Some 80 ministers of culture and other relevant officials, representing around 100 nations, are currently meeting in Istanbul for what is thought to be the first round-table to discuss possible government action in preserving the world’s intangible cultural heritage, vested in languages, customs, songs, plays, dances, celebrations and craft skills. ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage, a Mirror of Cultural Diversity’, a two-day discussion opened yesterday by UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura, enshrines the idea that the intangibles are vital in distinguishing cultures from one another, and deserve to be preserved for future generations just as much as sites like the Egyptian pyramids. ‘Just like historic sites and monuments of tangible cultural heritage as well as parks and landscapes of our natural heritage, they are vulnerable to the effects of globalisation, mass tourism and war,’ according to a statement from UNESCO, which believes that all countries should create inventories of their intangible cultural heritage. The task is all the more urgent because, as Matsuura emphasises, ‘intangible cultural heritage is not just the memory of past cultures, but is also a laboratory for inventing the future.’ To do nothing, he warns, ‘would be a breach of our obligations to future generations. For societies that neglect their vital core are fated to perish.’ The Istanbul meeting follows UNESCO member states’ adoption of the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, and last year’s proclamation of the ‘Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’, which listed 19 cultural spaces or forms of popular expression from all over the world, including Italy’s Sicilian puppet theatre, Bolivia’s Oruro carnival, China’s Kunqu opera, the music of the transverse trumpets of Côte d'Ivoire’s Tagbana community, and the cultural space of Morocco’s Djamaa el-Fna Square in Marrakesh. Further listings are expected to follow in 2003.