Myanmar cultural heritage preservation

Myanmar has been cooperating with the international in striving for preservation of its cultural heritage. The capacity building program for preservation of the Myanmar cultural heritage is being done with Italy's assistance under the supervision of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Myanmar Information and Culture Ministry and Italian Foreign Ministry have touched on increased cooperation in the aspects, training for human resources development of Myanmar and further cooperation in cultural and information sectors. The capacity building programs for preservation of Myanmar cultural heritage cover three sectors, namely on-job training to draw management plan for safeguarding sites cultural heritage in ancient Pyu and Bagan cities in need of urgent preservation, cultural heritage data management with the application of geography information system, and policy and technological assistance to Myanmar in the process to nominate world heritage sites. Myanmar is nominating three Pyu city states -- Beikthano, Hanlin and Sri Kestra to the world heritage list. Evidences including Pondaung and Ponnya Primates have been found in Myanmar, showing the country's rich cultural heritage and evolution through the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Pyu culture has been discovered through evidences from the three Pyu city states. Myanmar is also working in cooperation with the UNESCO to sign the In-tangible Cultural Heritage Convention to win a place in the world's heritage list for the country's tangible cultural heritage. The two sides also met on capacity building project to safeguard cultural heritage in Myanmar and an expert seminar took place on world heritage nomination of Pyu ancient cities. Italian government funded 400,000 euro with a work capacity building project launched by the UNESCO for preservation of Myanmar cultural heritage. The project, which is aimed at developing of management and imparting of knowledge, is the first of its kind launched with the assistance of the UNESCO in a decade. In line with the principles of World Cultural Heritage Convention, the project covers three spheres -- protection and management of cultural heritage region, adopting of Myanmar cultural heritage management and presenting its name to the list of World Culture. With the participation of UNESCO, foreign experts will actively engage in the preservation of Srelitra Pyu city, which is home to rich Myanmar cultural heritage and Bagan, which is home to Buddha religious edifices. It will take a year for the Archeological, National Museum and Library Department of the Myanmar Ministry of Culture to complete the tasks. Bagan also represents Myanmar's world famous tourist site where thousands of pagodas lie. Meanwhile, the first-ever Yangon Heritage Trust (YHT) Conference 2012 was launched recently to lay down a strategy for conserving the former capital of Yangon in the 21st century where century-old buildings exist. The conference dealt with challenge of urban conservation, setting the framework on regulations for conservation and planning, and historic urban landscape as a driver of development. Yangon's unique architectural heritage and invaluable collection of 19th and early 20th century buildings is today in peril from the effects of long neglect as well as the perhaps more pernicious consequences of recent commercial development. Beautiful century-old residential and commercial buildings in downtown Yangon have been gradually torn down for nearly twenty years, together with colonial-era house all around the city, often to be replaced with poorly designed new structures already at risk from collapse. There are 189 listed buildings and 11 ancients monuments in Yangon.