The government of Uganda, through the Ministry of Tourism, has intensified efforts to secure UNESCO World Heritage status for the Kibiro Salt Producing Village and the Geometric Rock Art of the Lake Victoria Region.
This was revealed during the workshop held at the Golf Hotel in Entebbe, which brought together experts and stakeholders from the East African region to review, refine and advance the nomination dossiers for these two culturally significant sites.
While officiating the workshop, the State Minister for Tourism, Wildlife, and Antiquities, Martin Mugarra, emphasised the collective commitment of the region, especially the three nations (Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania), to safeguard and promote their shared cultural and natural heritage.
He highlighted that both sites are already on the UNESCO Tentative List and the draft nomination dossiers have been prepared and therefore lauded the collective commitment towards safeguarding and promoting Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda’s cultural and natural heritage.
“The Government of Uganda enacted the Museums and Monuments Act Cap 149 to protect heritage sites, including Kibiro and the geometric rock art sites. This legislation includes regulations that have gazetted 300 heritage sites” he noted.
In addition, Mugarra noted that Uganda has three World Heritage sites: two natural sites and one cultural site. The natural sites are Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, designated in 1994, and Rwenzori Mountains National Park, also designated in 1994. The cultural site is the Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi, recognized in 2001.
In the Permanent Secretary’s speech that was delivered by Geoffrey Sseremba, the undersecretary in the Ministry of Tourism, wildlife and Antiquities, Doreen Katusiime, noted that the Government of Uganda, which started this inscription a few years ago, remains committed to addressing the concerns raised by the World Heritage Committee on this effort to inscribe the geometric rock art on the World Heritage List.
“I am reliably informed that this heritage represents the rich pre-historic art of geometric rock art in the Lake Victoria basin of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania that our past ancestors left for us as a legacy. These inscriptions, if successful, are expected to contribute to meeting the target of the global strategy, which Africa has been pushing for more than a decade,” she highlighted.
She also noted that the Government of Uganda had submitted the first nomination dossier on Nyero and Related Geometric Rock Art sites to the World Heritage Committee. However, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) decided to defer the inscription to allow the State Party of Uganda to consolidate the significance of the site in the broader regional context of East Africa.
“The WHC also guided the government of Uganda to undertake further comparative analysis and to address issues concerning the protection and management of the geometric rock art sites. In particular, an emphasis was placed on the legal instruments required for the heritage sites”
On the issues of protection, the Permanent Secretary noted, “The legal instruments to protect geometric art sites in Uganda, as well as our salt village, the government of Uganda enacted a new law on Museums and Monuments Act Cap 149 for all heritage sites in Uganda. Along with the Act, there is a regulation prescribed in Schedule 2 that gazetted 300 heritage sites. I wish to take this opportunity to appeal to our counterparts in Kenya and Tanzania to do the same.”
Katusiime also explained that success in this endeavour requires Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania to implement inter-sectoral programs that identify and define the regionalsignificance of this geometric art heritage about other rock art sites already on the World Heritage List.
“Therefore, as the EAC, it is pertinent that we collaborate on strategies and tools for preserving and promoting rockart heritage in East Africa, while at the same time considering the existing national heritage laws in each country. Without this cooperative effort among Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, we risk losing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ensure that Africa’s geometric art is recognized on the World Heritage List,” she concluded.
According to Jacqueline Nyiracyiza Besigye, the acting commissioner for museums and monuments at the Ministry of Tourism, for any site to be considered a World Heritage Site, it has to be gazetted first, and also the technical team have to first identify the attributes, no different attributes that meet the outstanding universal value.
“We look at those attributes following the UNESCO operational guidelines, which are usually updated every year. And with our expertise, we can look at the attributes, including the cultural attributes, the educational values, the tourism values, the scientific values and the culture values. To check, are those cultural values or whatever values outstanding for example, if I use the case of Kibiro, I look at the salt making and get to see this salt making is only done in Uganda, and if it is done even in other places, what are the unique attributes that we have done in Uganda for the last 1000 years?”
In addition, she noted that Kibiro and rock art have been on the tentative list since 1997 alone, but in 2014, the list was improved by adding on Niero, Kakoro, Mokongoro, and Dore, the six sites in the Eastern Region, resulting in a serious national nomination.
The Kibiro Salt Producing Village holds a unique salt extraction tradition practised for over 800 years. This intricate process, exclusively carried out by women, involves leaching saline soil and boiling the brine to produce ash salt, a method passed down through generations.
The World Heritage List would bring not only global recognition, but also vital support for conservation, community development, and sustainable tourism. For Kibiro, this recognition is not just symbolic, it is transformative.
The Kibiro Salt Producing Village vividly exemplifies an Outstanding Universal Value of a distinctive salt production industry underpinned by a matriarchal system supported by Indigenous Knowledge Systems and practices and Living Heritage that has sustained the local population for over 900 years and possesses the potential to endure for forthcoming generations.
Spanning across Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, the Geometric Rock Art sites in the Lake Victoria Region offer a window into the spiritual and cultural lives of ancient communities.These sites, adorned with red geometric motifs painted by Pygmy hunter-gatherers between 1,000 and 5,000 years ago, are believed to hold spiritual significance related to fertility and community rituals.
The transnational nomination of these sites aims to address the under representation of East African rock art on the World Heritage List.
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