Recognising values of China’s scenic and historic interest areas as world heritage cultural landscapes: Lushan case study

ABSTRACT

China’s Scenic and Historic Interest Areas are a major contributor to the State’s World Heritage lexicon. However, understanding of their values has led to confusion internationally and in China, not least with controversy over China’s latest promotion of the Natural Protected Areas System. This paper discusses values of China’s Scenic and Historic Interest Areas from the cultural landscape perspective through an in-depth case study of Lushan. A theoretical framework for recognising values of China’s Scenic and Historic Interest Areas has been set up and tested at Lushan, including exploring stakeholders’ understanding of its values as a world heritage site by using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The findings reveal that Lushan clearly represents cultural values inextricably associated with Scenic and Historic Interest Areas, and also need for supplementary advice on its Outstanding Universal Value (OUV). It suggests that the ideology driving management of China’s Scenic and Historic Interest Areas as national parks or natural parks focusing mainly on objective nature-related conservation without regard to the traditional Chinese philosophy of the culture-nature binary will adversely affect China’s Scenic and Historic Interest Areas as cultural landscapes and their community values.     

St Stephen's in War and Peace: Civil Defence and the Location of Parliament, 1938–51

This essay takes a new look at the destruction and the rebuilding of the house of commons during the 1940s. It argues that behind the home front bravado of the Palace of Westminster steadfastly enduring the blitz lay secret plans for rehousing MPs away from aerial bombardment, contingency scenarios that were then updated after 1945 in the event of attack on London by atomic weapons. The essay also suggests that threats to the security of parliament, together with the necessity to rebuild the Commons, were turned by the coalition government into an opportunity to refashion parliamentary politics in such a way that the two‐party system was restored, along the traditional lines of government and opposition that had become blurred since 1931.