The objectives of the Symposium are as follows:

• To promote the Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto as a World Heritage in Indonesia and attract potential cooperation in the future action plan.
• To strengthen the World Heritage Sites in Indonesia as a medium for Indonesia’s cultural diplomacy to the world.
• To establish the Indonesian Site Managers Network.
• To identify and define the roles, commitments, and contributions of Site Managers for the UNESCO World Heritage System.
• To facilitate opportunities for sharing of thought-provoking initiatives in all aspects of Site Managers’ activities, including conservation, communication, development, education, best practices, innovative approaches, largest threats, and other day-to-day activities.
• To share the Site Managers’ day-to-day needs, experiences, challenges, and opportunities with peers and stakeholders, thus creating international awareness and recognition of the function of Site Managers as the frontliners in World Heritage site safeguarding and conservation. These experiences shall be incorporated and integrated as early as possible when key decision makers, including the World Heritage Centre and its advisory bodies, prepare capacity-building courses, World Heritage management guidelines or handbooks, or projects.
• To encourage dialogues between Site Managers and both international and national stakeholders on the perceptions and receptions of Site Managers in World Heritage Site Management, to reach pragmatic problem-solving at the site level.
• To strengthen the establishment of the World Heritage Site Managers Global Network.

Recap of We Are Site Managers 2024

The first We Are Site Managers International Symposium was held in George Town, Penang, Malaysia in March 2024 by George Town World Heritage Incorporated, the Site Manager of George Town UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was a bottom-up effort to seek formal recognition of the role of Site Managers and served as a collective platform for Site Managers around the world to share their experiences and difficulties while fostering friendships among them. As a result of the Symposium, the George Town Declaration was launched to facilitate the establishment of the World Heritage Site Managers Global Network.

We Are Site Managers 2025

The second edition of the We Are Site Managers International Symposium, held in Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto, Indonesia, is an effort to maintain and further establish collaborative relations between Site Managers and heritage practitioners of World Heritage properties. This session discusses the objectives, scopes, and impacts of this edition, ranging from local to global context.

Introduction of Sawahlunto Document and Action Plans

This session introduces the Sawahlunto Document and Action Plans, as among the main outputs of this edition of the symposium.

World Heritage Site Management in Indonesia: Potentials and Challenges

This session provides an opportunity for Site Managers in Indonesia to share the potentials, issues, and challenges they face at their respective sites. It serves as a platform to listen, reflect, and provide peer support for the Site Managers in Indonesia. This session also allows fellow Site Managers in Indonesia to discover common issues based on various highlighted cases from different regions in Indonesia. It is hoped that through this session, ideas for addressing these shared concerns will emerge.

Industrial Heritage Management

The Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto is a World Heritage site categorized as an Industrial Heritage. The significant impact of this Industrial Heritage lies in its cultural intersection resulting from the convergence of people from diverse backgrounds, the adoption of new technologies, and the contestation between local values and modernity. Therefore, managing an Industrial Heritage requires governance that suits the characteristics of the new cultural intersections, encompassing all dynamics–including their relevance to contemporary contexts at local, national, regional, and global levels.

This session delves deeper into the management and preservation of Industrial Heritage sites, comparing them with other categories of World Heritage, such as cultural sites and landscapes. It facilitates the comparison of experiences and evaluations from Site Managers of Industrial Heritage, covering issues on coal mining, legacies of high-tech applications in the past, the establishment of industrial cities, and others. These experiences and evaluations will be invaluable for participants in developing their respective cultural heritage.

World Heritage Community, Ownership, Identity, Interpretation and Presentation

The theme adopted in this session is one of the recommendations from the 43rd Session of the World Heritage Committee in Baku, Azerbaijan (2019) for the inscription of the Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto. In the recommendation, the Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto was requested to develop a comprehensive interpretation strategy and plan for its cultural heritage to ensure that all heritage components contribute to future development and that every stakeholder fully leverages their role, without neglecting the richness of the social history of its local communities and other communities involved within the site.

This session will explore in depth the strategies that have been–or could be–implemented to enhance public awareness, cultivate appreciation, and deepen understanding of the cultural value of a site. In this way, this session aims to inspire strategies for developing interpretations of cultural heritage into diverse governance frameworks that can be implemented by various stakeholders.

Resources for Site Managers

The Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto exemplifies a former industrial mining site where local communities have settled in its surrounding areas. The communities live in dwellings designed as housing along with their supporting infrastructure and facilities. When inscribed as a World Heritage site, the Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto was inseparable from the communities who are still residing in its residential facilities, buildings repurposed as offices, schools, hospitals, and others. The communities also possess memories and an intense connection to this former coal mining site. As such, the Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto represents a Living Heritage–a cultural heritage site inscribed as a World Heritage property and requires serious consideration of the cultural aspects that have evolved within it.

This session will discuss the strategies for managing Living Heritage so that it continues to benefit from, and to be preserved, managed, and developed by diverse communities. In this context, these communities play a crucial role in sustaining the World Heritage property. Additionally, this session will also explore strategic experiences that have been and can be implemented to ensure that a Living Heritage retains the values that can be transmitted to future generations.

Disaster Risk Management

Disaster risk management has become an international agenda since the United Nations held the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in 1994. For a disaster-prone area like Indonesia, efforts to reduce the impact of disasters on World Heritage properties require a systematic management plan. Disaster risk management of World Heritage sites should be carried out sustainably through the formation, strengthening, and capacity-building of communities, governments, and disaster risk-aware groups.

This session will explore various models for mitigating disaster risks to cultural heritage properties. Differences in disaster potentials across regions are not limited to comparative case studies but also serve as a basis for other regions to strengthen their mitigation networks, be it among cities or countries. This session will also discuss trends and potential future disaster risks that must be collaboratively anticipated among groups and countries worldwide.

World Heritage Without Site Managers

There are still some World Heritage properties that encounter obstacles in establishing their own Site Management agencies due to several reasons, such as regulations, authority, asset ownership, and others. The absence of a Site Management agency has a severe impact on the site’s capacity for preservation, safeguarding, development, and implementation of action plans for World Heritage site management. This session enables experience sharing by World Heritage sites that did not have–or still do not have–a Site Management agency/ Site Manager. This session will discuss the strategies to establish a Site Management agency or other alternative forms of such an entity.

This session serves as an important resource for the Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto to collect various suggestions and good practices in World Heritage management, especially those related to the roles, functions, responsibilities, challenges, and needs of site managers in the future.