
Although these hard-won inclusions and recognitions are significant, it is important to note that the declaration is a nonbinding framework without formal legal mechanisms for enforcement or implementation. This greatly limits its transformative potential unless further reforms, both by States Parties and within the World Heritage system, are undertaken. Nevertheless, since the declaration is an official ICOMOS framework, the Gunma Declaration is significant and should help promote the wider recognition and application of the heritage ecosystem approach within the World Heritage system.
However, Coulthard warns that “the politics of recognition in its contemporary form promises to reproduce the very configurations of colonial power that Indigenous [P]eoples’ demands for recognition have historically sought to transcend.”Footnote 116 As Lightfoot adds, the real challenge in global Indigenous politics lies not just in creating new norms and declarations but in the difficult, necessary work of translating these nonbinding aspirations into concrete, enforceable state practices and policies that genuinely advance Indigenous Peoples’ self-determination.Footnote 117
These structural limitations underscore the importance of how the Gunma Declaration is taken up, contested, and mobilized in practice.
Conclusion: The courage to imagine otherwise
This commentary provided a critical reflection on the development of the Gunma Declaration on Heritage Ecosystems, drawing on my experience as a participant in the ICOMOS symposium. It presented both personal insights and analytical critique to examine the challenges, contradictions, and opportunities that shaped the declaration’s evolution while underscoring the significance of the heritage ecosystem approach for Indigenous Peoples. This commentary also adopted a retrospective lens to expose the structural patterns that have, for many decades, constrained meaningful engagement with Indigenous Peoples, their heritage, and their right to self-determination.
The development of the Gunma Declaration was a confronting experience. The absence of Indigenous voices and the exclusionary structural dynamics signify a persistent, troubling pattern. They exemplify a recurring contradiction: the symbolic “welcoming” of Indigenous Peoples in theory, while structural decisions continue to be made without Indigenous Peoples’ meaningful inclusion and full participation. Indeed, any references to Indigenous Peoples, UNDRIP, and the 21st ICOMOS General Assembly Resolutions were only incorporated after persistent written and oral advocacy before and during the international gathering in Japan. How could such an oversight occur at an official ICOMOS event, recognized for its local, national, and international significance, and explicitly concerned with “heritage communities” and the evolution of participatory heritage frameworks over the past three decades? The failure to meaningfully include Indigenous Peoples from the outset not only undermines the credibility of the declaration but also raises serious concerns about ICOMOS’s sincerity and the depth of its stated commitments.
However, the Gunma Declaration also embodies hope. The heritage ecosystem framework recognizes “Indigenous Peoples’ practices in deep time” as foundational.Footnote 118 It calls for the continuation of Indigenous traditions and “knowledge systems that have been passed down through the ages or lost” in ways that uphold both human and planetary rights.Footnote 119 By linking cultural, natural, and intangible heritage – and by honoring Indigenous values and practices – the declaration offers an integrated, pluralistic vision of heritage custodianship.Footnote 120 It challenges colonial-era approaches to heritage governance, affirming that traditional territories are inextricably tied to Indigenous identity and responsibility.Footnote 121
Incorporating UNDRIP and recognizing Indigenous Peoples as self-determining rights-holders, the declaration also calls for mechanisms to “develop means for consensus building and dispute resolution for contested heritage.”Footnote 122 It further urges recognition of the extended involvement of Indigenous Peoples beyond the immediate setting of heritage places – those who contribute to, or are shaped by, heritage values through cultural, social, environmental, economic, or historical ties.Footnote 123
Overall, the Gunma Declaration signifies a historic first within the World Heritage system for multiple reasons: It advances a long-overdue heritage ecosystem approach; redefines the scope and concept of heritage authenticity; recognizes the interconnected relationships between Indigenous Peoples and natural, cultural, and intangible heritage; and, crucially, acknowledges Indigenous Peoples as self-determining rights-holders. Despite the declaration’s challenges and limitations, these achievements present novel opportunities to explore, promote, and further develop.
It is important to recognize, however, that the Gunma Declaration is not a new beginning. It represents the continuation of longstanding Indigenous struggle – a struggle that the World Heritage system has, for decades, marginalized, overlooked, and structurally sidelined. In many ways, the symposium’s retrospective glance toward the 1994 Nara Document risked becoming a celebration of institutional self-congratulation: a look back on 30 years of Western-centric heritage leadership that remains largely inattentive to, and complicit in, Indigenous exclusion, silencing, and erasure. Perhaps this commentary can, in its own way, serve as the reflection that was missing – an opportunity to look back critically on the past three decades and ask: What has been overlooked, and at what cost?
So, where do we go from here?
Similar to the inclusion of the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity in the Operational Guidelines to enhance the understanding of cultural heritage and the concept of authenticity,Footnote 124 the Gunma Declaration on Heritage Ecosystems may ultimately contribute to decolonizing the World Heritage system. As Corntassel maintains, decolonization is grounded not in symbolic reforms but in “everyday” acts of resurgence, relational responsibility, and the restoration of Indigenous authority. The future of heritage governance must therefore be grounded not in institutional rhetoric, but in Indigenous resurgence.
By focusing on “everyday” acts of resurgence, one disrupts the colonial physical, social and political boundaries designed to impede our actions to restore our nationhood. In order to live in a responsible way as self-determining nations, Indigenous [P]eoples must confront existing colonial institutions, structures, and policies … Indigenous resurgence means having the courage and imagination to envision life beyond the state.Footnote 125
Let this commentary – and my positionality statement – be an act of resurgence, then: to disrupt and imagine otherwise.
Acknowledgments
My sincere gratitude to Dr. Fiona Campbell, Aunty Professor Jakelin Troy (Ngarigu elder), the guest editors, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback and guidance. Thank you also to the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge for hosting me as a visiting scholar during this research. It is a genuine privilege to contribute to the International Journal of Cultural Property’s special issue on “Decolonizing Cultural Property: Indigenous Perspectives and Challenges.”
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