World Heritage FOR Sustainable Development

Lead Research Organisation: University of Birmingham
Department Name: History and Cultures

Abstract

There are currently 1031 sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List embracing cultural, natural and mixed categories. While it has long been recognised that sites require protection, conservation and management, they are increasingly implicated in wider programmes of social and economic development. A significant part of this is tourism-related which is widely perceived as a pathway to development particularly within developing countries where heritage and the wider landscape are important, if often fragile resources. Closely linked to this is the wider cultural and creative sector that animates places and supports tourism.

The United Nation's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognises the role that the inter-connected sectors of culture, heritage, the creative industries and tourism can play in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. The focus of this Network is specifically on the role that World Heritage sites can play in sustainable development as high profile actors in both cultural heritage and international tourism. In terms of the sites themselves and associated symbolic, 'brand' value of UNESCO inscription, World Heritage sites offer significant development opportunities for ODA countries. However, there are clearly sensitivities around a more instrumental use of World Heritage that has long been immersed in the discourse of protection and preservation rather than as a lever for social, environmental and economic improvement within the context of sustainable development. Furthermore, there remains limited understanding of the ways in which World Heritage can actualise sustainable development through engagement with local communities and the embedded knowledge and creativity they hold. This role of the community is recognised by UNESCO but mechanisms for harnessing this are not well developed. While clearly recognising the over-arching need to protect and maintain World Heritage, there is a need to re-imagine and re-structure the way that it is used; not simply as interesting and attractive places to visit but as highly visible and influential resources that can be used to achieve the SDGs.

Through a series of workshops, including those held in ODA countries, this project establishes and builds a Network of experienced and new researchers, policy makers and local stakeholders to share research, new ideas and examples of good practice relating to the ways in which World Heritage can be effectively and sensitively mobilised for sustainable development. Each workshop will focus on a World Heritage site and will act as a research activity and an opportunity to debate questions of practice and policy around concepts such as developing and managing sustainable tourism, working with the wider cultural and creative sectors and site management and governance. It will seek to better understand the conditions of working with World Heritage and the barriers to sustainable utilisation of the sites. The Network will recognise the multi/interdisciplinary nature of its objectives and its core partners and will seek to learn from the communities and stakeholders it engages with. In working with UNESCO's World Heritage Centre and specifically the sustainable tourism programme the Network will endeavour to shape policy and strategy and to disseminate its outputs and working methods beyond its immediate partners so as to engage with the other World Heritage sites in ODA countries.

Planned Impact

Cultural heritage and World Heritage in particular, is increasingly recognised as being an important resource, the careful valorisation of which can contribute to the achievement of the SDGs in ODA countries. This re-thinking of World Heritage and new initiatives to implicate it into the wider sustainable development agenda raises important issues of social justice, development, governance, cultural economics, tourism, interpretation and management which have relevance for academics from across several disciplines and importantly for non-academic site/community-based practitioners. This research Network provides academic and non-academic members with new methods and insights that will be of direct relevance to their practice. Through World Heritage site-based workshops the collaborative research process ensures that practitioners have a voice and a role in defining and addressing research questions so as to provide new perspectives on scholarly work in this area. The workshop outputs, particularly in terms of the themed reports, the on-going reporting and information resource of the open access website, case study material and the final Network report from the dissemination conference at UNESCO HQ Paris, are addressed to both academic and non-academic communities.

As referenced in the attached Pathways to Impact document, academics, practitioners, stakeholder organisations and groups are members of the Network and are directly incorporated into the research process through involvement in both the workshops and the conference. The key partners of the Network are active in research and the debates relating to the valorisation of World Heritage and have direct experience of working with and in, World Heritage Sites in ODA countries. An important partner is UNESCO's Sustainable Tourism Programme (STP) at the World Heritage Centre. The STP engages directly with World Heritage Sites in ODA countries and has capacity building within local communities as a foundational element of its work. Through the STP the Network project will be able to reach practitioners and academics and existing examples of good practice in a majority of ODA countries. Capacities for academic research in the UNESCO World Heritage Centre will be enhanced by the project and outputs from the workshops and the on-going debate catalysed through its members will find a genuinely global audience. In the two ODA workshops (China and Peru) beneficiaries will include local, regional and national stakeholders, each gaining new and trans-national perspectives on the mobilisation of World Heritage for sustainable development. In orchestrating the workshops new and innovative partnerships will be demonstrated between World Heritage managers and the wider constituency of the cultural and creative sector, the tourism sector, education and business.

The final conference event in UNESCO, Paris, will be an important occasion for the Network to disseminate its findings, to discuss the problems and opportunities explored in the workshops, to formulate further research pathways and to shape policy within ODA countries that are seeking to utilise their World Heritage resources for sustainable development.

