The Koutammakou Ecomuseum offers a practical African response to these questions. Rather than separating heritage from everyday life, the ecomuseum works within the living cultural landscape of the Batammariba, where land, architecture, knowledge and livelihoods remain deeply interconnected. Its experience offers a grounded case study for rethinking the economics of cultural commons through circular bioeconomy, community governance and regenerative tourism.
At the heart of this experience is a network of 15 Cooperatives of Economic and Cultural Interest (CIEC), bringing together 373 members, predominantly women who are custodians of traditional knowledge associated with earthen architecture and the maintenance of the sikien, the inhabited architectural units at the centre of Batammariba cultural life. Through agriculture, livestock, non-timber forest products and food processing, the cooperatives develop locally rooted economic activities based on circular principles: local resources are transformed into value, waste is minimized, and economic benefits are reinvested in the cultural landscape. Twenty percent of cooperative profits are allocated to a permanent fund dedicated to the maintenance of the sikien. Heritage therefore becomes not simply something to be preserved, but part of a functioning local economy that contributes directly to its own conservation.
The emerging Tourism of the Sikien takes this approach a step further. Community-based mapping and georeferencing, initially developed to support cooperative management and heritage documentation, are now creating the foundations for carefully designed visitor experiences. Visitors can discover the architecture, landscape, knowledge and ways of life of Koutammakou while contributing to the local economy. The objective is not to transform the sikien into museum objects, but to create a form of regenerative tourism in which visitation contributes to the continued vitality of the places and communities being visited.
Structured as a causerie-débat, rather than a conventional academic panel, the session will create a circle of dialogue inspired by the importance of collective speech and intergenerational transmission in Batammariba society. The conversation will bring together the director and founder of the Koutammakou comuseum, a woman leader from a CIEC, the network's entrepreneurship and advisory lead, and a young graduate of the museum's construction chantiers-écoles. Their different perspectives will reveal how cultural heritage, women's economic empowerment, youth engagement, traditional knowledge, circular economy and sustainable tourism can converge within a single community-based model. The discussion ultimately asks a broader question for museums worldwide: Can museums move beyond preserving heritage to helping communities build the economic, ecological and social conditions that allow heritage to remain alive? The Koutammakou experience suggests that the future of sustainable museums may lie not in owning more collections, but in strengthening the living systems, knowledge and economies that sustain heritage in place.