UNESCO World Heritage Site of Lenggong Valley,Malaysia: A Review of its Contemporary Heritage Management

This article reviews contemporary heritage management through a systematically coded content analysis at one of Malaysia’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Archaeological Heritage of the Lenggong Valley (AHLV). It evaluates the competency of the preliminary Conservation Management Plan (CMP) of AHLV by looking at the accuracy of five distinctive dimensions of the CMP in conveying the information about the sites and management objectives: the legislation related to the heritage conservation and management; the action and implementation of the management strategies; the level of stakeholder’s participation; and, finally, how the CMP integrates local values and ideas into management planning. The results show that contemporary heritage management planning at Lenggong Valley tends to prioritize the conservation of the archaeological values of the sites over other values (i.e. social, historical, and aesthetic values), and that planning has largely been in the hands of governmental agencies with limited involvement from local communities in the decision-making process.     

世界遗产:人和遗产的关系变革

纵观1978年以来《世界遗产名录》的变化轨迹,可以清晰地看到世界遗产事业发展所走过的道路:从精英阶层的遗产到平民百姓的遗产;从人类征服自然的杰作到人与自然和谐共生的产物;从单一文化的代表到文化交流和交融的成果;从单点小规模遗产到跨区域跨国境巨尺度遗产;从古代遗产到现代遗产;从静态遗产到活态遗产.这种发展还反映在全社会对遗产关注点的变化,即:从关注遗产点的时代断代到关注遗产点在整个历史进程中的地位、作用及影响;从关注文化到关注文化与自然的互动;从关注物质遗产到关注物质与非物质遗产共生:从关注物质遗存到关注物质遗存与社会和人的关系;从关注利益相关者的权益到关注全民参与保护,保护惠及民生的实践.这种认识上的发展体现了"以人为本"的精神,也体现出遗产保护与当地社会发展的和谐共进.     

Archaeological Heritage Management at the Memphis and its Necropolis World Heritage Site

This research explores archaeological heritage management at the Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur World Heritage Site in Egypt. The case study methodology involved a structured questionnaire in order to gather data from key stakeholders. The results suggest only partial implementation of the World Heritage Site (WHS) management plan due in part to financial constraints, while strategies to raise visitor numbers remain limited. Actions are required to promote tourism, and to find resources for site enhancements. Current site management responsibilities appear centralised, with a need to develop an integrated management plan for the WHS. There could be better understanding of the needs of visitors and how these can be met. The study recommends development of a more Integrated Management Plan for the site, perhaps also involving some restructuring of key (state) organisations and/or specifically the creation of an entity responsible for management of the site.     

Narratives of World Heritage in Travel Guidebooks

World Heritage Sites are among the most popular tourist destinations in the world and are, by UNESCO definition, exceptional heritage places. New visions of World Heritage encourage ideas of intercultural exchange and dialogues in the creation of these places. Thus it might be expected that cultural World Heritage Sites would be presented in ways that signal their ‘universal’ status. The article examines the portrayal of these sites in travel guidebooks, which are an acknowledged source of important influence on travellers. A study of travel guidebooks for various European nations showed that surprisingly few places are labelled as World Heritage even in the most comprehensive books. There is a gap between the ideals and what happens on the ground. While practical problems and lack of awareness may be one explanation for this, the inherent difficulties of conceiving and presenting narratives of world heritage as opposed to national, regional or local heritage may be more significant.     

World Heritage Cultural Landscapes

The concept of cultural landscapes has a long and varied lineage, including antecedents in geography and ecomuseums, and can be applied at all scales. In the 1990s, the World Heritage Committee adopted cultural landscapes as an additional category of property as part of its strategy to broaden the scope of World Heritage listings. By July 2006, there were 53 properties inscribed on the World Heritage List and officially recognised as being cultural landscapes. Such recognition is an acknowledgement of the importance of human–environment interactions, especially those of a more traditional type. Not surprisingly, cultural landscapes have their own particular management issues, as well as sharing others with World Heritage properties in general. These properties, however, also present many opportunities to increase people’s understanding of both cultural and environmental values important to the future of humankind on a global level.     

Heritage designation and scale: a World Heritage case study of the Ningaloo Coast

As heritage research has engaged with a greater plurality of heritage practices, scale has emerged as an important concept in Heritage Studies, albeit relatively narrowly defined as hierarchical levels (household, local, national, etcetera). This paper argues for a definition of scale in heritage research that incorporates size (geographical scale), level (vertical scale) and relation (an understanding that scale is constituted through dynamic relationships in specific contexts). The paper utilises this definition of scale to analyse heritage designation first through consideration of changing World Heritage processes, and then through a case study of the world heritage designation of the Ningaloo Coast region in Western Australia. Three key findings are: both scale and heritage gain appeal because they are abstractions, and gain definition through the spatial politics of interrelationships within specific situations; the spatial politics of heritage designation comes into focus through attention to those configurations of size, level and relation that are invoked and enabled in heritage processes; and researchers choice to analyse or ignore particular scales and scalar politics are political decisions. Utilising scale as size, level and relation enables analyses that move beyond heritage to the spatial politics through which all heritage is constituted.     

