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monitoring. One explanation for this regrettable state of
affairs probably lies in the size and make-up of the staff.
National Park staff consists of and are graded as:
•= Technical: one administrator (usually
professionally an engineer);
•= Operational: 18 parkguards and supervisors(of
primary or secondary school educational level);
•= Administrative: administrative assistants, finance
officers, ticket sellers and secretaries (with qualifications
appropriate to their position).
All staff is involved in personnel development schemes
and appropriate training. Nevertheless, it is not clear how
the protection of cultural resources is actually handled in
terms of developing policies, staffing, training, and
financial resources to meet their distinctive needs. Nor is
there any management plan for the nominated area as a
World Heritage site, presumably because it is assumed that
the (22-year-old) National Park plan will suffice. Yet a
World Heritage site is not the same as a National Park: the
objectives of the two are different. Were the nomination to
be inscribed, perhaps that could be the occasion for a
review and update of the existing plan, taking into account
the above points and, overall, the management needs of a
World Heritage site eg systematic monitoring
arrangements.
Justification by the State Party (summary)
The Park contains masterpieces of human creative genius
(Jose Maria and Ramoncito caves) where more than 1,500
pre-Hispanic pictographs attributed to the Taino culture
show a plastic beauty making them deserving of the title of
authentic masterpieces of rock art.
The archaeological resources of the Park include intact and
documented evidence of the first cultural contact in the
Caribbean between European and indigenous people, and
of the consequential extermination of the latter.
The archaeological assemblage in the Park has a high
research potential and provides a unique testimony to
Taino culture, which was terminated as a living tradition in
the 1520s.
The archaeological assemblage in the Park constitutes in
general one of the best-preserved areas of Taino culture,
containing several important examples, in an exceptional
state of conservation, of the only type of construction –
ball courts – known in the Antilles in pre-Hispanic times.
3. ICOMOS EVALUATION
Actions by ICOMOS
A joint ICOMOS/IUCN mission visited the site in May-
June 2002. ICOMOS has also consulted its ISC on Rock
Art.
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Conservation
Conservation history:
The nominated area has remained basically undisturbed
since its abandonment in the early 16 th century. Human
intrusion has been minimal. The National Park was created
in 1975. Since then human modification has been both
controlled and deliberately constrained by natural and
archaeological conservation policies while at the same time
encouraging scientific research.
State of conservation:
The archaeological deposits are generally in an excellent
state of conservation. The rock art in the caves is overall
(80%) in pristine condition e.g. not a single flaw has been
detected in the 300 pictographs in Ramoncito cave and the
not one of the three later graffiti have affected the
thousands of paintings in Jose Maria cave. Throughout the
caves, some panels are flaking, owing to lack of humidity
(10% in Ramoncito), and, especially in the buffer zone,
some have been altered during later occupation or by
vandalism eg in Berna cave some of what are suspected to
be among the earliest pictographs are in poor condition.
Unauthorised excavation has damaged Vallelico cave but
archaeological deposits in other caves, at the settlements
and the cemeteries within the Park ‘have never suffered
significant alteration by human action.’ Exceptions include
some of the springs or sinkholes, known as places for
offerings and therefore looted in some cases where
accessible. The major sinkhole La Aleta has suffered in
this way but this led to proper archaeological investigation,
which showed an excellent state of preservation of organic
material. Similar results come from similar investigation at
Chicho spring. Neither of the two known shipwrecks has
been touched. Overall, scientific archaeological excavation
is recent and so far confined to a small number of sites e.g.
near Mano Juan and Catuano.
Risk Analysis:
The main threats area:
•= Development
•= Tourism
•= Decline of traditional subsistence
•= Poverty
•= Natural disasters
These are considered separately:
Development: Most alarming is the statement in the
nomination dossier that, despite the protected area status of
the Park, ‘in the near future it is not possible to guarantee
that [the Park] is not going to be subject of a government
decision, motivated by economic pressures, that would
result in the alteration of the Park’s limits.’
It is understandable that ‘the shoreline of [the Park] is
desired by hotels to develop more and bigger hotels’, as the
nomination says, but the National Park designation is
precisely to inhibit such development in the interests of
natural/cultural conservation.
If the nomination moves forward to inscription, the
Committee would need to seek some assurance that such a
reduction of the Park would not occur.