The tourism and local development in world heritage context. The case of the Mayan site of Palenque,Mexico

This article discusses the effects of tourism on local development in the context of World Heritage sites. The ‘Pre-Hispanic City and National Park of Palenque’ in Mexico will be used as a case study, with especial attention on local Indigenous communities. It analyses the use of ‘World Heritage’ as a brand for tourism promotion and expected tourism growth, and the changes in the role of the Indigenous peoples in archaeology and UNESCO policies. Furthermore, it examines the implementation of World Heritage policies by the Mexican government and the local decision-makers in Palenque. It presents the touristic elements of the site and how other factors have impacted tourism flow. The article points out the empowerment processes of modern Mayan people, the response by the official managers and the Indigenous reaction to governmental investments in tourism infrastructure. The article concludes that a shift from the current type management model to a new, participatory one could contribute to reduce social tension, fostering local development through tourism and improving communities’ quality of life. The data used for my analysis were collected during fieldwork in Palenque in 2014 and 2016.     

Kakadu National Park World Heritage Site: Deconstructing the Debate, 1997–2003

The case of Kakadu National Park has had an unusually large amount of time and expense devoted to it in meetings of the World Heritage Bureau and the World Heritage Committee since 1997. Major controversy arose following the announcement that a new uranium mine would be developed at Jabiluka, located in an enclave surrounded by the World Heritage property, but not legally part of it. The explosive juxtaposition of issues concerning the trio of conservation of heritage values, uranium mining, and Aboriginal land rights inevitably led to strong reactions against the Federal Government's decision to allow mining, not least on the part of Australian and international non‐government organisations. It was felt that the mining development would jeopardise the integrity of the key values for which Kakadu had been inscribed on the World Heritage List. This paper attempts to unravel some of the strands of the ensuing debate — to at least begin to deconstruct the debate — that saw Kakadu almost placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. This is an important task to attempt because there were many undercurrents to the publicly reported debate, and a large degree of ‘reading between the lines’ is needed to interpret official records of meetings adequately. The paper also attempts to throw some light on the forceful opposition to such a move on the part of the Australian Government, based in large part on its underlying developmentalist philosophy, and at a time when it was giving less than wholehearted support to many international agreements to which Australia is a signatory. Finally, it is hoped that an insight into the workings of the World Heritage Convention and its supporting bodies will be gained.     

Visitor Management,the Development of Sustainable Cultural Tourism and Local Community Participation at Chogha Zanbil,Iran

Abstract

Chogha Zanbil, an Elamite ziggurat and UNESCO World Heritage Site in Iran, has considerable potential as a cultural tourism destination but currently it receives a surprisingly small number of visitors. The site has seen a successful international conservation project over the past decade: now it needs a complete heritage strategy, which will give sufficient weight to developing sustainable tourism in a way that ensures the site's conservation, as well as its effective presentation to the public. This paper combines existing approaches to sustainable cultural development with primary research in Iran, including interviews with different stakeholders. It uses the Chogha Zanbil case study to suggest how visitor management strategies and cultural tourism can equip a site with the necessary tools to receive visitors and manage their impact while generating revenue for the site's maintenance and preservation. It also highlights the importance of local community participation in this process and provides examples of how local villagers can participate in, and benefit from, the development of sustainable cultural tourism at Chogha Zanbil.     

Landscapes of Desire: Tourists, Touts and Sexual Encounters at the World Heritage Site of Thebes

Cultural tourism capitalises on archaeological sites with World Heritage status on a global scale. The encounters of visitors from all over the world with local residents and other stakeholder groups, like local and international entrepreneurs, set off complex processes of interaction in which the physical and social space of the heritage site is negotiated, shaped and consumed. In a case study from Luxor/Egypt, this paper investigates a particular facet of these interactions, namely sexual encounters between tourists and members of the local community. It delineates the economic and social conditions of this phenomenon and discusses the role it takes in the production, perception and use of the World Heritage site of Thebes.     

