The United Nations' cultural organisation, UNESCO, has wrapped up its latest meeting in Paraguay, where it recognised 63 more cultural products in need of heritage protection.
Products and practices from Aleppo soap to Japanese sake have now made it onto the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list, which grants protection to oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, and knowledge, practices and skills, according to the organisation's website.
So what is new on the list, and what do these cultural products and practices get from it anyway?
How it works
UNESCO was set to examine 63 nominations for Intangible Cultural Heritage protection at the Paraguay session this week.
The organisation announced on X all 63 made it through.
Twenty-four countries participated in the meeting, though Australia did not.
Notably, the meeting resulted in two cultural practices listed in need of urgent safeguarding — Reog Ponorogo performing art from Indonesia and Wosana ritual practices from Botswana.
Three were named on UNESCO's register for Good Safeguarding Practices, including Slovakia's School of Crafts, Ukraine's kobza and wheel lyre tradition, and Oman's Youth Sail Training Ship programme.
Other highlights on the list are Japanese sake, Aleppo soap, Parisian roof restoring and Serbian "naïve" art.
The Intangible Cultural Heritage list was first created in 2007, and more than 700 cultural products and practices have been added to it since.
A spot on the list means support for cultural practices, including UN funding and diplomacy for education programs, museum exhibits, festival circuits and other activities which keep them alive.
Those listed under Good Safeguarding Practices are a source for "inspiration" on how to promote important cultural practices, while those listed as in need of urgent safeguarding are considered to require more support — though it is unclear exactly what extra supports they receive.
Sake, soap and 'naïve' art
UNESCO recognised Japan's ancient process of sake brewing as an Intangible Cultural Heritage item on Wednesday, local time.
A Japanese delegation welcomed the announcement in Luque.
"Sake is considered a divine gift and is essential for social and cultural events in Japan," Takehiro Kano, the Japanese ambassador to UNESCO, said of the designation.
Sake is a smooth rice wine that plays a significant role in Japanese society and tradition. The beverage has seen a decline in popularity domestically even as international demand grows. Producers hope the UNESCO listing will accelerate their exports and renew interest in the tradition at home.
"This will help to renew interest in traditional sake elaboration," the ambassador said.
Aleppo's famous soap secured its spot on the list the previous day with the city again wracked by war.
Artisans have brewed olive and laurel oil in large pots for some 3,000 years in Aleppo, allowing the mixture to cool before cutting it into blocks of soap, and stamping them by hand.
"The collaborative production process promotes community and family unity," said UNESCO.
The soap joins the city's traditional music Al-Qudoud al-Halabiya — added amid a 2013 civil war — on the list. Aleppo itself was declared a World Heritage Site in 1986.
Of the 100 soap factories in the city only about 10 remain, with many having relocated to Damascus or neighbouring Turkey.
Two other highlights from the Paraguay session included "naïve" art and zinc roof restoration.
Naïve art is a form that depicts everyday scenes, landscapes, village life and farm surroundings with a childlike simplicity. It's unique to self-taught painters in Kovacica, an ethnic Slovak village in northern Serbia about 50 kilometres north-east of Belgrade.
The form originated from two farmers passing the time during the winter months of 1939, and has developed into a tradition among the country's ethnic Slovak minority.
"An identifying factor, the practice is a means of transmitting the cultural heritage and history of the Slovak community in Serbia," UNESCO said of the pick.
The organisation also spotlighted the zinc roof restoration techniques of Paris, which define the city's skyline.
"The restoration of a roof involves removing the old pieces of zinc, measuring and custom-cutting new pieces using a Parisian folding machine, and assembling and fixing the pieces onto the roof," UNESCO said.
"With nearly 80 per cent of the roofs in Paris covered in zinc, the city is a living archive of these skills that shape the unique identity of its urban landscape."
The zinc roofs have been a distinctive feature of Paris since the 19th century Haussmann era, from balconied apartment buildings along tree-lined avenues to historic churches that dot the French capital.
Roofers are hoping the UNESCO recognition will inspire others to join their ranks and improve their working conditions.
Australia not participating
Critics of the list, including cultural researchers Saúl Lázaro Ortiz and Celeste Jiménez de Madariaga, call the uptake of protections for intangible cultural products and practices "slow and controversial".
In a 2021 study, they noted the list's "Eurocentric vision" and questioned whether UNESCO's choices simply reflected "countries with greater economic weight" to support protection programs or specifically avoided the "bad press" of highlighting practices which were dying out.
They pointed out the "absence of significant countries" such as Canada, Switzerland, the USA and Australia from the Intangible Cultural Heritage convention, and the "imbalances" of power between the Europe-based committee and the nations with cultural products and practices on the list.
And they presented a paradox — the unifying threat to these products and practices is globalism, but "when local or regional heritage is considered to belong to all humanity, it is being globalised".
That same year, UNSW's Lucas Lixinski released a guide on the Intangible Cultural Heritage convention and spoke in an interview about why Australia did not sign on.
"Amongst the many reasons they will give you, the one that is the most common is that they're waiting for Indigenous recognition to be worked out. And then they will look at this treaty again," Professor Lixinski said.
"Intangible cultural heritage or folklore is Indigenous culture, but it is also much more."
"Everyone has intangible heritage. In Australia, Sydney's lifesaving culture in Bondi is a social practice that could potentially be recognised as intangible cultural heritage, for instance, or even the Anzac Day parade. So, the government has a very narrow understanding of what intangible heritage can actually be."
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