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UNESCO's Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972) (Convention) provides the highest level of international recognition for outstanding universal heritage places. While the Convention has been instrumental in aiding heritage preservation, arguably it has also reinforced a problematic 'culture' and 'nature' division in protected area management. This is not a new observation. One solution that attempted to address this issue was the introduction of the World Heritage (WH) 'Cultural Landscape' category in 1992. Yet, as of 2023, there are only 127 Cultural Landscape properties of the total 1157 properties on the WH List (10.9%). Poor recognition of the category appears particularly acute in some regions, such as Australia-Oceania, and in this paper, we consider this apparent under-utilisation with a systematic review of the literature about the category. Our analysis reveals significant and concerning regional variations in both use of the cultural landscape category and in research about it. In our current era, when better recognition of First Nation heritage is demanded, and when greater protection of heritage assets is required, further uptake of the Cultural Landscape category has the potential to redress these pressing societal concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines factors associated with threats to Cultural World Heritage Sites as perceived by their management. Employed for the analysis are data on 396 UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Sites in North America and Europe as well as 2158 threats identified by the UNESCO Second Cycle of Periodic Reporting for Europe and North America in 2014. One out of seven sites report that there are no threats at all and 2.5% do not provide information on the threats. Probit models show that sites inscribed early, those considered as "masterpieces" and sites located in certain countries are more likely to report a threat. Ordered Probit estimations, including three levels of threats (negligible, minor and major), reveal that the degree of threat perception is highest for entire cultural cities and cultural landscapes. The severity also varies by kind of threat and country of location. Climate change and severe weather as well as sudden geological events have the highest probability of being perceived as major threats. The third group of the most frequently mentioned major threats encompasses factors including local conditions affecting the physical fabric, social/cultural use of the heritage (tourism/visitors/recreation) as well as buildings and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of cultural landscapes within the framework of the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention is widely hailed as a landmark achievement. While it is often described as a boon for the recognition of non-European cultural heritage, we show that this is largely a myth. In the drawn-out gestation process, European countries' listing ambitions were crucial, and topics such as Indigenous sites were brought up by the Global North while a concern for, as well as representatives from, the Global South were largely absent. Introducing the category in 1992 significantly broadened the types of acceptable sites, but European countries continued to dominate just like for other cultural heritage, filling the World Heritage List with vineyard landscapes rather than the sacred mountains that were first inscribed. European states also eagerly used extra nomination slots for cultural landscapes while non-European List leaders prioritised natural heritage and the conventional cultural heritage they had not yet exhausted instead. Moreover, non-European cultural landscapes have struggled to gain expert approval, as is demonstrated for African nominations. The mere introduction of a new heritage category thus does not suffice to alter a dynamic more than ever determined by national self-interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User-generated reviews of visitor attractions, on publicly available websites, such as Tripadvisor, are frequently used in tourism research but feature less often in published cultural heritage research. In this paper, we describe a qualitative analysis of the text from user-generated reviews of three peatland heritage landscapes in the United Kingdom – Ilkley Moor, Thorne and Hatfield Moors, and Shapwick Heath – to better understand the role tangible and intangible cultural heritage play in visitor perceptions and narratives of these sites. Our analysis indicates that visitors tend to emphasise natural over cultural heritage of peatland landscapes and hold plural, highly contextual and sometimes dissonant perceptions; there is no single story of peatlands. This presents both challenges and opportunities for building public appreciation of peatland cultural heritage. User-generated reviews offer, as-yet under-explored, potential data for use by heritage researchers and managers who seek to explore how visitors understand and use sites, and may also contribute to the emerging intangible heritage of heritage landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical location plays an important role in the form and experience of music festivals. This article explores how the landscape shapes the uses, experiences and meaning of a music festival, by a close study of the SummerJazzCycleTour (ZomerJazzFietsTour). This is a summer festival that has been organised for over 30 years in the Reitdiep valley, the