Global Heritage Fund

Global Heritage Fund (GHF) is a non-profit organization that operates internationally. Its mission statement says that it exists to protect and preserve significant and endangered cultural heritage sites in the developing world, through scientific excellence and community development. GHF specifically focuses its funding and conservation efforts on the developing world because of the scarce human and technical resources in those countries to protect their historical treasures, and for the economic promise heritage sites have as community-based, responsibly-managed tourist destinations.

Founded in California in 2002, GHF has since invested over $25 million and secured $20 million in co-funding for 19 global heritage sites to ensure their sustainable preservation and responsible development. Its "Preservation by Design" model guides each selected heritage project through an integrated process of community-based planning, science, development and partnerships to enable long-term sustainable preservation and responsible development of global heritage sites.

GHF projects

Projects are selected by GHF's Senior Advisory Board. GHF states that selection is based on a number of factors, including cultural significance of site, need of country or region in question, and high potential for sustainable preservation through community involvement.

Current projects

Based on information from their website, GHF has 13 currently active projects:

• Banteay Chhmar, Cambodia
• Chavín de Huántar*, Peru
• Ciudad Perdida, Colombia
• Cyrene*, Libya
• Fujian Tulous*, China
• Göbekli Tepe, Turkey
• Hampi*, India
• Rakhigarhi, India
• Marcahuamachuco, Peru
• Mirador, Guatemala
• Pingyao*, China
• Ur, Iraq
• Wat Phu*, Laos

(* indicates a UNESCO World Heritage Site)

Completed projects

GHF has ended its work on six sites:

• Çatalhöyük, Turkey
• Foguang Temple*, China
• Izborsk, Russia
• Kars, Turkey
• Lijiang*, China
• My Son*, Vietnam

(* indicates a UNESCO World Heritage Site)

GHF team

Vincent L. Michael, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of Global Heritage Fund. Vince began working with GHF in 2008, visiting the Pingyao project in China as a member of the Senior Advisory Board (SAB), and then completing a mid-term assessment of the site in 2011. He then became Chair of the SAB in 2011 and joined GHF as Chief Conservation Officer in 2012, before being elected Executive Director. Vince was the John H. Bryan Chair in Historic Preservation at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was Director of the Historic Preservation program from 1996 to 2010. Vince is a Trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the nation’s premier private preservation organization, where he serves as Vice Chair of the Preservation and Sites Committee and Vice Chair of the Diversity Task Force. A professional preservationist since 1983, Vincent worked on the creation and interpretation of the Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor, the nation’s first heritage area. He was a planner and advocate for Landmarks Illinois for eight years and has served on their Board for the last decade. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago and received a Trustee’s Award from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts to complete his doctorate in architectural history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is Chair Emeritus of the National Council for Preservation Education and of the Site Council for the Gaylord Building, a National Trust property. He also served on the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council and Oak Park Historic Preservation Commission. He began his international work in 1997 and brought graduate students to work on heritage sites in Ireland, China and Peru eight times between 1998 and 2012. He also represented the United States in preservation education conferences in the Ukraine and Sweden in 2006 and 2007. Since 2003 he has worked to preserve the Weishan Heritage Valley in Yunnan, China, with the Center for US-China Arts Exchange at Columbia University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, frequently bringing student study groups to the Southern Silk Road city. He has also been involved in the preservation of the Cercado World Heritage Site in Lima, Peru. Vince has lectured on heritage conservation, architecture, geography, art and history throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. His writings include the books The Architecture of Barry Byrne and Chinese Old City Weishan as well as articles in Design Issues, Future Anterior, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Traditional Building, and forum journal. Vincent’s blog, Time Tells (vincemichael.wordpress.com) has been cited as noteworthy by traditional media.

Recent initiatives

Global Heritage Network

In 2010, GHF launched Global Heritage Network (GHN), an early warning and threats monitoring system that uses satellite imaging technology and ground reporting to enable international experts and local conservation leaders to clearly identify and solve imminent threats within the legal core and protected areas of each site.

Saving Our Vanishing Heritage

In October 2010, GHF released a report titled Saving Our Vanishing Heritage: Safeguarding Endangered Cultural Heritage Sites in the Developing World. The report surveys 500 major archaeological and heritage sites in developing countries to evaluate current loss and destruction, conservation and development. It identifies nearly 200 of these sites as "At Risk” or “Under Threat,” and 12 as “On the Verge” of irreparable loss and destruction. The Vanishing report stated that there were five accelerating man-made threats facing global heritage sites in developing countries: development pressures, unsustainable tourism, insufficient management, looting, and war and conflict.

External links

• Official website