Post‐conflict Heritage and Tourism in Cambodia: The Burden of Angkor

The World Heritage Site of Angkor is enduring one of the most crucial, turbulent periods in its 1200‐year history. Since the early 1990s over 20 countries have contributed millions of dollars to help safeguard and restore its temples. As one of Southeast Asia’s premier destinations, Angkor has also seen a 10,000% growth in international tourist arrivals in just over a decade. The challenges arising from the intense convergence of these two paradoxical and unstable agendas—heritage conservation and tourism development—are greatly compounded by Cambodia’s need to recover from war and turmoil. This paper explores the critical trends that have surfaced at Angkor and why the challenges posed by surging tourism have been inadequately addressed. It argues Angkor’s dominant role within Cambodia’s post‐conflict heritage and tourism industries requires closer, more critical attention given recent events in the country. This article is the summary of Winter's book Post‐conflict Heritage, Post‐colonial Tourism (Routledge 2007).     

Highlighting the Need and Potential for Use of Interdisciplinary Science in Adaptive Environmental Management: The Case of Endangered Upland Swamps in the Blue Mountains,NSW, Australia

The Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, including the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains National Park, is arguably one of Australia's most highly valued and iconic wilderness areas. Common to this region are upland swamps (formally ‘temperate highland peat swamps on sandstone’), which play a vital hydrological role at the headwaters of the river catchments, as well as providing the habitat for an array of flora and fauna species. This paper involves an interdisciplinary examination into the need and potential for adaptive management in the Blue Mountains. It uses geomorphic (physical) knowledge of swamp condition and social data about the volunteers who rehabilitate them. Research involved using the River Styles river condition framework across 47 swamps and questionnaires and interviews with local rehabilitation volunteers. It is proposed that there is a need and a potential to combine geomorphic understanding with further engagement of community volunteers in order to enable an interdisciplinary approach to adaptive management. Such an approach could result in the effective environmental management of upland swamps in the Blue Mountains.     

A Framework for Sustainable Heritage Management: A Study of UK Industrial Heritage Sites

In 2002, the World Heritage Committee declared heritage to be ‘an instrument for the sustainable development of all societies’. The term ‘sustainable development’, however, is inscribed with a complex economic, environmental and social agenda that challenges contemporary World Heritage management practice. This paper draws on a content analysis of six industrial UK World Heritage Site management plans. The analysis focuses on the extent that each plan integrates four key sustainability dimensions. Findings indicate that the planning frameworks and collaboration processes in operation at each site ensure conservation of the historical physical fabric but limit the development of a sustainable local cultural economy. A sustainable heritage management framework is presented based on the adoption of a long‐term strategic orientation and extensive local community participation in decision making. The framework is relevant to other complex heritage sites such as historic towns and cultural landscapes.     

我国世界遗产地的旅游研究进展及展望

"遗产旅游"作为一种世界观现象已经成为人类求取与外部世界高度和谐的有效形式之一,成为高质量回归自然、回归历史的必然性的社会生活组成部分。文章综述了我国世界遗产地旅游研究的现状,提出在以后的研究中应加强我国世界遗产地的旅游发展理论、旅游价值分析与开发模式、旅游发展中的利益相关者、旅游营销、利用信息技术保护遗产资源、旅游研究的定量系统动力学模型等方面的研究。     

Indigenous free prior informed consent: a case for self determination in World Heritage nomination processes

Free prior informed consent is a critical concept in enacting the rights of Indigenous People according to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This paper outlines a case for the inclusion of free prior informed consent in World Heritage nomination processes and examines issues that are problematic when enacting free prior informed consent. Case research was used to analyse current issues in the potential nomination of certain areas of Cape York Peninsula, Australia. The authors’ reflexive engagement within this case offers insights into the praxis of developing a World Heritage nomination consent process. The outcomes of this research were: preconditions need to be addressed to avoid self-exclusion by indigenous representative organisations; the nature of consent needs to account for issues of representation and Indigenous ways of decision making; the power of veto needs to have formal recognition in the nomination process; and prioritising self-determination within free prior informed consent ensures the intent of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The paper contributes to the human rights agenda of Indigenous People and conservation management processes by helping address the issues that will be raised during a World Heritage nomination process.     

