Sep 17 - Gibraltar World Heritage Bid Steering Committee Meets Ahead of Calpe Conference
Ahead of the opening of the Calpe Conference 2014 tomorrow morning, a steering committee meeting for Gibraltar’s UNESCO World Heritage bid was held at the Wessex Lounge of the Gibraltar International Airport. Speaking to the press, Professor Clive Finlayson Gibraltar Museum Director noted that the group, which includes other members of the Museum’s team, Government representatives, members of the Heritage Trust and GONHS, meets every quarter.
Speakers due to appear at the conference this week were also present at the meeting, including Professor Minja Yang, former Deputy Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Paris, and Dr Christopher Young who was the World Heritage policy advisor for the UK Government.
The meeting served to update all the stakeholders in Gibraltar’s Gorham’s cave bid, which is to be submitted in January. Professor Finlayson said that the purpose of the meeting was also to ‘continue [their] work, wrap up the draft of the nomination dossier and discuss a number of areas of action.’ 
Introducing the meeting, Deputy Chief Minister Dr. Garcia thanked the team for its work on the bid, adding that it was not only important for Gibraltar, but also globally, considering the recent announcement of the discovery of neanderthal engravings in on the site. Dr. Garcia added that he had taken a personal interest in the matter as a historian. He also said that the Government had committed resources to the bid and had been carrying out cliff stabilisation action, in the area. The Government sees the bid as a ‘medium term project’. He added that the ‘neanderthal issue’ was very significant to Gibraltar from a cultural, touristic and scholar’s point of view. ‘There’s a global aspect to the work which we are doing here,’ the Deputy Chief Minister concluded.
