UNESCO to review 11 cultural traditions in need of urgent safeguarding

Eleven forms of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding, from Paraguay’s Ñai'ũpo ceramic art to woodblock printing in Vietnam, will be reviewed in December for possible inscription on a UNESCO protection list.

The UNESCO committee, which aims to protect and promote intangible cultural heritage, will meet in New Delhi from December 8-13 to examine nominations for the three lists it maintains under a 2003 convention.

Besides reviewing endangered cultural traditions, officials will also review 54 nominations for a list that recognizes and promotes the diversity of cultural practices globally, and one proposal for a list that “highlights programs, projects and activities that best reflect the principles and objectives of the convention.”

But the most closely watched deliberations will focus on the 11 traditions seeking a place on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, a designation reserved for practices facing immediate risk of disappearance without targeted national and international support.

This year, the 11 countries that have applied are: Albania, Barbados, Belarus, Kenya, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Albania: Art of playing, singing and making the lahuta

The Albanian nomination describes a single-stringed wooden instrument whose epic songs and performance style have bound northern communities together for generations. Today, only a dwindling circle of elderly practitioners continues to craft and play the lahuta, with few structured opportunities for youth to learn. Despite renewed interest among diaspora communities, transmission remains largely informal and fragile, leaving the practice at risk without coordinated safeguarding support.

Barbados: Landship performances

Barbados is asking UNESCO to help protect its Landship tradition, a community practice where members dress in naval-style uniforms and perform choreographed maneuvers like the “wangle lo” and “Bessie down” to the rhythms of a Tuk Band. The tradition once had dozens of groups across the island, but only two, the Barbados Landship Association and the Rose Hill Tuk Band, remain today as older members retire and fewer young people join. Some signature movements can no longer be performed, ranks have gone unfilled, and one group no longer has its own band.

Belarus: Negliubka textile tradition of Vetka District

Belarus is seeking protection for the Negliubka textile tradition, a village-based craft that includes intricate weaving, embroidery, and the making of brightly patterned towels and folk costumes. The work relies on specialized techniques that have been kept alive by only a small group of skilled craftswomen. Younger people are leaving rural areas or choosing other professions, and many older practitioners who carried the knowledge are no longer able to work.

Portugal: Naval carpentry art of the Aveiro region

Portugal’s file spotlights the traditional shipbuilders of the Aveiro lagoon, where only five surviving masters still build the region’s distinctive Moliceiro boats by hand. They were named as António Esteves, Arménio Almeida, Felisberto Amador, José Rito and Marco Silva, as well as Moliceiros painter, José Manuel Oliveira. Once essential to harvesting aquatic plants for fertilizer, the boats now serve tourism, but their construction depends on knowledge that has nearly vanished. Decorative painting traditions and four annual regattas remain popular with the community but the master-apprentice chain is dangerously thin.

Philippines: Asin tibuok, the artisanal sea salt of Bohol

The Philippines proposes safeguarding a rare sea-salt tradition in which coconut husks are soaked, burned, filtered and boiled into distinctive egg-shaped salt forms. Once widespread across Bohol, the practice now survives in only a few family-run workshops, with the labor-intensive process deterring younger generations.

Panama: Construction processes of the quincha house and the junta de embarre

Panama seeks to safeguard the communal construction system behind quincha houses, traditional homes built from timber, clay soil, hay and cooperative labor. The practice historically relied on elders with deep knowledge of soils, plants and structural techniques. But the practice of building the homes, once a symbol of solidarity and ecological building, is at risk of disappearing.

Kenya: Mwazindika, the spiritual dance of the Dawida community

Kenya’s submission describes Mwazindika, a ritual dance performed for healing, rites of passage, communal protection and ancestral communication. The practice relies on elders who lead sacred preparatory rites and on women who serve as the primary dancers and carriers of the tradition. With younger generations increasingly disengaged from traditional spirituality, practitioners report a steep decline in participation.

Pakistan: Boreendo, an ancient Sindhi folk instrument

Pakistan nominates the Boreendo, a clay wind instrument traced to the Indus Valley Civilization and now kept alive by only one master musician, Ustaad Faqeer Zulfiqar, his four students, and Allah Jurio Kunbhar—the only person who knows how to make a Boreendo. Once used by herders and at village gatherings, the Boreendo has fallen out of favor amid modern musical preferences and limited economic prospects. With the craft concentrated in two aging experts and only a handful of students, communities describe an urgent need to save it from “extinction.”

Paraguay: Ñai’ũpo art, ancestral ceramic craftsmanship

Paraguay’s nomination centers on Ñai’ũpo, an Indigenous ceramic tradition maintained primarily by elder women in rural communities. The craft involves extracting wild clay, mixing materials by hand, forming vessels using coiling techniques, and finishing them with natural pigments and long wood-firing processes. As masters age and fewer young women take up the demanding work, practitioners warn that the transmission chain is breaking, threatening a practice long tied to Guaraní identity and Paraguayan culinary culture.

Uzbekistan: Art of crafting and playing the kobyz

Uzbekistan’s nomination centers on the kobyz, a bowed string instrument tied to the nomadic heritage of Karakalpak storytellers known as zhyrau. Knowledge of crafting the instrument and the throat-singing performances associated with it is now limited to a small group of master makers and performers. With modern musical tastes reshaping cultural life and few apprentices able to commit to the demanding techniques, the community warns that both instrument-making and performance traditions face imminent decline.

Vietnam: Đông Hồ folk woodblock printings

Only four multigenerational households still practice the 500-year-old craft of Đông Hồ woodblock printing, once a hallmark of Tết celebrations. The laborious process involves carving woodblocks, preparing natural pigments, and printing on scallop-coated dó paper. But Vietnam said the practice has become economically unsustainable for artists, and many former printing families have shifted to other work.