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The context of Ecuador’s world heritage, for sustainable development strategies

Abstract:

The Convention for the Protection of the Global, Cultural and Natural Heritage of 1972, arises from the need to identify some priceless and irreplaceable nation’s assets. The first global natural heritage, recognized by UNESCO, was Galapagos Islands in 1978 and the first cultural heritage of humanity was Quito Historic Centre in the same year. Ecuador is the most compact megadiverse country, because it has four climatic regions at the same time: the amazing ocean’s Coast, the Andean Highlands, the East- ern jungle and the insular wonder of Galapagos Islands; thus, assures us that we keep many assets, both natural and cultural. The aim of this article is to analyze the world heritages of Ecuador, and the possible candidates presented to UNESCO, with a matrix of SWOT analysis that allows us to set strategies that strengthen the current ones and lead for a greater achievement and awareness of this type of dignities. The methodology is based on the following steps: (i) Analysis and systematization of the existing information of the current world heritages of Ecuador, and the presented candidacies. (ii) Introduction to the new UNESCO designation called ‘Geopark’ in Ecuador and its impact, (iii) Realization of a SWOT analysis for the current world heritages in Ecuador and (iv) Proposal of strategies, through the SWOT matrix, for the strengthening, awareness and achievement of other assets. There are 1092 officially declared world heritages by UNESCO, Ecuador has eight. At the moment, Ecuador presented one Geopark candidacy and another five proposals to UNDP and five places were given candidacy to world heritage. This represents a set of places, values, but above all, humanity linked to this environment that offers a unique singularity and strengthens it due to its small territorial extension.