Negotiation of Social Values in the World Heritage Listing Process: A Case Study on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal,China

This paper examines the World Heritage listing process for the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to understand the sociopolitical meanings of heritage in contemporary China. Over the past four decades, the efforts of the Chinese government have been clearly geared towards improving governance over heritage sites by designating them as state properties, which requires the selection and evaluation of cultural heritage sites on the specific political meaning based on historical, aesthetic, or scientific value. In the process of World Heritage listing of Chinese heritage sties, the model of ‘state properties’ had to be compatible with UNESCO’s understanding of ‘heritage’, as well as economic benefits of heritage. Drawing on the data collected from the process of World Heritage listing of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, this paper explores the integration of the social meanings of heritage into the ‘authorized’ values criteria, facilitating multiple uses of ‘heritage’ through collaboration among UNESCO, Chinese heritage officials, and local communities. It argues that practices of heritage that consider social meanings will integrate local communities’ understandings into political meanings of heritage on basis of central government’s interests. This paper shows how the social meanings of heritage create a dialectical relationship to enable a ‘living’ cultural process in the preservation of ‘state properties’. In addition, the social meanings of heritage allow all potential stakeholder groups to negotiate with the heritage bureaucracy, as well as strengthening the role of local interests in heritage policy.     

The Contested Landscapes of World Heritage on a Tourist Island: the case of Garajonay National Park,La Gomera

This paper considers the World Heritage Site of Garajonay National Park on the island of La Gomera (Canary Islands). It is based on a research project carried out during 1999-2000 that explored the circumstances surrounding its declaration as a National Park and inclusion into the World Heritage List, in conjunction with the consequences for local communities which ensued. The proximity of Garajonay National Park to a large concentration of mass coastal tourism constitutes a further source of potential conflict which may have a wider relevance to other sites of a similar and indeed diverse nature. This paper, therefore, examines the configurations of space and social relations occasioned by the processes of social change, conservation and tourism development in and adjacent to this protected forest. In doing so it elucidates the manner in which these processes are locally mediated in and through contested values over the meaning and purpose of nature conservation in this 'world heritage space'. It argues that a sense of the forest as a place of cultural belonging has been marginalised in favour of its intrinsic ecological value.     

World Heritage and the Local Community: The Case of Atapuerca (Burgos,Spain)

As social constructions, heritage properties require the participation of all their stakeholders, especially in the case of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) World Heritage Site is used as a test case for assessing the fulfilment of the local community’s development expectations, perceptions, and values. This paper is the first formal attempt to ascertain the opinions of residents in the surrounding villages — Ibeas de Juarros and Atapuerca — regarding the initiatives taken by the authorities, and the changes produced, since the site was included in the World Heritage List. The results show that many improvements can be made with the aim of democratizing the decision-making process, ensuring the involvement of the local community and improving their quality of life, in order to fulfil the spirit and recommendations of UNESCO.     

Zanzibar Stone Town Joins the Imagined Community of World Heritage Sites

In 2000, Zanzibar Stone Town was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List after a long campaign whose start date may be taken as 1988. In view of the difficulties, one might ask why places such as Zanzibar should undertake such initiatives. Without recognition from UNESCO the Stone Town would be under pressure to approve developments that would change the character of this historic centre, and could make it difficult to develop tourism, but this is not the only reason. This paper argues that the supporters of Zanzibar's application to UNESCO were responding to a message that they detected in the formulation of the World Heritage Convention, namely that designated sites belong to a kind of international body which may be likened to an 'imagined community'. World Heritage Sites (WHSs) are, in theory, part of global heritage and are thus subject to the policies and laws of an international order. In reality, however, international legislation is notoriously difficult to implement without the support of the states concerned and it may be more useful to think of WHSs as an 'Imagined Community' in Anderson's sense, a kind of pre-state entity.     

Dilemma of local socio-economic perspectives in management of historic ruins in Kilwa Kisiwani World Heritage Site,Tanzania

The study explored the value that local residents place on historic ruins, focusing on their socio-economic value. It also explored the implications of conventional Cultural Heritage Management’s (CHM) indifference to this. Using in-depth data from 22 residents in Kilwa Kisiwani World Heritage Site in Tanzania, the study found that residents not only attach cultural value to the ruins, but also consider them a conservation project and tourist attraction, from which they can earn money and get employment and see infrastructure and social facilities developed. It also found that the destructive activities of illegally digging to construct toilets and water collectors, letting domestic animals wander in the ruins, quarrying old underground walls for coral stones, and lighting fires are partly the result of limited socio-economic benefits, inconsistent business opportunities, complaints about employment and payment, and few feasible alternatives for making a living. By engaging with the socio-economic discourse, this study broadens our understanding of the integration of conservation in the broader social agenda, and contributes to the economist-anthropologic debate on CHM. It informs heritage managers and policy makers on alternative strategies that would maintain the sustainability of the heritage.     

