Hosted by the UNESCO Chair on Applied Studies of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the “Perspectives of Intangible Cultural Heritage” series meets once a month. The overarching goal is to explore what difference the category of intangible cultural heritage makes, and could make, in today’s globalised world and to explore common themes between heritage studies and other areas of research and practice.

 

8 October 2026

Riin Alatalu

Living Heritage and Traces of Heritage on Wooded Meadows

 

The division of cultural heritage into intangible and tangible categories is always arbitrary; after all, our Song Festival Arena, one of the Estonian architectural highlights, is meaningless without our tradition of song celebrations.

It is interesting to note that Estonia has more entries on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List than on the World Heritage List, where only Tallinn’s Old Town and the points of the Struve Geodetic Arc have been included from Estonia.

Estonia is, however, preparing to nominate the wooded meadows for inclusion on the World Heritage List. Wooded meadows are a unique ecosystem that has emerged from the interplay between human activity and nature and has very high natural value. For heritage conservationists, this is a particularly complex undertaking, as there are relatively few physical objects on which to base the assessment of their value. This makes the intangible cultural heritage all the more important – traditions and customs linked to nature, as well as working practices and ways of life born of practical necessity.

The Estonian Academy of Arts, together with its students, has been mapping the values of wooded meadows for several years now and assessing their suitability in line with UNESCO’s expectations as part of the Woodmeadowlife project. A book on the subject is also due to be published shortly.

 

Riin Alatalu is an Associate Professor at the Department of Cultural Heritage and Conservation of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

 

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