The day the bells of Sintra played to celebrate the heritage – TSF Online

At 11 hours and 5 minutes of the day December 6, 1995 in Berlin, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee attributed the Sintra World Heritage classification, with the newly created category Cultural Landscape.

The journalist Joana Carvalho Reis spoke with Edite Estrela about the memories of the day guard when Sintra was classified World Heritage

20 years have passed, but for Edite Estrela memories are “very vivid and unforgettable.” The previous year had been elected mayor. The process of the World Heritage Sintra application had already begun six years earlier, started by Victor Serrao and then continued by José Cardim Ribeiro. Throughout this period there have been advances and retreats. In 1994 the application was even delivered, but was eventually removed because it did not fulfill the necessary conditions.

Edite Estrela went to work. “I had only one year to prepare for the new application and draw up a file and collect national and international support”. The former mayor recalls that in the week before the UNESCO decision announcement, “there was a great expectation, some fears, but in fact went very well.”

Finally, the 6 December 1995 Sintra World Heritage became, in a category that values ​​harmony between the natural and the built heritage. The Cultural Landscape classification acknowledged “considerable influence Sintra exercised over a long period” in cultural and artistic terms, the “personality”, representing various periods in human history and the “uniqueness as a place of characteristic habitat of a specific culture” .

The decision was announced at the 19th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which stemmed in Berlin. Edite Estrela recalls the first phone calls made, at a time when “there was still no mobile phones as now, there were few who were very heavy.” First of all, it was necessary to tell the House. “A series of steps We had agreed that should be made, namely that the bells around the Sintra municipality touched simultaneously to express in unison their satisfaction and announce the good news to the citizens.”

Another phone calls made was to Mário Soares, who was years the next day. “I joked with him saying: Look I have an early birthday present to tell him,” recalls Edite Estrela. “It was a special day, which left indelible marks.”

On what Sintra won with the UNESCO classification, the former mayor has no doubts. “He won international visibility gained prestige, won be entered in cultural tourism routes … and I could witness it, for example now when I was in the European Parliament, all my colleagues knew the magnificent Sintra. (…) No it is easy to quantify the benefits to because they will-prolonging in time “

So do not hesitate:.” Everybody recognizes that it was worth it not only benefits that this thereby made to the population, but. also for the country itself, the fact that another site classified World Heritage “.

20 years later, the Future

To preserve, enhance and communicate . Is this the path we want to follow Sintra. João Lacerda Tavares, director of the office of World Sintra Heritage, says that “the challenges are permanent. A classification is above all a dynamic that does not conquer only with the application, as it was 20 years ago, not with the state of maturity it today reaches. “

To him, the challenges are permanent a site classified as World Heritage, a mark hard fought

We must therefore do more. “The goals, from now on, and constant improvement are a great attention regarding disclosure Heritage, the interaction with the community, but especially the dynamism that application 20 years ago had.”

The office of the World Heritage Site of Sintra is part of this strategy. Created about 3 months, it is a platform for interaction between the municipality, the Sintra Parks (company responsible for the management of parks and monuments of the village) and the community.

João Lacerda Tavares explains the objectives of this new office in Sintra

João Lacerda Tavares explains that the purpose of this structure is to create a “brainstorming on the management and rehabilitation of heritage.” A “one size fits in Portugal”, which also acts as a guarantor of the preservation of the Cultural Landscape of Sintra and the rules established by the classification.

Sintra will have a UNESCO center. For John Tavares Lacerda, a sign of confidence

Despite the short running time, the cabinet has already borne fruit. UNESCO called on the municipality to create a center of UNESCO, aiming to promote the values ​​proclaimed by it proclaimed. “A sign of confidence,” says the official.