What is heritage?

Cultural

Heritage is a multidimensional, contestably undefinable concept or discourse that is integral to the human experience, encompassing nature, culture and society (Smith, 2006). As such, cultural heritage provides a bridge into the past, moulding and shaping communal identities through the amalgamation of human creativity and genius inherited and evolved from our ancestors. Whether it be your grandmother's wedding ring or the dance unique to your region, cultural heritage provides the world with an inimitable beauty and depth.

However, in a modernised world of international travel, cross-cultural exchange and an evolving climate, tangible and intangible cultural heritage have become increasingly complex and difficult to preserve and conserve. In accordance, one of the principal organisations which combats such anthropogenic threats to heritage and aids in global heritage conservation is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation or UNESCO.

After the destruction of European culture in World War I and II, UNESCO devised the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, or the World Heritage Convention, in 1972 to safeguard the world’s most outstanding sites of natural and cultural heritage, establishing the World Heritage List (UNESCO, 2019). Inaugurated by Article 8 of the Convention, properties inscribed to this list receive international oversight by the Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the Cultural and Natural Heritage of Outstanding Universal Value, or the World Heritage Committee, which currently incorporates representatives from 193 signatory State Parties and adheres to the regulatory framework of the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention (World Heritage Centre, 1972; UNESCO, 2017). As such, nominations of cultural heritage to the World Heritage List are required to contain at least one of the following six characteristics of Outstanding Universal Value:

Subsequently, the conservation and management of inscribed properties are closely monitored by the World Heritage Committee through the regular submission of State of Conservation Reports by State Parties and professional advisory body evaluations (UNESCO, 2017). Consequently, as these six parameters reflect the definition of tangible cultural heritage, three separate, less restrictive lists were then formulated by UNESCO in 2003 and established in 2006 to aid in the conservation and promotion of intangible cultural heritage, including the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices, established by the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO ICH, 2020).

Although these Conventions enable the international regard, oversight and professional monitoring of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, the preservation of all heritage hinges upon the willingness of global citizens to broaden and inform their horizons and understand the value of difference and all hues humanity has to offer.

Tangible

• monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;


• groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;


• sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological point of view (UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 1972, p.2);

Intangible

"Traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts." (UNESCO IHC, 2018)

Natural

Concurrent to the nominations above, the World Heritage Centre (2019) Operational Guidelines define natural heritage as:

• natural features consisting of physical and biological formations or groups of such formations, which are of Outstanding Universal Value from the aesthetic or scientific point of view;
• geological and physiographical formations and precisely delineated areas which constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of Outstanding Universal Value from the point of view of science or conservation;
• natural sites or precisely delineated natural areas of Outstanding Universal Value from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty.

And are required to contain at least one of the following four characteristics of Outstanding Universal Value and can also be combined with cultural heritage (ibid, 2019):

• (vi) be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria)
(vii) to contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance;
• (viii) to be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features;
• (ix) to be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals;
• (x) to contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.

In addition, natural and cultural properties can be nominated together and considered as “mixed cultural and natural heritage”.

More information

coded by Thiana Fitzhugh