oldest cultural landscape of Northwest Europe, situated in the most Northern region of the Netherlands. Festivalgoers' experiences tell us how the characteristic locations and the act of cycling from one venue to the other affect both the music and the festival experience, and provide insight in the perception and the role of the landscape therein. The results are drawn from focus group interviews held with festival attendees, completed with participant observations during the 30th jubilee edition of the festival in 2016 and the 31st edition in 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gendered interpretations are rare both within castle-studies and heritage discourses on medieval castles. Yet, castles hold potential to inform multi-vocal accounts of the medieval past and to inspire meaningful heritage interpretations to achieve greater societal impact. This article explores the role that gender currently plays in interpretations of medieval castles in Britain, supported by three case-studies written by heritage professionals. The enduring narrative of militarism at medieval castles sites is discussed, together with issues of authenticity in relation to the historical record, which is in itself biased and inherently gendered. Outcomes from a collaborative workshop highlight the need to address interpretative issues where gender is considered to equate to 'making women visible'. Finally, we pose the question: What makes a 'good gendered interpretation' at a public heritage site? Abbreviations: CDI: Calendar of Documents Relating to Ireland 1171-1307 AD, ed H.S. Sweetman. 5 vols (London, 1867-73); TNA: The National Archives Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores local-historical ways of remembering trees, physically traceable or not, in the Chinese discourse of guji (古迹, ancient vestige), focusing on the city of Hangzhou during the Qing Dynasty (1636-1911). By analysing guji documentation of trees in five local gazetteers of the focal region and timeframe, I foreground a fourfold apparatus of meaning-making that effectuates the transformation of trees from natural existence to culturally significant heritage. That is, to frame and transmit trees as (1) rare or most beautiful jing (景landscape), (2) site of poetics, (3) site of memory, and (4) place name. These intersecting, subaltern ways of meaning-making and remembering help us further critique the culture-nature dualism rooted in Western Cartesian epistemology, which still prevails in contemporary heritage research and practice in China and the wider world. It also allows us to see the culturalisation of nature within the framework of an alternative discourse of heritage from China. This nature-to-culture transformation, I argue, is not just adding 'intangible cultural values in natural heritage' or making 'intangible natural heritage'; it is constructing natural existence as what is analogous to cultural or cultural landscape heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research article traces the process of transition from spontaneous to ‘official’ memorialisation of the 2016 Brussels terrorist attack by questioning which factors trigger the heritagization process of spontaneous memorials and their contents. With a view to critically assess the significance of heritage values in relation to terrorism, this article scrutinises how these values are grasped, narrated and articulated by the local authorities, government and archival institutions in the preservation, conservation and heritagization of spontaneous memorials. There is an emphasis on the two facets of heritagization: how meanings attached to a memorial and its objects are created and expressed by the community of bereavement, and how the transformation of places, practices, objects into diverse forms of ‘heritage’ evolves. This article brings a new perspective on the heritagization of spontaneous memorials, seen as important in determining how a traumatic event such is a terrorist attack will settle in the collective memory on the long term, by becoming historicized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a rich, but unacknowledged, heritage of rural subalterns, crofters, in Scandinavia. A Swedish-Norwegian interdisciplinary research-network investigated the most prominent category – the remains of crofts. Due to industrialisation, urbanisation and the modern welfare state, the institution of crofting was abolished, and many crofters left for opportunities elsewhere. The welfare state transformed a landscape of living and working people into a one filled with relicts mostly from the nineteenth century. Although numerous and important to local citizens, these sites fall outside the authorised heritage discourse (AHD) in terms of both research and heritage management. This paper takes an environmental justice perspective to challenge the AHD. Three themes are in focus: (1) bringing out the history of a subaltern and marginalised group of people; (2) promoting crofts as heritage of importance to local citizens and demanding complex management due to the various historical narratives and risks; (3) considering the crofting landscapes in relation to the (economisation) framing of heritage in development processes, especially in relation to fair development in present rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on multi-sited anthropological fieldwork to analyse institutional practices of producing cultural authenticity and value under conditions of globalization. It focuses on the ‘re-discovery’ of three so-called