The international campaign plan for
safeguarding Wadi Hadramawt and Shibam

The plan of action aims at a multi-disciplinary and integrated approach, through action in the field of preservation, by conservation, by the enhancement of historic monuments and sites, by archaeological studies, by the encouragement of folk art and crafts, and by the reactivation of cultural traditions.

While the main efforts for implementing this project will be undertaken by the people of South Yemen and the Government of Democratic Yemen, international co-operation will be requested to complement these efforts. It will be especially necessary to supplement those resources which are lacking in the country itself.

The international campaign will contribute to the project by making available expertise, fellowships and sophisticated equipment, in addition to stimulating and collecting voluntary financial contributions from other national governments and from international aid and philanthropic organizations.

The Hadramawt campaign will concentrate on the valley as a geographical unit, emphasizing both within the country and outside the unique qualities of this great valley as a centre of civilized life from prehistoric times up to the present day. The aim will be to focus on the preservation of its most remarkable features, its principal pre-Islamic sites as well as its principal Islamic monuments. In particular, the campaign will have as its goal the protection and conservation of the ancient walled city of Shibam.

In other cases, however, the threat to the monuments is caused by new factors in the environment, the most severe of which is water in the ground: piped water has been brought into the towns and cities without adequate means being provided to take it away-there are usually either no sewers or they are undersized, cracked and leaking. The resulting effects on the clay buildings which stand on soluble clay subsoils have been continuous settlement, cracking and collapse. A second serious problem has developed from the easy availability of water, which has encouraged house owners to install equipment using ever larger quantities of it-showers, water-closets and washing machines. Any leak in the equipment, the water-pipes or the drains out of the houses has immediate and disastrous consequences for the soluble wall and floor materials of the clay-brick tower houses. Finally, the open drains which lead the waste waters away from the traditional houses have, in many cases, not been properly repaired with materials which matched the original. Instead, their repair has either been neglected or the work has been done using cement; the latter has simply cracked away within a few months, leaving the leaks as bad as they were before. (The same kinds of problem from the inadequate or technically careless repair of the old buildings has also produced serious consequences for the roofs, allowing them to leak badly during rains.)

The campaign will take as one of its targets the growth of a sense of participation by all the people of the country in the spirit of a national cultural identity, symbolized by Shibam. At the same time, it will help to generate an awareness at an international level of the historical and cultural significance of Shibam and the wadi, and thus encourage understanding and appreciation between differing cultures.

As part of the campaign, brochures, books and cinema and television films are being prepared to disseminate knowledge about Hadramawt, its history, its culture and its heritage in sites and buildings. No method is to be overlooked which might contribute to the campaign: articles in magazines, international radio programmes, the publication of tourist brochures and serious works of research on the subject, the preparation and sale of postcards, special postage stamps and posters.

A strategy for conservation

The government has established a High Committee of the Cabinet to assist the international campaign. As aid funds become available, it is hoped to set up an office for the protection and conservation of the sites and monuments in a central town in the wadi. This will be headed by a Director-General, a distinguished South Arabian, aided by an administrative staff and an executive technical organization. The latter will be composed of executive technical officers, specialized technical consultants and laboratory and research staff For practical reasons it will probably be necessary to utilize the services of internationally trained and experienced men for some of these tasks.

Priorities for immediate action will be established quickly, and resources directed at these targets first. Among them, the saving of the threatened portions of the old walled city of Shibam will take an important place.

A policy for action

Protection from further deterioration or destruction will be the first aim of the campaign. Only when this is ensured for all the major sites and monuments can attention be given to upgrading and rehabilitation. Finally, the presentation of the sites and antiquities to the public and the provision of amenities for visitors will be considered.

Protection from deterioration and destruction may necessarily involve the introduction of some amenities, such as dams, diversion banks, canals, sewerage systems and storm-water drainage. The second phase will involve the introduction of certain other amenities, such as the provision of permanently secure piped water supplies, underground electricity and telephone cables, communal television aerials, and so on.

Solutions to parking and traffic problems must be tackled as part of the third phase of presentation of the sites to the public.

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