UNESCO title is a driving force for sustainable development

Ninh Binh province currently owns 3/57 UNESCO titles of Vietnam. These are the World Cultural and Natural Heritage of Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex; co-ownership of the Representative Intangible Heritage of Humanity Practices of the Vietnamese Mother Goddess Worship and Kim Son Mangrove Biosphere Reserve. The UNESCO titles not only bring the province international recognition, but also a solid foundation for sustainable development.

Associate Professor, Dr. Vu Thi Phuong Hau, Director of the Institute of Culture and Development, Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, assessed: Ninh Binh is a very special place with a dense distribution of long-standing traditional cultural heritages. Even the name Ninh Binh has a history of more than 200 years, meaning peaceful and stable. Along with the amazing natural landscape, bearing outstanding global values in geology and geomorphology, the people of Ninh Binh through many generations, through their creativity and cultural expression, have accumulated and deposited for Ninh Binh many unique historical and cultural values, which have been developed and spread to this day, with a large amount of cultural heritages including nearly 2,000 tangible cultural heritages, nearly 500 intangible cultural heritages reflecting relatively comprehensively the material and spiritual life of Ninh Binh people in particular, Vietnamese people in general from the past to the present, which is the potential and motivation for Ninh Binh to build and develop quickly and sustainably.

Ninh Binh's scenic spots, nature reserves, tangible and intangible cultural heritage systems have been ranked and registered at provincial, national and international levels, including UNESCO titles such as: In 2016, the Cultural Heritage "Practice of the Vietnamese Mother Goddess Worship" was recognized by UNESCO as a representative Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Ninh Binh province is one of the localities identified as having a fairly large space for performing "Practicing the Three Palaces Mother Goddess Worship Beliefs", which has a great influence on the cultural and spiritual life of the people, affecting the cultural and social development of the province. The Red River Delta Biosphere Reserve is a world biosphere reserve recognized by UNESCO in 2004 for the southern coastal areas of the Northern Delta, located at the mouths of the Day River, the Red River and the Thai Binh River. This is a coastal wetland biosphere reserve belonging to 3 provinces in the Red River Delta: Thai Binh, Nam Dinh and Ninh Binh.

In Ninh Binh, Kim Son Con Noi mangrove forest belongs to 7 communes and coastal towns of Kim Son district, with an area of 4,854 hectares, and is one of 5 areas of the Biosphere Reserve. The Kim Son coastal mangrove forests stretch along with alluvial plains and river mouths, which are home to more than 500 species of aquatic flora and fauna, more than 50 species of mangrove trees, 200 species of birds, including many rare species listed in the world red book. In particular, the province owns the World Cultural and Natural Heritage Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex, the first and only dual heritage of Vietnam and Southeast Asia to date.

In recent times, Ninh Binh has done a good job of preserving and promoting heritage values. In particular, since 2014, after Trang An was honored by UNESCO, the province has oriented to strongly transform the growth model from brown to green, towards a heritage city; determined to take the heritage values, traditional values, and human values of Hoa Lu land as the core and driving force for development.

After 10 years of Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex being recognized by UNESCO as a World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Trang An has affirmed itself as one of the famous tourist destinations in Vietnam and the world. It is a place that harmoniously combines natural beauty and historical and cultural values, expressing stories of ancient history and is an intact chronicle recording environmental changes and human responses in the distant past, preserving a tradition of human habitation, a tradition of using land and sea of prehistoric people with many continuous cultures, lasting up to 30,000 years.

With the advantages of natural resources and profound humanity of the ancient capital of Hoa Lu and the outstanding global values of geology, geomorphology, natural landscape and culture, the development of Heritage tourism products at Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex is not only purely to serve the needs of tourists for sightseeing and experience and develop the tourism economy, but more importantly, to demonstrate responsibility in preserving, conserving and promoting historical and cultural values and interpreting heritage values accurately and scientifically to ensure that these precious values will be passed down to present and future generations.

In particular, it contributes practically to spreading the values of heritage, meeting the goals and orientations of developing Ninh Binh province into a national and international tourism center based on heritage, in which cultural industry and heritage economy are the focus to build a green economy, a circular economy, serving the development of local communities and the country.

Mr. Hoang Huu Anh, Deputy Director of the Department of Cultural Diplomacy and UNESCO, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Secretary General of the Vietnam National Commission for UNESCO, expressed: When UNESCO representatives visited Trang An, they were surprised and highly appreciated the conservation and promotion of heritage values here, especially the connection and participation between the government, people and businesses in conservation activities with the motto "living in heritage, protecting heritage and benefiting from heritage". This not only creates a unique image for Ninh Binh but also contributes to the prestige and position of Vietnam in the international arena, especially in UNESCO. I highly appreciate Ninh Binh's choice of its own direction, which is to combine heritage urban development with smart urban development, which will certainly create green and sustainable development in the future.

It can be said that the advantages of the UNESCO-recognized heritages have created a globally recognized strength for Ninh Binh province. Ten years ago, the title awarded by UNESCO to the Trang An World Cultural and Natural Heritage Complex was also the starting point to open a new era for Ninh Binh tourism. At the same time, it raised the responsibility of the whole community in preserving and promoting the value of heritage in a sustainable manner.

Today, Ninh Binh is considered by UNESCO as one of the localities that have been successful in preserving and promoting heritage values for sustainable tourism development. Thanks to that, Ninh Binh has maintained its position in the top 15 destinations, the 10 provinces that attract the highest number of visitors in the country. In particular, the World Heritage Site of Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex has truly been the link between the past and the present, between history and landscape, between nature and people, and is the center and foundation for building a millennium heritage city in the near future.

Article and photos: Nguyen Thom

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