ABU DHABI - The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) hosted a workshop on falconry on Tuesday in preparation for submitting a file for the registration of the falconry as a world intangible heritage at the UNESCO before the end of this month.
Countries participating in the two-day workshop include the UAE, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Qatar, Belgium, France, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Mongolia, South Korea, and Spain.
"The United Arab Emirates, via the directions of our wise leadership, spared no effort in supporting projects to preserve our heritage, particularly falconry, which is an important part of our culture and our deep-rooted history," said Mohammed Khalaf Al Mazrouei, Director General of ADACH.
"Our country continues its tireless efforts in supporting UNESCO plans and programmes that aim to preserve the cultural and human heritage of mankind," he added.
Mazrouei stressed that ADACH "has put a lot of effort during the past years for the preparation of the falconry file, and has succeeded in coordinating efforts between different countries in the world, to persuade them to submit the file of falconry to the UNESCO as a joint international effort to ensure its acceptance in the list of intangible cultural heritage."
He thanked the 12 countries which are participating at the workshop.
"We in the United Arab Emirates highly value the positions of countries such as France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Spain, Korea, Mongolia and fraternal Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Morocco, the Syrian Arab Republic and the State of Qatar to participate in the registration of the falconry file at the UNESCO heritage list."
The ADACH initiative for registering falconry at the UNESCO list "is only one of our projects which represent the traditional model of coexistence and cultural integration among the peoples of the world," said Mazrouei.
Dr. Nasser Al Hemeeri, Director of the Department of the Intangible Heritage at ADACH, said that during these two days the workshop aims to put the falconry registration file in its final form.
This is done, he explained, in accordance with the standards set for the registration, and representing all of the participating states when submitting it to the secretariat of UNESCO before the August 31st, 2009 deadline for applications this year.
The file will be reviewed in May 2010 by a committee of experts at the UNESCO with other requests submitted from different counties. The final decisions will be announced on September 2010.
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