Looting and Decay - How The Pandemic Wrought Real Damage to African Heritage TC_Africa: Africa
Beyond objects that could be looted, the Covid-19 pandemic also posed a threat to the world heritage sites themselves. For example, lockdowns brought a halt to 400-year-old social and cultural rituals for the maintenance of the, which is made up of stone-walled terraces and fortified settlements in South Ethiopia's Konso Highlands.
The precipitous drop in tourism thus worsened the population's already precarious financial situation. Because the price of building materials also climbed during the pandemic, locals began to use stones from the terraces for constructions. The dire situation was aggravated by absence of on-site site security, allowing some looting to occur.
The use of terrace stones for house construction in the Konso Highlands demonstrates the real threat to the preservation of cultural heritage sites posed by crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic. It is worth recalling the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, in which all signatories recognised"that the task of ensuring the identification, protection and conservation of the cultural and natural heritage rests primarily with the state" .
First, existing political and international legal instruments must be strengthened. At present, governments rely on a range of legislative measures to protect their World Heritage Sites. In 2017, the UN Security Council unequivocally condemned the
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