Community,Connection and Conservation: Intangible Cultural Values in Natural Heritage—the Case of Shirakami‐sanchi World Heritage Area

Intangible cultural heritage, according to a UNESCO definition, is ‘the practices, representations, expressions as well as the knowledge and skills that communities, groups and in some cases individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage’. Using a case study of Shirakami‐sanchi World Heritage Area, this paper illustrates how the local community's conservation commitment was formed through their long‐term everyday interactions with nature. Such connectivity is vital to maintaining the authentic integrity of a place that does not exclude humans. An examination of the formation of the community's conservation commitment for Shirakami reveals that it is the community's spiritual connection and place‐based identity that have supported conservation, leading to the World Heritage nomination, and it is argued that the recognition of such intangible cultural heritage is vital in conservation. The challenge, then, is how to communicate such spiritual heritage today. Forms of community involvement are discussed in an attempt to answer this question.     

The social production of ‘attractive authenticity’ at the World Heritage Site of Røros,Norway

This paper examines how authenticity and its use as a way of conceptualising the past participates in processes of heritage production, which are here defined as both the social construction of heritage sites and the uses of heritage sites as resources to achieve social goals. We argue that the social production of place and the social values generated by place are linked by a common approach based on the use of ‘place attraction’ as a unifying social concept. The World Heritage Site of Røros has as an attractive place become a resource for the production of cultural capital among various stakeholders, taking the form of a large body of ‘heritage knowledges’. However, a symbolic capital production of ‘attractive authenticity’ has today generated an idealised past and a purified iconic image of Røros as World Heritage. The discourse of ‘attractive authenticity’ reveals a conflict of interests where symbolic capital unfolds and makes power relations evident. This exposes a discussion about cultural heritage management practices at World Heritage Sites.     

Social Values and Rock Art Tourism: An Ethnographic Study of the Huashan Rock Art Area (China)

The rapid expansion of cultural tourism has led to increased numbers of visitors to rock art sites throughout the world. The rise of rock art tourism has affected not only the preservation of rock art sites, but also the social values attributed to the sites by communities in the immediate vicinity. Social values refer to the social and cultural meanings that a place of heritage holds for a particular community. This article aims to discuss the influence of tourism on the social values that uphold local communities’ emotional attachment to rock art heritage, using the Huashan rock art area in China as a case study. Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape is the first rock art heritage in China proposed to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and officially obtained World Heritage Status in July 2016. This article argues that many of the changes generated by the endeavour towards tourism promotion by the authorities in their pursuit of World Heritage designation have contributed to the reinforcement of the social values under discussion. However, negative feelings among the communities in response to the undesired consequences of the designation campaign might have resulted in the attenuation of such values. The ultimate goal of the research is to prompt further reflection on existing rock art heritage management mechanisms both in China and worldwide.     

Management Plans for Archaeological Sites: A World Heritage Template

Abstract

A failed attempt to produce a Management Manual for World Heritage Archaeological Sites and Monuments brought together a body of experts in 2002 at Ma'agan, Israel. This paper aims to make the general recommendations of the Ma'agan meeting more widely known among those concerned with the management of archaeological sites. The paper summarizes the outcomes of the meeting, including ideas on the structure of a management plan, the planning process, team building and public participation, site significance, conservation, monitoring, maintenance, presentation and interpretation, tourism and action plans; and includes a select bibliography.     

The Impact of National Park Development on Tortuguero,Costa Rica

This study explores the relationship between Tortuguero National Park and Tortuguero, a neighboring village in northeastern Costa Rica. Based largely on a household survey, the study considers the effect of the establishment of the park on the subsistence and commercial economies of Tortuguero. It also considers the impact of park-based tourism and its potential role in the economic development of the community. Survey results indicate a general decline in the village's standard of living in the decade since the park was created, but an increase in nature tourism has somewhat offset the decline in commercial resource exploitation. Increased participation by villagers in park-based tourism appears to offer hope for sustainable economic development.     

