IN STEREO

If UNESCO removes the title, there’s more risk still. People think that their property is a social burden that prevents them from doing many things. If they remove us, people will say, “There is no preservation of heritage.” We may have that risk [of] destroy[ing] more of our heritage. Now, through municipal policy, we have the ability to declare our areas heritage. So, if we prioritise that as a municipality, that’s a priority. We would make a declaration that the whole city is cultural heritage so we prohibit people from destroying it. Then we must work on campaigns of education and awareness: that we have like an inheritance, that it is our raw material. It makes us different from other people. People are interested, and we have to work so that people see that everything we have in Potosí is important, and that they as Potosínos are also important.

If we are no longer a World Heritage site, none of us can claim that. So we need to start working. It would be, as we say, community based. But this kind of tourism shouldn’t only be in rural areas, but also in the community in the urban area. So we want to work that way, so that the whole population can really benefit from tourism and so not just a few, but everyone gets involved. It can be generated: new souvenirs, other types of services that the population itself can offer, that they can get involved with. One thing is heritage preservation, to use part of the heritage as tourist products – but we also have to give part of the heritage to give spaces to the population. We have to start using it. At some point, these can be part of the tourist attraction, but we do not think about the population. So we have to start thinking first about ourselves, so we can live well. – Jimena