Il Patrimonio dell'Umanità UNESCO: il caso della Tunisia

The core of the research is the protection of cultural heritage, which has become important and well-known following the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage adopted by UNESCO in 1972, resulting in a list of assets (sites UNESCO) to be preserved and valued. With the establishment of such an international legislation the heritage is redeemed from the particular values tied to the national pride and it is inserted in the global scale of the policies of the same heritage. Regarding this topic, in the geographic world, the discipline involved in the scientific debate concerning the “cultural heritages” is that of cultural geography. The first result and benefit after the registration of a site is its conservation and valorization. The sites of UNESCO, moreover, could and should exercise a direct or indirect influence on all aspects of cultural, social, economic, political and territorial interests. The research presents also a survey on the field completed in Tunisia. The choice of this country is associated to the growing attention towards cultural heritage in the Mediterranean basin. The Tunisian sites of Unesco are analyzed not focusing only on the value and meaning of each heritage, but reviewing them in a more complex geographic analysis. For this reason, the research verifies the beneficiaries and functions of the heritage as territorial resources, as well as the programs of improvements, which the sites are currently been considered. The study also covers the imbalances in the distribution of state funds and in the development of the areas, and attempts to give an answer elaborating an operating proposal of valorization of the North-Western area of Tunisia.