The Symposium ‘La Laguna World Heritage City, 25 years later’ recovers the spirit of the local Declaration on the rights of future generations and vindicates the role of the assets protected by Unesco as promoters of peace.
Figures such as Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Miguel Clüsener-Godt, Cipriano Marín and Marisa Tejedor propose making La Laguna the epicentre of study for the protection of the cultural and natural assets of Macaronesia.
The City Council of La Laguna today hosted the presentation of the conclusions obtained during the Symposium ‘City of La Laguna World Heritage, 25 years later’, a decalogue of recommendations to the municipality which were detailed by the Councillor for Cultural Heritage, Adolfo Cordobés, and the coordinator of these international conferences, Marisa Tejedor. For two days, the initiative has brought together important personalities related to the defence of cultural and natural heritage, such as Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Miguel Clüsener-Godt and Cipriano Marín, a work that has resulted in a series of proposals aimed at restoring the relationship of the only World Heritage City in the Canary Islands with its natural environment and which, among other actions, propose that La Laguna should become a centre of world analysis for the protection of the cultural, natural and marine heritage of the Macaronesia.
The programme, organised by the City Council and held at the Instituto de Canarias Cabrera Pinto on 3 and 4 December, coincided with the 25th anniversary of the declaration of the historic city of La Laguna as a World Heritage Site and the 30th anniversary of the so-called ‘Declaration of La Laguna’, which formed the basis for the adoption of the UNESCO ‘Declaration on the Responsibilities of the Present Generations Towards Future Generations’ and which has been fundamental in the Millennium Declaration and the Sustainable Development Goals.
With this initiative, La Laguna wanted to contribute to the international debate a necessary reflection on the need to promote an ethic of responsibility and awareness of the impact of present actions on future living conditions, through a comprehensive vision that combines the protection of cultural heritage, landscape, natural spaces, coexistence, peace and the identity of peoples.
‘This symposium is part of the process of reflection that we have initiated to analyse the work carried out in the quarter of a century since the inclusion of La Laguna on the UNESCO World Heritage list, but also to study the new objectives that the city must set itself in order to continue to make progress in the conservation of its heritage and in the implementation of an integral model of sustainable development’, explained Adolfo Cordobés.
As a result of this process, ‘the city wants to take new steps to protect its cultural and natural legacy, to prepare for present and future challenges, and to have the capacity to face the opportunities that arise as a territory that defends peace and coexistence,’ said the mayor.
Thus, this action has allowed the historic city to analyse, through leading researchers and intellectuals, its relationship with the landscape, with its agricultural and natural environment, and with the envelope of vegetation that, through the historic avenues, connects it with the Anaga massif, declared a Biosphere Reserve by Unesco.
Recovering the cultural landscape
In this sense, Marisa Tejedor explained that ‘one of the central proposals of this Decalogue is for the city to move forward in restoring its connection with the surrounding territory and recovering the cultural landscape that connects the historic city with its surroundings, rehabilitating the nature of its surroundings and, moreover, its interior, with the historic gardens and poplar groves’.
The Symposium coordinator, who is the current president of the Scientific Council of the Spanish Committee of Unesco’s Man and Biosphere Programme (MaB) and former rector of the University of La Laguna (ULL), valued the importance of broadening the dialogue between the city and the nearby Anaga Biosphere Reserve, understood as two interrelated spaces, and transcending the localist vision so that, thanks to these Unesco recognitions, they are strengthened for the present and future generations of all humanity.
Tejedor also stressed the importance of the fact that ‘the organisations that participated in the La Laguna Declaration have met again to analyse, decades later, the degree of application and development of the precepts agreed in that 1994 declaration, which is of exceptional international value and which is scarcely known in the Islands’.
Preserving the legacy of the aforementioned meeting at the end of the 20th century, La Laguna claims its place in this Symposium as a venue for international debates on World Heritage and, especially, on peace and coexistence. And it does so on the basis of its own foundation as the first unwalled city-territory of peace in the 16th century, in accordance with Renaissance criteria that were transmitted to the new Spanish-American cities.
‘At a time when international conflicts are increasing’, Tejedor pointed out, “the Declaration of La Laguna is more valid than ever and this city has once again demonstrated that there is room for hope”, as was made clear by the Peace Walk which, on the 2nd of last month and carried out in collaboration with the Rotary Club of La Laguna, brought together more than 1,500 children in the streets with a message of tolerance, inclusion and peace.
