Hawk Board UNESCO Conference

A Hawk Board UNESCO Conference was held at Vowley in early July, to showcase how and why the application needs to be put together and why it is so important to falconry.

Gary Timbrell, IAF

A great team of speakers was put together from many government departments, including DEFRA, APHA, JNCC and the new department responsible for processing UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage bids at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. A very interesting presentation by the International Association for Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey, the accredited NGO providing advisory service to UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee (NGO-90006) was listened to with great interest. We also had speakers from most falconry related activities, vets and other experts. Other field sports and Countryside Alliance speakers gave very good examples of the danger field sports are in, especially now we have a new government which has very different views to the previous government.

For the UNESCO National nominations to the ICH inventory, each country of the United Kingdom has to put forward separate applications for Intangible Cultural Heritage to their own devolved governments and Hawk Board will be helping put together independent teams for each country. There will of course be quite a lot of overlap in these applications and Hawk Board hope to work with all the groups to put together strong applications. It should be remembered that the application is for the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Falconry as specified in the UNESCO Falconry Inscription, which uses the definition of falconry:

“Falconry is the traditional art and practice of training and flying falcons (and sometimes eagles, hawks, buzzards and other birds of prey)”.

Falconry related activities will be included in the application. The diversity of falconry and falconry related activities are an important part of the inscription because it has to be shown how falconry is moving forward culturally. The inscription isn’t just about the past and present but falconry’s journey into the future. It isn’t just about protecting the art of falconry but how falconry is part of UK culture and how it interacts within society. The international inscription doesn’t shy away from the fact that falconry is a hunting art.