Maisons Tropicales as modern architectural heritage in Niamey and Brazzaville. These prototypes of a colonial building project were subsequently translocated, commoditized and displayed as modern works of art in Paris and New York. The article describes the global connections and disconnections between the actors involved, claiming that the alternative practices of appropriating the Maisons Tropicales rely on competing and conflicting technologies of authenticity and value. Adding to scholarship on exchanges of material culture, as well as on the production of cultural authenticity and value, the article reframes debates in heritage studies pertaining to the ethics of site-specificity, material integrity, and integrity of place; preservation, conservation, and restoration; restitution and repatriation; as well as questions of cultural identity and the notion of a ‘shared’ colonial heritage. Ultimately, the article re-contextualizes the Maisons Tropicales in their (post-)colonial legacies. It concludes that critical interjections by artists and ethnographers suggest potential to reassemble the dominant technologies of authenticity and value in the fields of art and heritage preservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of cultural landscapes relates to the multifaceted links between people, place and identity. From a professional perspective, the concept refers to a category of designated conservation areas with specific biocultural heritage values. From a local perspective, it may refer to a landscape that is associated with the provision of a culturally-specific sense of identity and belonging. We explore these two perspectives through a comparative analysis of three cultural landscapes in South Africa, the ‘expert’ designated Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape and the Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape, and the local associative landscape ofemaXhoseni,which is not formally recognised. We propose that a biocultural diversity perspective of heritage not only recognises the inextricable relationship between nature and culture, but it also gives prominence to the beliefs, values and practices of local people, and to strengthening their agency to safeguard their heritage in ways and forms that are relevant to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the memorial landscape is a dynamically composed assemblage of heterogeneous elements, and that the guided walking tour is a practical tactic through which discourses and materials might be re-assembled and thus re-signified. Guided walking tours therefore epitomise the relational rethinking of memorial landscapes, or quasi-heritage, in everyday urban life. Based on three case studies in Taipei, Taiwan, we discuss how memorial landscapes featuring the urban underclass and civil resistance might be strategically re-assembled. We explore to what extent the bodily practices, narratives, and reconfiguration of space have produced new memorialised landscapes. We conclude that guided walking tours are a form of social intervention that can reframe our understanding of memorialization or quasi-heritagization, especially in the urban arena where heterogeneous values increasingly compete. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2012 the UNESCO World Heritage Committee added to its World Heritage List the ‘Cultural Landscape of Bali Province: thesubaksystem as a manifestation of the Tri Hita Karana Philosophy’. Barely a year later, UNESCO had become sufficiently concerned about reports of various problems that it advised the Government of Indonesia of these concerns. Through ethnographic study of the initial implementation of the listing, this article reveals problems of uncontrolled development, and disputes over the allocation of benefits to local communities, and challenges to effective governance. It focuses on two key locations of the site, offering an analysis of problems, their causes and effects. Beginning with the premise that the gulf of understanding between the global World Heritage system and local communities often creates a range of unintended consequences, this article reveals the many ‘awkward engagements’ that have emerged ‘on the ground’ in Bali as local agencies of government are left to their own devices to manage the World Heritage site. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The early 1990s saw a move against European-dominated discourses of heritage and the concept of authenticity in the World Heritage system, with the development of the Nara Document. The Document, now in its twentieth year from inception, articulated a developing Asian approach to authenticity, recognising the ways and means to preserve cultural heritage with community participation and different understandings of heritage that existed outside Europe. Meanwhile, there was another significant development and split in ideas around cultural landscapes in the 1990s that has broadened wider interdisciplinary debates in heritage studies. Through the case study of the Borobudur Temple, which was the focus of large-scale interventions by UNESCO and the Japanese during the 1970s, this paper explores the dichotomy between European monument-centred heritage approaches against the cultural landscapes concept developed in Japan. Overall, this paper finds that at the time of the site’s nomination for inscription on the World Heritage List, the obligatory use of World Heritage criteria meant that the Indonesian authorities followed European ideas of heritage value. This resulted in