The Network will initiate a dialogue between scholars across diverse disciplines, practitioners and policy-makers which shapes future academic and non-academic engagement in this field. Of particular concern will be to engage with and encourage early career researchers and PhD students in cross-disciplinary research on the relationships between World Heritage and sustainable development in the ODA countries.

Publications

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Description The project is still underway but preliminary findings from two workshops involving professionals and communities engaged in the World Heritage field indicate that the policy direction as adopted by UNESCO's World Heritage Committee in 2015 which displays a new sensibility towards the wider agenda of meeting the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through World Heritage, has not as yet, filtered down to site management level. There is a lack of awareness of a) the SDGs in the wider framework of their adoption at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015 and b) specifically, the policy on the integration of a sustainable development perspective into the processes of the World Heritage Convention as adopted at the 20th General Assembly of the States Parties in November 2015. The reasons for this 'communication gap' are invariably State specific and shaped by the structures and cultures of both communication and governance. In China, there was an apparent disconnect between national, provincial and local/site level. However, at the local level and despite being fragmented, there were actions taking place at the interface between the local community stakeholders working within the World Heritage Site and the Site management authorities that indicated that there was indeed a working knowledge of the importance of the sustainable development agenda, particularly of the more business-focused goals relating to sustainable cities and economy. Moreover, the community, particularly the younger generations were engaged with practices that demonstrated selective commitment to the SDGs. However, it is far from clear whether this is related to the status of the Site as World Heritage.
Exploitation Route The findings are partial but there are opportunities for improving communication issues within the World Heritage network and achieving better integration with other relevant policy sectors.
Sectors Creative Economy,Education,Environment,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
 
Description Workshop with Chinese World Heritage Site Stakeholders (West Lake World Heritage Site) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Around 40 people attended a two day workshop at the World Heritage Site of West Lake, near Hangzhou, China on the 29th and 30th of January 2018. The theme of the workshop was 'Governance and Cross-Sector Partnerships' and focused on the themes of policy and governance and their relation to World Heritage and sustainable development. The event was kindly hosted by the West Lake World Heritage Management Authority at their offices at West Lake. In addition to the project team, the meeting was attended by local, provincial and national interest groups. These included staff from different departments of the Management Authority, representatives from the heritage and tourism sectors and local community stakeholders. Also in attendance were academics and young researchers from Zhejiang University and from Beijing, the Vice Chair of the World Heritage Monitoring Programme at the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage. The workshop consisted of presentations by the project team and by the World Heritage Site managers. Discussion took place following the presentations which highlighted both specific, site-based issues and more generic issues relating to World Heritage management and governance. Of clear concern was the impact of encroaching urbanisation upon West Lake from the adjacent city of Hangzhou. While there is close links between the administration of West Lake and the planning office in Hangzhou and there is systematic monitoring of development and expansion plans there is nevertheless an on-going threat to the landscape. Research is being undertaken in order to examine the influence of city development at 17 pilot sites around West Lake to monitor construction projects. The growth in tourist numbers to the site is also a major concern although the Management authority have initiated several projects to monitor and regulate visitor flows at peak periods and at key sites. The wider issues regarding the contribution of West Lake to the Sustainable Development Goals yielded a number of responses from the different stakeholders. There was general recognition that the Goals themselves are not overly familiar to the workshop participants and that the relatively recent shift in UNESCO policy re World Heritage and the SDGs has not filtered down to site level. However, West Lake could relate to some of the 17 SDGs, particularly those of sustainable cities and enhancing the local economy.
Considerable interest and discussion focused on the concept of community and who constituted the community in West Lake. It was apparent that the dominant community group were the tea farmers of the area. Many of the tea farmers rent their land and property to small businesses and tourism establishments. There was some acknowledgement that between the management of West Lake and local businesses that the term sustainable development was recognised, though not specifically the SDGs. An owner of a tea house responded that the first time he heard about Sustainable development was 5 years ago when someone told him from the administration told him about the term focusing especially on more sustainable ways of waste disposal. However, there is no official process of communicating the Sustainable Development Goals neither to local communities nor to tourists. The owner has developed his own approach to sustainable development. This becomes difficult with the unprecedented changes in the area such as the proliferation of tea houses and the increasing competition. Characteristically, the owner said that before 2014 there were around 100 teas houses in the World Heritage area but this has now increased to over 400 but with no directions or guidance provided regarding the sustainable running of these businesses.

