Anticosti on UNESCO’s heritage list: one year later, “there is still much to build”

One year after being added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, Anticosti Island faces many challenges in meeting the expectations of the international community. Lacking resources and housing, the municipality will need more funding and support to carry out its mandate as a heritage site, according to the mayor.

This visibility which is international […] exerts great pressure on the municipalitynotes the mayor of Anticosti, Hélène Boulanger.

According to her, development initiatives arising from the island’s World Heritage listingUNESCO collide with the realities of the island and the small municipality.

Here it is a small environment, a small population, there is no housing, it will be necessary to build infrastructures, go and look for land, look for subsidies.lists the mayor.

If we think about the last year, it has exacerbated this pressure a little.she adds.

The task of enhancement from the heritage site of theUNESCO is one of the main challenges facing the small community with a population of between 150 and 200 people.

When you are listed as a World Heritage Site, it comes with very, very high expectations.explains the geologist and scientific director for the development of Anticosti as a heritage site of theUNESCOAndré Desrochers.

There are basically three important pillars [pour un site patrimonial de l’UNESCO]the long-term protection and conservation of the site, which must be ensured and it must also be enhanced.

After demarcating the heritage site to be protected and hiring a small team of specialists including geologists, biologists and wildlife technicians to oversee its conservation, the island must implement its mandate of enhancement in particular by building an interpretation center and a research center.

The construction of these infrastructures, which will be costly due to the island nature of the territory, as well as the need to sustain the financing of development operations are long term issuessays André Desrochers.

For her part, the mayor of the village indicates that the difficulties of the municipality are recognized by the provincial government.

Moreover, the latter formed an inter-ministerial committee to provide assistance to the municipalityrecalls Hélène Boulanger.

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A management company still without management

In recent years, activities to promote the island’s heritage have been developed, such as talks.

Moreover, these activities welcomed around 2,000 visitors in 2024, including researchers from the universities of Yale, Ghent and Strasbourg, as well as representatives from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, says André Desrochers.

This company will have the mandate to promote Anticosti: its universal value, local values ​​and on a permanent basis with a board of directors and general management which should be appointed in the coming days, if not in the coming weeks.

For the rest of the matter, it will be up to the Anticosti World Heritage Society (SPMA), a NPO newly formed, to oversee all future work to promote the heritage of the island, which is home to fossils that are over 400 million years old.

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However, this company, which has a cachet of approximately $14.2 million from the provincial government, still has no one at its head.

This person, whoever they are, will need help and go out and hire peoplebelieves the mayor.

After obtaining funding from Quebec, the municipality is currently taking steps to obtain federal financial assistance, since It can’t just be the provincial burdenjudges the mayor.

Asked about potential financial support, Parks Canada was unable to answer our questions.