The 2011 Oriental Cultural Heritage Sites Protection Alliance international academic symposium will take place at the Taipei National University of the Arts in Guandu, Taipei, under the theme "From South Asia to Taiwan -- Cultural Heritage, History's Memories, Buddhist Art."

German Tibetologist Christophe Cueppers, director of the Lumbini Research Institute in Nepal, will be one of the main speakers at the symposium and talk about the "sacred site Lumbini."

Yukio Nishimura, a Tokyo University professor and an adviser to the Paris-based Oriental Cultural Heritage Sites Protection Alliance, will also speak on the UNESCO program for the preservation and development of world cultural heritage sites, focusing on the birthplace of Buddha at Lumbini, Nepal.

Basanta Kumar Bidari, a chief archaeologist with the Lumbini Development Trust in Nepal, will speak on the "role of religious communities in the world heritage property of Lumbini."

Roland Lin, a specialist for UNESCO World Heritage Center and a researcher with the Far East Research Center of University Paris, Sorbonne, France, will speak on the Afghanistan Bamiyan Buddhas in the Bamiyan Valley 10 years after they were destroyed.