With regard to issues of communication the Director of the National Monitoring Center at the Chinese Cultural Heritage Academy in Beijing commented that the Center organises symposia and conferences updating the relevant professionals about changes in policies but this is a long process as the higher levels of administration first conduct research on any changes and/or updates on policies at international level before it is filtered down to the lower levels of administration. She acknowledged that they have to think beyond conservation and they should make the links with other priorities such as economic and social development.
A further discussion focused on the wider involvement of stakeholders with comments that after the inscription of the site there had been an increased sense of pride for the area by local people. Many organisations have been established especially by young people, showing that the inscription stimulated the confidence for initiating cultural related activities. A number of young ambassadors attended the workshop and stressed that the interest in heritage and the observable change after the inscription go beyond financial concerns, citing the growth in cultural activities such as games and dances in celebration of their heritage and an increasing spiritual aspect. The ambassadors noted that they employ many different ways of communicating West Lake's culture, such as publicizing relevant information in the internet, organizing games for tourists and new residents or applying story telling in order to communicate heritage values.

According to a representative from the Conservation department (relics) there remain problems of how to integrate the World Heritage Convention into the current conservation laws in China. Existing law does not cover the conservation of all the sites while the World Heritage Convention and other relevant documents produced by UNESCO are quite abstract and difficult to be interpreted in rules and regulations applicable by national laws. In addition, some individual elements inscribed as heritage within the West Lake World Heritage boundaries are not recognized at a national level and therefore there might be in risk. Besides, a critical problem identified is that different laws protect different elements of the landscape applying different principles and rules. There is no integrated approach that addresses the conservation of the landscape and its constituent elements holistically. The challenge of coordination among the different departments is a common issue that needs to be solved. The West Lake Authority acknowledged this is a structural issue but also a cultural issue as it relates with authorities' mentality. Discussion ensued as to how this may be approached in practical terms as to shift attitudes. The workshop allowed a number of voices to come through and there was a marked interest in the wider issues of governance of World Heritage Sites, particularly cultural landscapes, and how other sites approached this. There was also a strong interest in learning about other sites and their stakeholder communities are dealing with meeting the SDGs.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://wh4sd.wordpress.com/
 
