Associació PrioritatAssociaton Prioritat

The UNESCO candidature process involves a series of requirements and procedures – both academic and institutional – to be met and followed and a commitment to managing the candidate region. PRIORITAT is planning and coordinating the tasks connected with the candidature, relying on the involvement and support necessary at each stage. As of 2014 the Priorat county council and the Tarragona provincial authority have joined the bid process by setting up a three-member working group with the aim of implementing the jointly-prepared road map for the process and obtaining the institutional involvement and resources to make it possible.

The values upon which the body and the candidature itself are founded are the basic pillars upon which a specific development model for our area must be based. A regional model of which our cultural landscape forms the backbone because it reflects a history of constant interaction and provides the basis for proposals for a sustainable future.

Inclusion in the World Heritage List of UNESCO means recognition of specific heritage properties at global level. In other words, international recognition of the value of a rural model which has managed to combine the living agrarian tradition of the Mediterranean region with innovation and creativity with a view to the future.

Priorat’s landscape represents this interaction in an inland Mediterranean region in an exceptional way. It boasts a diversity, a complexity, a clarity and an intangible dimension, maintained over the years and still alive today, that make it worthy of recognition by UNESCO.

One important effect of the recognition by UNESCO is the increase in self-esteem and therefore in the will to make use of local resources and seek to exploit them in a sustainable, long-term way – and consequently to work to make them known and appreciated both locally and elsewhere.

This project was born and has been sustained, from the start and throughout the process, by the civil society of the Priorat. This makes it an exceptional case in terms of the origin and formulation of the candidature, and this is something that benefits us with regard to UNESCO, which attaches special value to the involvement of communities in these processes.

This feature also means that it involves constant work by the supporters of the candidature, on different levels:

• Explanation and dissemination within the local community (people, businesses and organisations), to convince different groups to become involved and participate actively.
• Seeking support and cooperation agreements in the academic world and contributions by different specialists in terms of preparing the materials necessary to draw up the final bid dossier, in line with the script laid down by the World Heritage Convention.
• Achieving the support, recognition and involvement of institutions and political representatives at local, national and international level. The Priorat-Montsant-Siurana candidature as a Mediterranean mountainous agrarian cultural landscape is now jointly backed by PRIORITAT, the Priorat county council and the Tarragona provincial authority.

This is an ambitious regional initiative, one with a future which enjoys a broad consensus in the community (brought together in PRIORITAT) and national public support. As well as the approval of the Catalan government, and declarations of support by the Catalan parliament and the Tarragona provincial authority, it is backed by the two important neighbouring town councils of Tarragona and Reus.

The academic, university and institutional sphere (the Rovira i Virgili University, the master’s programme in landscape and heritage intervention and management at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Landscape Observatory, Lleida University, the onomastics office of the Institute of Catalan Studies, El Solà foundation and others) also gives its support to our project, through the involvement of specialists and partnership agreements to provide studies on which to base the arguments in the bid dossier.