Consuming the forest in an environment of crisis: nature tourism, forest conservation and neoliberal agriculture in south India

This article engages ethnographically with the neoliberalization of nature in the spheres of tourism, conservation and agriculture. Drawing on a case study of Wayanad district, Kerala, the article explores a number of themes. First, it shows how a boom in domestic nature tourism is currently transforming Wayanad into a landscape for tourist consumption. Second, it examines how tourism in Wayanad articulates with projects of neoliberalizing forest and wildlife conservation and with their contestations by subaltern groups. Third, it argues that the contemporary commodification of nature in tourism and conservation is intimately related to earlier processes of commodifying nature in agrarian capitalism. Since independence, forest land has been violently appropriated for intensive cash-cropping. Capitalist agrarian change has transformed land into a (fictitious) commodity and produced a fragile and contested frontier of agriculture and wildlife. When agrarian capitalism reached its ecological limits and entered a crisis of accumulation, farming became increasingly speculative, exploring new modes of accumulation in out-of-state ginger cultivation. In this scenario nature and wildlife tourism emerges as a new prospect for accumulation in a post-agrarian economy. The neoliberalization of nature in Wayanad, the authors argue, is a process driven less by new modes of regulation than by the agrarian crisis and new modes of speculative farming.     

Commercializing Nature: Mangrove Conservation and Female Oyster Collectors in The Gambia

Abstract: Taking a political ecology approach, this paper offers a critical evaluation of conservation efforts undertaken in Gambia's Tanbi Wetland National Park (TWNP), a “wetland of international importance” as designated by the Ramsar Convention. Focusing on the oyster commercialization component of the World Wildlife Fund's Gambia–Senegal Sustainable Fisheries Program (GSFP) in the TWNP mangrove forests, we identify oystering practices that promote mangrove conservation and others that conflict with sustainable management. The project, which aims to commercialize oyster culture through local women, is entirely production oriented, ignoring the ways in which oysters are prepared for market. As a result, degradation of the very mangrove forests the GSFP aims to conserve may be accelerated. The project selectively engages with local environmental knowledge and fails to consider the implications of expanding the value chains for oysters and their shells. Unless the World Wildlife Fund addresses these issues, its conservation objectives and potential socioeconomic benefits may be compromised.     

森林公园旅游环境承载力评估——以重庆黄水国家森林公园为例

森林公园旅游环境承载力评估是一个复杂的问题。一方面受到诸如景区自然环境特征和组成结构、景区经济环境背景和社会文化环境、旅游者的行为特征及人口学特征等诸多指标的影响,另一方面又必须考虑景区旅游淡旺季的季节性波动。面对如此广泛的影响因素,本文选取重庆黄水国家森林公园进行实证研究,运用动态改进层次分析法(ADIHP),从承载力指标构架、旅游地空间区划、旅游地季节性波动三个方面,对森林公园旅游环境承载力进行了研究,通过对重庆黄水国家森林公园旅游环境承载力的综合评估,为森林公园景区的优化设计、规划与开发提供了较为科学准确的理论依据和实际参考价值。     

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.     

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.     

Mixed world heritage in Scandinavian countries

UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention has become a global policy for natural and cultural conservation and in particular the intricate relation between the two. This article presents two cases, Laponia and the Lofoten Islands, put forward as mixed World Heritage Sites by the governments of Sweden and Norway. The overall national goals of the nominations have been to ensure sustainable human use of natural resources and the conservation of biodiversity. However, in both countries the nomination and implementation of mixed sites have produced a series of challenges at the municipality management level. Comparing the processes of promoting Laponia and Lofoten as World Heritage Sites, the article discusses the challenges of local involvement and democratic participation in national decision-making by asking what comprises local involvement and co-management at mixed World Heritage Sites. Why does the implementation of management at mixed World Heritage Sites create conflict between local stakeholders and the national governments of Norway and Sweden?