Description Workshop with World Heritage Site Managers and stakeholders in Jordan 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Over two days 46 people attended a workshop hosted by the Petra Tourism and Regional Development Authority at the Faculty of Archaeology and Tourism of Al Hussein bin Talal University, Petra, Jordan, June 22-24th 2018. The key themes of the workshop were Management Challenges, Community Engagement and Governance in the context of World Heritage and Sustainable Development. The event was hosted by the Deputy Chief Commissioner for Petra Archaeological Park and Tourism Affairs. The workshop was preceded by a site visit to the Petra World Heritage Site to explore some of the issues facing the management of the site and to meet with guides, local and tourists. It also concluded with a visit to recently inscribed site of Bethany near the Dead Sea. The project team also included two PhD candidates from Birmingham working on World Heritage Issues. The workshop was attended by academics from the Al Hussein bin Talal University, managers from the Petra Archaeological Park, the site directors of the World Heritage Sites at Wadi Rum and the Bethany Baptism Site and officials from the Department of Antiquities at the Jordan Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities who had management responsibility for the other two World Heritage Sites in Jordan - Umm er Rassas and Qasr Amra - along with those who were involved with sites from Jordan's Tentative List. Other attendees included business owners, tour guides, community representatives and local postgraduate students. The workshop consisted of presentations by the project team and by the World Heritage Site managers.
The presentations from the Jordanian World Heritage Sites highlighted the following issues of relevance to the project. First, that the category of World Heritage is intimately linked to the development of tourism in the country. The high dependence on tourism at national and local level is clearly visible at the sites of Petra and Wadi Rum and there are long-standing and on-going issues of related tourism infrastructural development that are seen by UNESCO and related NGOs as threatening the sites. However, what is apparent that outside of the two well-known sites, tourism is poorly developed and much needed and wanted by the local communities. The actual and perceived benefits of tourism development as a major driver for local economies remains the source of friction between different community/tribal factions and between the heritage preservation lobby and the site management authorities.
Second, that despite the high profile of some of these heritage sites and the importance of tourism to the state, they have a significant reliance upon ticketing and direct and direct visitor spend. However, the tensions and problems that site management brings eats into any time for strategic planning and capacity building. There remains a high dependency on external donors for site important repairs. From the local stakeholders and communities, the tourism outputs of the World Heritage Sites are recognised as the priority. Indeed, for the local Bedul community a dependency culture on tourism has developed which shapes social life. Competition for access to the sites as a tourism resource is fierce and problematic to manage by the Site administrations. At the same time other World Heritage Sites remain poorly developed in terms of tourism so accentuating the pressures and privileges of the featured sites.
Third, there is clearly limited awareness regarding any linkages between the World Heritage Sites and the Sustainable Development Goals. While Jordan is a signatory to the SDGs this is not recognised as something which relates to heritage generally and World Heritage in particular, certainly beyond the recognition for the protection and preservation of sites. Seeing World Heritage as an instrument of wider social and economic development is almost exclusively restricted to the touristic valorisation of sites and there appears limited capacity for strategy that would allow for wider integration of the sites. The policy communities within Jordan are not well integrated with heritage despite the dependency of the country on tourism and the dependency of tourism upon the country's extensive heritage.
Fourth and related, the lack of a strategic and joined up approach to the governance, not only of World Heritage Sites but of all heritage, is recognised at both site level and at government level. However, this is cut across by issues of land ownership and rights - legal or otherwise - and by the long-standing influence of external actors - NGOs, archaeologists, donor agencies who by default shape the way that heritage is developed and managed in Jordan. Discussion brought out dissatisfaction amongst young archaeologists trained in Jordan that could not gain positions in their own country - despite its abundance of heritage - partly as there is limited State funding so that donor agencies bring in their own experts and there is a culture of reliance of external support.
Discussion was lively and vigorous and it was clear that in the case of World Heritage, the designation for some was seen to be restrictive at the most and irrelevant at the least. The symbolic power of the UNESCO label is weak and the wider work of UNESCO and the UN through the SDGs is limited as to how it is permeating down to local communities.
The intense and sometimes challenging discussions of the workshop were warmly welcomed by the officials attending who were frustrated by a heritage blight that is embedded in Jordanian society. The prime needs of social and economic development as part of the SDGs are obvious but there is a recognition that there is a severe lack of strategy as to how heritage / World Heritage is mobilised for wider public good. There were important questions raised and reflected upon during the workshop that have their roots in the colonial past of Jordan, in the notions of nationalism and that relate to the wider geo-political role of the country. There was a clear expression at the end of the workshop that more focused opportunities would be welcomed to place heritage in a much wider context than conservation management issues.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Workshop with World Heritage Site Stakeholders, Policy Makers and Practitioners (Brussels) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This two- and half-day workshop was designed to bring together various themes identified through the previous workshops and to discuss them with colleagues engaged with the management, monitoring and research of World Heritage Sites. Aside from representatives from the project team, the workshop was attended by World Heritage Site Managers, representatives from UNESCO at National levels, the European Commission, World Heritage Associations and a range of academics working with World Heritage Sites at site and community levels. Several cases were presented including from Egypt (Old Cairo), Nepal (Kathmandu Valley), Myanmar (Bagan), Tunisia (Sousse), India (Hampi), Jordan (Petra) and each explored the issues of governance, communication and various management issues as relating to the concept of sustainable development. In total some 13 nationalities were represented at the Workshop and collectively it represented considerable experience and expertise of working with World Heritage Sites 'on-the-ground' and within various policy domains and national and international level. With representation from the EU Commission from DG Culture and the EU / UNESCO liaison office at the meeting, the German National Commission, the French Association of World Heritage Sites and with interest from other EU departments dealing with Development Issues, the workshop had wider interest than from those that could attend.

The themes and findings from the earlier workshops were presented here and were broadly echoed as being familiar at other sites in the developing world and indeed in the European context. While there is a policy commitment to aligning World Heritage to the SDGs these are not as yet providing any form of framework for addressing problems experienced at the Site level. There are examples of good practice available but these tend to be ad-hoc and responsive to singular pressures rather than framed by any strategic intervention at either national or international level. Commonly identified positive practices are characterised by collaboration between the developed and developing world, across differing policy sectors and with various levels of engagement between public, NGO and the private sector. Interestingly, the latter has tended to be viewed as a threat to the well being of World Heritage Sites rather than as a potential actor in the delivery of the SDGs. At the same time NGOs are heavily engaged but their ability to commit to a site or destination is tested due to funding pressures, the failure to truly build local capacities and a lack of local infrastructure. This can lead to on-going dependency cultures for sites in the developing world.

The workshop provided a valuable platform to test out the responses and discussions conducted in the earlier meetings and to refine some thoughts regarding the common impediments that appear to lie at the interface between World Heritage Sites and the SDGs and more specifically between the various agencies - between UNESCO and State Parties - and between World Heritage Sites and communities. All who attended the workshop were anxious to assist in moving the debate forward and were asked to consider practical measures that can be implemented through new collaborations and bi-lateral actions. These are to be explored in the final report of the Network which will be disseminated to all that have taken part in all the workshops and to all organisations that have been discussed.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018