The 48th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee opens on the 19th at BEXCO in Busan. It is the first meeting Korea has held in the 38 years since it joined the convention. About 3,000 people, including delegations from the 196 states parties along with the 21 committee member states, will gather in Busan and debate for some ten days over 33 nomination items, among them seven natural heritage sites and 22 cultural heritage sites. Included is the item on the phase-two extension of Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats.
The slogan Busan has put forward is "From Yesterday's Heritage to Tomorrow's Pride." Operating costs are set at 19.2 billion won, 17.9 billion won from the national budget plus 1.3 billion won from the city, and the city expects some 120,000 people to visit Busan during the session. The 47th session, held in Paris last July, chose Busan as the host city.
On the 17th, two days before the opening, results covering the state of management after inscription were released.
The Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream in Ulsan were placed on the World Heritage List on July 12 last year. A week after that, from July 19 to August 24, the central rock face of the Bangudae Petroglyphs in Daegok-ri, a National Treasure, was under water. The days of submersion over the past year came to 37 in all. The 2026 monitoring of heritage under priority management gave these petroglyphs a grade of C-1, meaning "caution and observation."
The number of days submerged swings from year to year. What was 18 days in 2021 and 23 days in 2022 jumped to 68 days in 2023, and in 2024 the rock face did not go under for a single day. Rainfall decides it.
Sayeon Dam stands 4.5 km down the Daegokcheon Stream, and this dam has no floodgates. It is a natural overflow type that spills once the water fills, so part of the rock face is submerged at a water level of 53 m and all of it goes below the water at 57 m. A project to install three floodgates 15 m wide and 7.3 m high along with a new intake tower is under way, aiming for completion in 2030.
The Inscriptions and Petroglyphs at Cheonjeon-ri, a National Treasure in the same valley, were also rated "caution and observation." It is a place where a rock face 2.7 m high and 10 m wide tilts upward at about 25 degrees and juts forward like an eave. Damage from moss and microorganisms is increasing, centered on the lower part of the carved surface, and an environment where moisture lingers is forming around the rock.
The National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage has attached displacement gauges at eleven points on the rock face and measures them at all times. The analysis so far is that movement caused by temperature is not wide in range and returns to place on a one-year cycle.
Steps toward inscription continue across the country. On the 17th, the National Citizens' Action to Protect the Nakdong River Estuary walked from the Busan Cinema Center to Centum City Station, calling together for the estuary's inscription as a World Natural Heritage site and for effective conservation measures. The city of Gimje in North Jeolla Province has begun a basic academic survey of the Geumsan Church mission station and plans to move on to a joint application for the tentative list once the survey ends at the end of the year.
The mayor of Boryeong in South Chungcheong Province visited the Korea Heritage Service on the 15th and proposed cooperation on the inscription of Chungcheong Suyeongseong Fortress. Busan itself is aiming for the 2030 inscription of the "Busan Heritage of the Wartime Capital during the Korean War."
Putting a name on the list and keeping that name use different muscles.
The session moves into its plenary from the 20th, and the closing ceremony is set for the 28th or 29th. Busan is pushing for the adoption of a "Busan Declaration" carrying the session's results, and has left the hosting of a global heritage forum and a UNESCO partner organization as later business. At the welcome dinner on the 23rd, the Busan Metropolitan Arts Company will stage "Baraneun Bada" and a table set with local ingredients will be served. Delegations will take part in a Busan heritage field trip touring the Busan Modern and Contemporary History Museum, the Provisional Capital Memorial Hall and traditional markets, and a World Heritage field trip visiting the Bangucheon petroglyphs and Bulguksa Temple.
For ten days, heritage discussions from countries around the world will go back and forth around Haeundae and Centum City, where BEXCO stands. In October, the 31st Busan International Film Festival opens at the Busan Cinema Center in the same city, and its lineup is unveiled on September 1.
The whales and deer drawn on the rock have endured water and wind for close to 7,000 years. Whether those drawings go under again is decided by the water level of the dam, not by the list. When the sentences made by the people gathered in Busan this week can reach that water level, inscription at last becomes a beginning.
