A trilateral workshop on "Landscape and Cultural Heritage in the Wadden Sea Region" was held on the invitation of the National Forest and Nature Agency of the Danish Ministry of the Environment and Energy in Ribe, Denmark on September 10 - 12, 1997. The workshop was attended by about 55 people from The Netherlands, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark. They represented a mix of historians, archaeologists, cultural geographers, planners, policy makers, administrators and representatives of non governmental organizations, most of them with a year-long experience working in the Wadden Sea. One of the important outcomes was the formation of a network between these people and their institutions.

The workshop took place in Ribes Vikinger, a rather new museum of the Viking Period and Middle Ages. The town of Ribe dates back to about 700 AD and was once one of Denmarks largest and most important trading towns and certainly a key to the Danish part of the Wadden Sea. Thousands of finds from the year-long excavation period together with full-size reconstructions, a multimedia- room, an excellent café and, not to forget, the medieval town right outside the Museum, set an excellent and inspiring frame for the discussions on Cultural Heritage Values in the region.

The Ministerial Declaration of the 8th Trilateral Wadden Sea Conference, which was held in Stade in October 1997, entailed, for the first time, a paragraph on the protection of the cultural heritage. The ministers took basis in the recommendations adopted at the Workshop on the Cultural Heritage in the Wadden Sea Region held in Ribe.

The Ministers decided that a mapping of the landscape and cultural heritage in the Wadden Sea Area, and in the relevant adjacent parts, should be done together with an inventory of the most important cultural-historical and landscape elements in the region. This mapping project will conclude with an assessment of which elements should be especially maintained and protected.

The decision of the Ministers also includes an investigation of the possibilities to develop cultural tourism in cooperation with the local authorities and other relevant organizations; an investigation of how cultural and landscape features can be taken into account in environmental impact assessments and, in a longer view, the preparation for a nomination of the Wadden Sea Region as a World Heritage Site, also for cultural heritage reasons.

Further Information:

Søren Espersen - organizer of the workshop

The National Forest and Nature Agency
Cultural Heritage Division
Haraldsgade 53
DK - 2100 Copenhagen Ø

E-mail: SRE@sns.dk

and: CWSS, Wilhelmshaven