The decision was taken during the 20th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, held until Saturday in New Delhi, India.

According to documentation available on the UNESCO website, besides the moliceiro boats on the list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding, Portugal had no nominations under consideration for inclusion on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity at this committee session.

The Moliceiro boat had already been inscribed in 2022 in the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage, at the initiative of the Intermunicipal Community of the Aveiro Region (CIRA).

The documentation available on the UNESCO website notes that, despite being considered a representative practice of regional identity, only five master builders of moliceiros are still active, four of whom are over 60 years old.

The UNESCO application included a detailed list of proposals to reverse the situation, ranging from intervention with the school community to raise awareness of this practice to the installation of electric motors on tourist boats.

Unique

One of the unique aspects of moliceiro boats is the painting on the stern and rear: "the bow is the monumental part of the moliceiro, where figures, designs and legends are unique, unparalleled in any known type of navigation," wrote Jaime Vilar in a book dedicated to that vessel.

In this work, the author classified the bow inscriptions as "satirical, humorous and erotic," "religious," "romantic, mischievous and picaresque," and "professional, moral and historical."

The same author, based on data collected from the craftsmen, described that a moliceiro measures, on average, "15 meters in length, displaces about five tons and has a flat bottom and shallow draft, a detail that allows it to navigate where keelboats cannot pass."

In the 1970s, three thousand moliceiro boats were registered operating in the Ria de Aveiro, but it is estimated that little more than 50 vessels remain, half of which are used for tourist operations in the urban canals of the Ria.

According to the public institute Cultural Heritage, Portugal has eight cultural expressions inscribed on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, two on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, and one registered as a Good Safeguarding Practice.

The other two Portuguese inscriptions on the list of urgent safeguarding are the black pottery of Bisalhães and the manufacture of cowbells.