continued post-colonial monument-centred heritage conservation and held back the shift of heritage management to community involvement and the practice of wider landscape protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the socio-political implications and consequences of heritage practices related to indigenous cultural landscapes in post-settler nations. Although cultural landscapes are natural and material, they are also, more importantly, inscribed with meaning by those for whom they are heritage. Using a critical heritage studies framework, this paper examines the historical, cultural and legal contexts of Tongariro National Park and its nomination to the World Heritage list. I argue that narratives surrounding the Gift of Tongariro silence the colonial histories of the Park. I show how the ecological integrity and scientific, aesthetic, and conservation values of the Park are promoted, and in the process, Maori people’s complex and multifaceted relationships to the land are reframed as a relationship to the ‘natural’ world. I argue that to truly decolonise heritage, we must locate and acknowledge how our models, theories and practices of heritage work through systems of power and exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cultural landscapes are intended to increase awareness that heritage places (sites) are not isolated islands and that there is an interdependence of people, social structures, and the landscape and associated ecological systems. The paper explores whether the recognition of the 1992 World Heritage Cultural Landscape categories, the IUCN Protected Landscapes and the 2005 merging of cultural and natural criteria for World Heritage purposes have been effective in bridging the gap between culture and nature philosophically and in practice. With particular reference to opportunities presented in the Asia-Pacific region, where traditionally culture and nature are not regarded as separate, people are part of nature, the paper will further critically review the nature–culture link and its implications for North American-style national parks where cultural associations may not be seen to be necessary or even desirable. It suggests the imperative of highlighting and respecting in heritage nominations and inscriptions deep cultural associations of traditional communities with natural sites and implications for management to protect cultural and biological diversity and the need for thematic studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Upper Burnett district of southeast Queensland, Australia is a landscape of working class resilience in the face of natural and institutional oppression. The Upper Burnett was the site of numerous small goldmining towns throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Physically, most of these towns now survive only as archaeological remnants, yet both the tangible heritage elements and the intangible forms of labour heritage, such as stories in the landscape and of movement between places, contribute to the shared and continued attachment of the Burnett community to its mining history. Historical archaeological, sociological and landscape studies, including long-term projects working with descendents of the mining families, have provided detailed insight into the palimpsest of meanings applied to the social landscape of the working class inhabitants. Oral history, documentary and archaeological research have been conducted on the townships of Paradise, Mount Shamrock, Monal and Cania. The cultural landscape of these towns can be seen as a complex heritage of working class pastimes, networks of labour through kin and fictive kin relationships, strategic movement across the region and the interaction between communities. Although the local museums tend to memorialise the physical heritage of the goldmining through collecting and displaying the impressive material culture (such as stampers, berdan pans, mine wheels, etc.), it is the stories, meanings, diaries, and the continued attachments to these places today that play the larger role in the remembering of the working class past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of participatory management has had varied success in the field of heritage management depending on the context in which it has been applied, and the evidence from some heritage sites in sub-Saharan Africa reveals mixed results; some far from satisfactory. Most of the goals - particularly those aimed at involving local communities in decision making in heritage resources - still remain unfulfilled and at best experimental. This contribution deals with these issues within the context of case studies drawn from different areas of the sub-continent. The case studies demonstrate that the discourse of community participation is sometimes overly ambitious in its intents and, from a practical point of view, is not easy to apply. This is because communities are neither universal nor homogenous. Furthermore, many professionals pay lip-service to the whole concept of participation because the interests of local communities and those of professionals do not always coincide. Also, in some situations, the historical and socio-political environments militate against the concept. Therefore, given the varied context and range of management systems, as well as types of cultural heritage on the sub-continent, one cannot be prescriptive; the local situation should determine the nature of participation and/or levels of engagement needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the