Cultural Landscape in World Heritage Conservation and Cultural Landscape Conservation Challenges in Asia

Abstract

UNESCO was the first United Nations agency to deal with landscapes at a global scale, notably through the World Heritage Convention. In 1992, 'Cultural Landscapes' became a new category on the World Heritage List combining works of nature and of humankind: cultural landscapes often illustrate a specific relation between people and nature and can reflect techniques of sustainable land use, fostering strong links between culture and sustainable development. Initiatives such as the UNESCO-Greece Melina Mercouri International Prize highlight outstanding examples of safeguarding activities at the world's major cultural landscapes and offer opportunities to share good practices and create synergies. Cultural landscapes face numerous threats across the world, and especially in Asia, with its growing infrastructure development and urbanisation. This article shares some of the knowledge and experience garnered by UNESCO through its conservation and management activities at cultural landscapes in Asia (Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan, Bhutan, Silk Roads heritage corridors) and highlights the urgent need for a cultural-historical-natural territory approach to address the pressing challenges for the conservation of Cultural Landscapes in Asia. Finally, the article advocates for a strong focus on the peoples and communities that inhabit these territories and their involvement at all stages.

Creating Tourism Destinations of Underground Built Heritage—The Cases of Salt Mines in Poland, Portugal, and Romania

“…The third group is related to a specificity of "traditional" land-use practices that are well embedded in the natural environment. In this context, they can be defined as capable of supporting bio-cultural diversity and ecosystem services through sustainable land use [5,7,8]. Many cultural landscapes in the third group, including those located all around Europe, belong to joint cultural and natural heritage of outstanding universal value that "(...) is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries to be of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity" [6].…”

“…With unique values, salt mines covering huge underground areas along with infrastructure on the surface to support mining processes may be protected at various levels of management, established locally by national governments, by an international legal instrument of UNESCO World Heritage [6,11], and unifying conceptual approaches of nature conservation and the protection of cultural properties [7,12]. At the same time, the termination/ending of industrial activities open to many salt mines the opportunity to adapt to new functions while preserving their history and shape; they can be transformed into cultural, recreational, or touristic areas.…”

Evaluating Cultural Heritage Landscape Design as an Approach for Al Bujairi Park Development, Saudi Arabia

“…Some cultural landscapes are counted as a sacred in places where people have significant cultural, religious, and historical combination with their natural surroundings. Three main categories of cultural landscape design are defined in Annex 3 of the Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention (UNESCO 2017) [10] (Table 1).…”

Mining and Europe’s World Heritage Cultural Landscapes

“…Many cultural landscapes in Europe belong to our joint cultural and natural heritage of outstanding universal value that "(...) is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries to be of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity" [1]. In addition to national governments and other bodies, which might have protected cultural landscapes and their heritage well before, the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) since 1992 acknowledges such landscapes as world heritage, providing an international legal instrument for their protection [1,2] and unifying conceptual approaches of nature conservation and the protection of cultural properties [3,4]. Cultural landscapes are considered as "combined works of nature and man" that embody the longstanding human-nature interactions [5,6] and are subject to ongoing change.…”

“…Thus, cultural landscapes mirror specific, "traditional" land-use practices that are well embedded in the natural environment. Previous research stresses the capacity of cultural landscapes to support bio-cultural diversity and ecosystem services due to their sustainable land use [3,6,10]. However, the cultural landscape approach is critiqued, stressing a lack of a comprehensive typology or ranking, the conflation of historic and aesthetic values, or associated power struggles, e.g., [11,12].…”