Jonathon Keats lobbies for Wikipedia's addition to the World Heritage List:
Change is not necessarily antagonistic to preservation. That false assumption has put the World Heritage Committee at odds with the very people whose heritage Unesco claims to support. For example, the people of Djenné, Mali, whose mud-brick houses were inscribed on the list in 1988, have ever since been bullied by heritage professionals to avoid making alterations that would facilitate modern amenities like showers and tile floors. One irate local compares a room in his neighbor’s dirt house to a grave. Unesco’s static concept of physical heritage is exterminating the evolving intangible heritage of the Djenné people. Wikipedia protects the past without impeding the future.
The Dish 