Accra, Sept. 8, GNA - Professor George Hagan, Chairman of the National Commission on Culture, on Monday observed that the pressure of economic need and greed, coupled with Africa's quest to discover and exploit natural resources for development had destroyed many heritage and sacred sites.

"These destructive trends challenge us to determine whether African heritage sites have any contemporary relevance and whether we can preserve and make sustainable use of them," he said. Prof. Hagan made the remarks at the opening of the Ninth Africa Conference on the Intangible Aspects of Sacred Heritage Sites being hosted by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) with financial support of the government of Sweden.

He called on African governments to device strategies to collect, collate, analyse, understand and evaluate the intangible heritage as a source of indigenous knowledge. Intangible heritage includes events, beliefs, myth, legend and practices of a community.

Prof. Hagan noted that Ghana had a great variety of sacred heritage sites, "between 2,000 and 4,000 as given by various specialists". "To uncover and appreciate some elements of the intangible heritage behind sacred sites, permit me to suggest a tentative classification - physical and nature bodies, nature sanctuaries, places of sacred rituals, early human habitations and ancient religious grooves. "You may find this classification applicable to other African countries."

Prof. Hagan noted that population growth and human settlement, hunting, mining, climate change and growth of foreign religion as against traditional beliefs were some of the key challenges affecting the survival of heritage sites. He said the Commission had drawn up a strategy to begin to map the sacred sites, collect and collate the indigenous intangible heritage associated with them.

"This knowledge would enable us to evolve strategies for protecting the sites, regulating their use and thus deriving great scientific, economic and socio-cultural benefits from them." Mr. Edmund Addo-Yobo, Head of Administration, GMMB, said heritage sites formed the basis of forging a corrective consensus on managing the environment and demonstrating the ability to regulate the physical landscape.

He noted that the conference was to afford participants the capacity to identify sacred sites and management conservation of intangible values of heritage sites.