Indonesia’s traditional music instrument, the  ’Angklung’, is soon to be officially delared a world heritage item by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) like  batik, wayang, and the keris before.
    
“On November 18, angklung will be declared a world heritage article ,” Wardiyanto, secretary general of the Tourism and Culture Ministry, said here Thursday.
    
He said the ministry had made intensive efforts to convince  UNESCO of the need to recognize  angklung as one of the world’s heritage items like  batik, the keris (ceremonal dagger) and wayang (Javanese traditional puppets) which had obtained the world heritage status earlier, he said. The efforts to get the angklung included  in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, were made for the first time years ago, he said.
    
“We plan to have  more things of Indonesian culture recognized as part of the world’s heritage,” he said.

At present a total of  890 objects world wide are on UNESCO’s world heritage list and  689 of them are in the culture category,  176 in the nature category and 25 in both the culture and nature categories.
    
Of the  890 objects with world heritage status  11 were Indonesian with four of them in the nature,  three in the  culture and  four in the  intangible culture categories. The Indonesian natural heritages consist of Ujung Kulon National Park in Banten Province, Komodo National Park in East Nusa Tenggara, Lorentz National Park in West Papua province, and Sumatran tropical forests comprising the Gunung Leuser, Kerinci Sablat and Bukit Barisan national parks.

The three cultural heritages are the Borobudur Temple, Prambanan Temple, and Sangiran Pre-historical site. The intangible world heritages from Indonesia were the wayang  and keris which were recognized as masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity in 2003 and 2005, and also batik as a tangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2009.

From: KompasCom