transformation from an archaeological research project to one that focused on Indigenous cultural heritage. The ultimate outcome was the development of a community-based approach for northern Cape York (Australia) that emerged from a partnership between researcher and the indigenous community. The paper particularly focuses on notions of landscape, sites and artefacts and the ways in which archaeological and indigenous perspectives of these are both different and similar. It challenges the idea that artefacts are only central for archaeologists, presenting a case study illustrating that they can also be important within Indigenous frameworks. These insights emerged from a deeper understanding of Indigenous local heritage that was only possible within a community-based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt at constructing a model of the landscape of the Gaelic imagination, including the otherworld, as evinced by place-names, poetry, songs and tales. A major division is noted between those parts where nature is domesticated, and the wilderness where nature is the ascendant force, in constant need of propitiation. The model has its roots in pagan Gaelic mythology, when the invading Gaels banished the spirits of the land underground or across the sea, while still requiring union with them and co-operation. Time in the otherworld is circular, and chaos, regeneration and creativity both threaten and attract people. The model is partly subsumed into Christianity, making exile attractive to a people who revered the wilderness. Though this model is culturally specific, it is argued that it expresses a fundamental need for negotiation between man and nature, which remains a major concern to our survival on the planet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory paper offers an overview of some of the environmental contexts of cultural landscapes in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The changing so-called 'marginality', in several senses of the word, of a series of examples of the cultural landscapes of the Highlands and Islands is examined in relation to environmental limits and socio-economic factors. 'Cryptic cultural landscapes' (those with altered ecologies which have been strongly influenced by human activity but which are without obvious built artefacts) feature alongside those that may appear more obviously 'cultural'. Comparisons are made with global examples of other cultural landscapes in which environmental limits have been stretched or breached by the ecological footprint of past human societies. Mention is made of some strategies for the creation of ecologically enhanced—and therefore more environmentally robust—cultural landscapes, and the possible future contribution of these to human communities and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historic region of Ohmi-Hachiman, located in central Japan, is an example of a Continuing Landscape in an Asian setting. With a differing perspective on what may constitute authenticity, a planning exercise is now underway looking for a sustainable future for the city and surrounding countryside that is both a popular tourist attraction and a working agricultural area. Ohmi-Hachiman combines two areas ICOMOS has declared as under-represente d—an Asia heritage site and an agricultural landscape. This region is a Japanese case study that shares many planning and policy traditions with the West. It is the product of a long industrialised and developed nation, yet the site is quintessentially Asian with rice paddies and small villages sharing an ethos with the rest of this part of the world. It is an ethos that includes a philosophical and practical approach to this Japanese Continuing Landscape which dramatically diverges from conventional Western practices and challenges the accepted ideas of authenticity. It is an approach worthy of close scrutiny by those overseeing heritage landscapes in the rest of the world who may also be facing the uncomfortable clash of commerce and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the course of time, environments built within landscapes have been transformed into conserved archaeological heritage sites through natural, but mostly anthropogenic, forces. Today, cultural heritage is the product of visual and spatial features of architectural material and landscapes created through conservation, but also through social and economical needs and interests. In Western Anatolia, archaeological heritage sites with ecologically rich areas, countryside, coastlines and seascapes are the most essential visual, spatial and structural features of cultural (historical) landscapes. Moreover, western Anatolian landscapes have retained their authentic character regarding intangible cultural diversity, ecology, rural traditional systems and agricultural practices. However, rapid changes and developments due to urbanisation and mass tourism have made their impacts on cultural historical landscapes in recent years. In this paper, an attempt is made to explore the cultural heritage within the evolution of cultural archaeological landscapes in Western Anatolia and to propose a sustainable approach for development and conservation options for cultural heritage and their landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of cultural landscape has been accepted in the World Heritage Convention since 1992 but the adoption for World Heritage inscription is different among regions. This paper aims to address the issues of applying the concept of cultural landscape