Protecting World Heritage: Regulating Ownership and Land Use at Angkor Archaeological Park,Cambodia

This paper contemplates whether, and in what ways, proprietary interests in land and land usage are affected by a World Heritage listing, using Angkor Archaeological Park, Cambodia, as the case study. The effect is measured through the identification and synthesis of the national legislative and local regulatory response to the implementation of the World Heritage listing. Such an analysis illustrates that the listing imposes significant restraints on land use and ownership which impact directly on the local resident communities of Angkor. A breakdown of the regulatory response also highlights the limitations inherent in the existing regulatory framework. There is a consideration of the concept of ‘ownership’ in a World Heritage site of ‘outstanding universal value’. In raising these issues, this paper highlights the challenges facing heritage managers in attempting to marry local needs with the demands of international heritage protection in the setting of a post‐conflict Southeast Asian nation.     

World Heritage listing and changes of political values: a case study in West Lake Cultural Landscape in Hongzhou,China

World Heritage themes and frameworks, as well as the criteria for assessing the ‘outstanding universal values’ (OUV) of World Heritage sites, have been extensively criticised for being Eurocentric. Asia is a region of extraordinary levels of cultural, religious and ethnic diversity, which often comes into conflict with UNESCO understandings of heritage. Due to the influence of UNESCO, and the persuasiveness of the heritage discourses it authorises, Asian nations tend to utilise assessments and management ideologies that derive from a European viewpoint. This paper explores the changes in the political role of heritage during the process of World Heritage listing of a Chinese cultural heritage site, West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou. The study is based on three and a half months of fieldwork in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou. Firstly, I examine how the government officials and experts formulated the nomination dossier, and explore their purposes in seeking World Heritage listing and their understanding of heritage. In addition, tensions between governments’ understanding of the values of the site and those of UNESCO and ICOMOS will be mapped. Secondly, I examine how the Chinese government used the World Heritage ‘brand’ and policies to construct national and local narratives during and after the World Heritage listing. In this paper, I argue that both national and local governments are quite cynical about the listing process, in that they not only recognise they are playing a game, but that the game is ‘played’ under Eurocentric rules and terms. They know some Chinese values do not fit into UNESCO’s conception of ‘outstanding universal value’ (OUV), and they have ‘edited out’ those Chinese values, which could not be explained to Western experts, and utilised the discourses of international policy and expertise. Ultimately, these values and ‘rules’ frame the management of the sites to some extent, as the Chinese government must not, in order to maintain the WH listing, deviate too much from the rules of the game.     

25年中国世界遗产之路

25年前,当遗产问题受到世界各国越来越多的关注和重视时,中国作为一个有着5000年文明史的古国顺应国际潮流,加入了《保护世界文化和自然遗产公约》,对国际社会作出了为全人类妥善保护中国境内世界遗产的庄严承诺。在此后的25年间,中国积极参与国际文化和自然遗产的保护,并积极申报世界遗产,成为一个已拥有40处文化和自然遗产的遗产大国。     

我国遗产旅游开发的问题、误区及对策研究 --关于"世遗门票上涨"的思考

超载开发与资金匮乏是困扰我国遗产旅游开发的两大主要问题,也是保护与发展所争论的焦点。北京六大世遗门票上涨事件引发了全国各遗产景区的连锁反应,凸显了我国遗产旅游市场的非理性运作,也揭示了部分开发者对资源与产品的认识误区。本文以此为切入点,从经济学的角度分析了单一的票价调控机制在调节人流和增收资金两方面的局限性,并建议从提高认识、多渠道融资、多手段调节及深化公众参与制度等四方面来探索遗产旅游开发问题的解决之道。     

Expertise and the making of World Heritage policy

This paper contributes to two emergent areas of scholarship: first, the role of expertise within the domain of cultural heritage practice; and second, international heritage institutions and their processes of governance. It does so by exploring expertise within the context of World Heritage Committee meetings. These forums of international heritage policy formulation have undergone significant changes in recent years, with larger geopolitical forces increasingly shaping process and decisions. This paper foregrounds the idea of these annual meetings as ‘locales’ in order to explore the inflows of expertise that help constitute authoritative decision-making, how expert knowledge is crafted for and by bureaucratic structure, and how the interplay between technical knowledge and politics via an ‘aesthetics of expertise’ bears upon future directions. In offering such an analysis, the paper seeks to add nuance and conceptual depth to our understanding of international conservation policy and the regulatory, governmental practices of organisations such as UNESCO.