The Directorate General of Culture and Cultural Heritage brought together on the island of Lanzarote the inspection units of the seven island cabildos, at a meeting whose purpose was to draw up an assessment of resources, both human and technical-administrative, in the performance of their duties, which currently follow a proactive approach to intervention aimed at establishing the condition of the Canary Islands' cultural assets and, on the basis of that condition, determining the measures deemed necessary for their protection, as laid down by law.
Canary Islands Regional Cultural Heritage Meeting
For the planning of interventions and inspections, criteria such as procedures and management will be taken into account, in order to improve the system of protection and security; likewise the updating of the inventory of movable and immovable assets and accessibility to them. In addition, an objective has been set to work on the digitisation and registration of cultural heritage through municipal and island catalogues, instruments that are necessary in order to carry out the actions that the Cultural Heritage Act of the Canary Islands assigns to these inspection units, and whose updated records will also make preventive conservation possible.
All this information will be uploaded to the Cultural Heritage Information System of the Canary Islands (LAVA), which the regional government is currently finalising. It is a constantly updated web platform, available to the public, to researchers and to public administrations, containing all the information, graphic and audiovisual material on cultural assets, which up to now has been difficult to access owing to its dispersal and heterogeneity. Principally, the platform includes the island catalogues, municipal archaeological, ethnographic and palaeontological registers, Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) files, reports on research in the various fields of heritage, as well as inventories of different kinds, not forgetting museums and their collections, documentary and bibliographic heritage, training projects and links of interest, among others.
“The protection and conservation of cultural heritage begins with recognising each and every one of the elements that make it up. By having it inventoried and constantly updated, it will be possible to establish ongoing assessments that allow interventions to be optimised and thus to carry out actions that reduce, minimise or even eliminate the effect of the risks and damage to which cultural assets are subjected,” states the director general of the department. All this documentation, he adds, “will provide information to be taken into account in setting priorities for interventions, drawing up regular inspection and maintenance programmes”.
It was also noted that action is needed to train forest rangers and other security forces and corps in the protection of cultural heritage, mainly on the non-capital islands, which have few personnel available to act on the ground.
Finally, it was agreed that the next ‘Canary Islands Regional Cultural Heritage Meeting’ will be held on the island of Gran Canaria in May 2024.