in Asia and the Pacific. The article first takes an overview of the World Heritage List and current issues related to the cultural landscape. This is followed by a discussion of the cultural landscape by referring to previous studies, with detailed analysis pointing out the major characteristics of the listed cultural landscapes in Asia and the Pacific, which are tabulated using the numerical data. The final discussion concludes by addressing the discourse on applying the World Heritage Convention and the current issues on cultural landscape conservation in Asia and the Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biological diversity is a concept that has been developed and enshrined in multilateral agreements in a very short space of time. It is generally agreed that it was in 1986 that the concept was introduced. Much older in concept is cultural diversity. These two diversities are now meeting each other in many ways, not least through Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs). And both diversities are recognised, explicitly and implicitly, as part of the global heritage of humankind, with the attendant responsibilities that flow from that. In this paper we show the extent to which the two diversities are mutually self-supporting, and yet how in many cases MEAs seem to have ignored their mutual strengths. However, the very needs that are promoting synergies between the MEAs and broader UN programmes are also now promoting new ways of viewing interaction between the diversities. Nowhere is this clearer than in cultural landscapes, which feature explicitly in some MEAs but have impacts in all. For the future some seven key areas of research and development will help to build the strengths and mutual interaction of the diversities, within the policy framework of the MEAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the discussion regarding the effective conservation of the European natural heritage. First it is argued that there are intrinsic difficulties in defining the terms 'conservation', 'natural heritage' and 'cultural heritage', particularly in cultural landscapes. In the second part, keeping to the common, intuitive understanding, a simple schematic diagram is used to demonstrate that it is impossible to define the natural heritage in Europe decoupled from a simultaneous reference to the cultural heritage that co-created it. Next, the tools that the EU presently uses to conserve its natural heritage are discussed. It is emphasised that mere lists of species and habitats must not be misperceived as comprising the whole natural heritage of Europe, the conservation of which cannot be achieved solely within protected areas. A critical gap is pinpointed; despite its primary role, the intangible cultural heritage of the practices of farming and forestry that have forged the European natural heritage for centuries is not systematically recorded, recognised or conserved. The Mediterranean is simply treated as the most diverse area of Europe both in terms of natural and cultural heritage. Finally, it is suggested that the effective way to support conservation of the European natural heritage is to channel through the agriculture sector, a large part of the subsidies to support such practices in farming and forestry, or their closest modern applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada’s Buxton Settlement National Historic Site is a striking illustration of the multi‐faceted conservation of a cultural landscape, from federal designation through to local action. Buxton is designated as a ‘continuing landscape’ distinguished by its establishment in 1849 as a 9,000 acre (3,600 ha) 1 terminus for black fugitives travelling north along the so‐called Underground Railroad, escaping the tyranny of slavery in the USA. A social experiment, in the form of a block farming settlement, waited for them at the end of their journeys. Over the intervening years inevitable shifts in agricultural practice and property ownership have transformed this rather ordinary but strongly evocative heritage resource. This is a case common to many other significant cultural landscapes—the management of the inevitable evolution that comes with a landscape that continues. This agricultural landscape confronts many of the challenges that are the focus of heritage studies today: how to give local people a voice while coordinating conservation across multiple scales of government policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building a cultural landscape involves deep political and social processes. Discussions relating to decisions about preservation reveal cultural values at a particular moment and explain the character of the surviving landscape. This study analyses how one community in Western Australia defined its sense of place and identity. In the 1930s, on a wave of historical consciousness, Western Australians sought to enshrine the desire to preserve a range of historical materials in legislation, and conducted debates about the very survival of the buildings and documents. This paper investigates why legislation to preserve buildings and documents failed, and how the community understood the relationship between these two forms of heritage. Bringing together the two series of discussions, about the values inherent in and surrounding documents and buildings, highlights the way in which meanings are invested in places and things, and the values and processes through which the cultural landscape is shaped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]