Decision of the Intergovernmental Committee: 16.COM 7.A.10

The Committee,

  1. Having examined document LHE/21/16.COM/7.a,
  2. Recalling Chapter V of the Operational Directives and its Decisions COM 14.02 and 12.COM 8.c.2,
  3. Expresses its appreciation to China for submitting its second report on the status of the element ‘Qiang New Year festival’, inscribed in 2009 on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, which was initially due for submission by 15 December 2017;
  4. Takes note of the efforts described in the report submitted by China to safeguard the element, in particular by enhancing the resilience of the Qiang communities in a post-disaster situation, establishing regular training programmes and sustaining active community involvement, ensuring support to the bearers of the element at various levels of governance and encouraging the research, promotion and transmission of the element;
  5. Invites the State Party to continue providing financial support to masters and apprentices and to ensure the transmission of the element and of Qiang language learning, the widest possible participation of communities, especially young people, the integration of the element in the education system and respect of customary practices related to the element;
  6. Further invites the State Party to pursue its efforts of restoring spaces needed for the practice of the element, of promoting the element, including through museums, and of developing sustainable tourism activities related to it while providing some ethical guidance on the safeguarding of the element, and recalls the importance of ensuring that the communities concerned are the primary beneficiaries of such activities and of avoiding any possible decontextualization of the element;
  7. Encourages the State Party to regularly consult with the Qiang people on the functioning of the Experimental Zone for the Safeguarding of Qiang Culture Ecology;
  8. Further takes note that the Secretariat informed the State Party nine months prior to the deadline of 15 December 2021 about the required submission of its third report on the status of this element, and further encourages the State Party to submit it on time.

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