The Most Endangered Cultural Heritage Sites campaign is an initiative of the Heritage Monitoring Project (HMP) to identify and raise awareness of cultural heritage sites that are at significant risk from natural or human made forces.
The campaign is an attempt to raise public awareness of the incredible courage and dedication of individuals and local organisations fighting uncaring administrations and land owners, developers, powerful international and local mining interests and natural forces as they try to save the country’s heritage. “More importantly, we aim to provide a platform for heritage activists to share with the public their vision for at-risk sites and how communities can assist overcoming these risks”, says HMP co-founder, Jacques Stoltz.
This year was the second time that the HMP issued a call to the public to nominate sites of concern. In total, more than 35 heritage sites across a range of categories were submitted. The nominations included historic buildings and structures, cemeteries, sites of conflict, museums, mills, memorials, a mission station, a fortification, a cultural park and even a jetty.
The overwhelming public response to the call for nominations continues to show that South Africans are deeply concerned about the state of their cultural heritage.
Yet again, most of the sites share common threats, such as a lack of maintenance, lack of funding or other resources, mining, development pressure, lack of development and investment, gentrification or, simply, official neglect.
“Each year’s nominations provide an opportunity to respond to emerging themes or trends, often a particular site tells us...
Hout Bay is the third oldest surviving formal settlement in South Africa, only Cape Town and Simon’s Town are its seniors. Its early existence was largely due to its abundance of timber, however, that valuable resource disappeared within 30 years of van Riebeeck’s arrival and agricultural activity was quickly established as a sustainable living for those who settled there. Around the turn of the twentieth century Cape Town’s and Wynberg’s sustainable water resources were exhausted resulting in the eventual construction of 5 dams which took most of the perennial water from the Hout Bay River and in 1966 the Apostle tunnel took the balance of the rest of the water rising from above that point. The result was the slow but sure death of agriculture and finally Kronendal farm ceased commercial operation as the oldest working farm in the country in 1995.
Hout Bay highlighted – for all the wrong reasons
A significant announcement was made on Heritage Day by a panel of heritage experts that one of Hout Bay’s heritage sites was listed as one of the “Ten most endangered heritage sites in SA”, Hout Bay’s EAST FORT (click here to view).
A sentry box still remains but the walls of the guard room and officers' quarters have collapsed in recent years (Dave Cowley)
Somehow the ten listed sites, all of which are acknowledged for their exceptional historic importance...
Every time South Africa loses a heritage site, a part of our history and our culture is lost, as well as the possibility of understanding something new about our past. South Africa’s top ten most endangered sites speak of the fragility of our shared national heritage. Whether they are precious archaeological sites, living cultural landscapes, early commercial industrial sites, colonial edifices or working class residential areas, the tenuousness of their survival is palpable in the submissions that were evaluated. The Most Endangered Cultural Heritage Sites campaign is an annual initiative of the Heritage Monitoring Project (HMP) and the Heritage Association of South Africa to identify and raise awareness of cultural heritage sites that are at significant risk from natural or manmade forces.
This year was the first time that the HMP issued a call to the public to nominate sites of concern. Between June and August, more than 46 heritage sites across a range of categories were submitted. The longlist of submissions included cultural landscapes, archaeological and palaeontological sites, built heritage, industrial heritage, burial sites, military sites, public open space and even South Africa’s oldest nature reserve (click here to view).
Over the past few weeks an expert panel of judges has been evaluating the submissions against a set of criteria:
The significance or importance of the site (most importantly, to the local community)
The urgency and extent of risks or threats faced
Feasibility of finding a solution or the feasibility of a proposed solution