Tejedor recalled the following words of Federico Mayor Zaragoza at the opening ceremony: ‘How is it possible that, after 78 years of the creation of the United Nations, of having a magnificent Programme of Action with the United Nations Charter, it has never been possible to put it into practice’. And, Tejedor added, ‘how, 30 years after the La Laguna Declaration of the Rights of Future Generations, is it possible that these principles are still being violated? There is much to reflect on and, to a large extent, this has been done in this Symposium’.
Decalogue of suggestions and recommendations
1. Promote a campaign to disseminate and raise public awareness of the importance of the values set out in the Declaration of La Laguna, incorporating new institutions in its defence and promotion.
2. Initiate the municipal file of honours and distinctions for the two main promoters of the Declaration of La Laguna, Federico Mayor Zaragoza and Jacques Cousteau.
3. Encourage the cohesion and harmonisation of all the actors involved in the two heritage assets included in the UNESCO list of La Laguna, the Cultural Asset of the historic city and the Anaga Biosphere Reserve.
4. Increase the levels of urban protection of the Camino de Las Peras and the Camino Largo to consolidate them as public spaces for coexistence.
5. Incorporate vegetation in the plans for the use and management of local heritage and in the different planning and development instruments.
6. Draw up a project for the recovery of the Plaza del Adelantado to incorporate the old 19th century alameda.
7. Include in the project for the recovery and interpretation of the old lagoon, which gave its name to the city, the reinterpretation of unfinished avenues by Lucas Vega.
8. Promote a renewed vision of the heritage-landscape binomial, in accordance with the European Landscape Convention, with the need for public, private and public-private partnership decisions, as well as promoting citizen participation to formulate and implement new landscape policies.
9. Promote local development on the basis of a symbiotic relationship with culture and nature. To draw up a heritage evaluation programme that will make it possible to ascertain the evolution of the relationship between heritage and the capabilities of the population.
10. Promote a line of evaluation of the heritage of Macaronesia, taking advantage of La Laguna’s extensive experience and professional knowledge in this field.
The conclusions document suggests other issues that do not fall under municipal competence, but for which La Laguna can lend its institutional support, such as promoting the development of a much more complete municipal statistical base for the Canary Islands.
List of speakers at the Symposium (in order of speaking time):
– The President of the Culture of Peace Foundation and former Director-General of Unesco, Federico Mayor Zaragoza (telematics).
– The former rector of the University of La Laguna (ULL), current president of the Scientific Council of the Spanish Committee of the Man and Biosphere Programme (MaB) of Unesco, Gold Medal of the University of La Laguna and Adopted Daughter of Tenerife. Marisa Tejedor, with the speech ‘Declaration of the human rights of future generations (La Laguna, 1994)’.
– The delegate in the Canary Islands of the Philipp Cousteau Foundation and manager of the Fuerteventura Biosphere Reserve, Antonio Gallardo Campos, with the dissertation entitled ‘Jacques Cousteau: Naturalist and humanist’.
– The senior research associate at the Unesco Chair on Safeguarding Biodiversity for Sustainable Development of the University of Coimbra, former director of the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences of Unesco, and recipient of the Royal Order of Civil Merit of Spain 2018, Miguel Clüsener-Godt, with the lecture ‘World Network of Biosphere Reserves: More than conservation, a figure of peace’.
– Cipriano Marín Cabrera, an expert in islands and sustainable development and a leading member of Icomos Spain and the Spanish World Heritage Commission of Unesco, with the lecture ‘Legacy and future of World Heritage: Natural, mixed and cultural landscapes’.
– The head of Parks and Gardens of La Laguna and winner of the National Gardening Award 2022, Francesco Salomone Suárez, with the lecture ‘La Laguna de las alamedas’ (shared with Antonio García Gallo).
– Antonio García Gallo, Professor of the Department of Botany, Ecology and Plant Physiology at the University of La Laguna.
– Professor of Architectural Projects at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and president of the European Network of Universities for the Study and Research of Landscape (Uniscape) – European Landscape Convention, Juan Manuel Palerm Salazar, with the paper ‘The RE (invention/evolution) of the landscape of architecture. Heritage as a resource and strategic reference’.
– José Luis Rivero Ceballos, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of La Laguna, President of the Scientific Council of the Cicop España Foundation and former President of the Economic and Social Council of the Canary Islands, with ‘Culture, nature and local development’.
Digital repository
All the presentations were broadcast live on the YouTube channel of the City Council of La Laguna and are available at the following links:
-Morning session on 3 December: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ7FBPSKFd8
-Afternoon session on 3 December: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT_jmTHUCz0
-December 4th session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9KAjW_y5SA