Global Heritage Stones Resource: An IUGS designation

The initiative of designating the natural stones as Global Heritage Stones Resource by the IUGS is a novel one. The stakeholders are all those countries which record the stone built monuments of cultural significance. The stones used in the monuments with unique geological and architectural attributes and which have been used in the historical past with surviving and/or extinct quarries are being considered for designation of GHSRs. The European nations have been quick in identifying such stones and have proposed many significant stones for designation of GHSR in stark contrast to African, Asian and South American nations which are underrepresented on the world map in terms of designation of GHSR. The need of the hour is to promote the idea to all the nations to come up with the documentation of the stones used in the monuments, the state of preservation of historical quarries, the record and strategy for the upkeep of monuments and the historical quarries. The Project ‘The HERITAGE STONES RECOGNITION: A STEP FORWARD (HerSTONES)’ has been recently granted by IGCP-UNESCO to promote heritage Stones from emerging countries.