This open access book focuses on the management of transboundary UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Africa region. It highlights the region as a model of best practices on cross-border collaboration ...in view of enforcing the conservation of the site, engaging with local communities, and fighting against (in some cases) extremist groups inhabiting these sites. It also addresses the role of the World Heritage Convention in promoting transboundary cooperation and offers both an analysis and a list of priorities for improving the effective management of transboundary properties in sub-Saharan Africa defined. This book presents chapters from experts, site managers, technical and financial partners, academics, and representatives of the private sector from 20 African countries and 15 institutions involved in African heritage management. It provides an opportunity to share current and planned initiatives at the transboundary sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, including the Maloti-Drakensberg Park (South Africa, Lesotho), W-Arly-Pendjari Complex (Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger), Sangha Trinational (Cameroon, Congo, Central African Republic), and Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls (Zambia, Zimbabwe). The publication further discusses African sites that could eventually be proposed for extension or nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage List in collaboration with the local and indigenous communities. This book is suitable for heritage specialists and readers interested in cross-border collaborations.
This open access book identifies various forms of heritage destruction and analyses their causes. It proposes strategies for avoiding and solving conflicts, based on integrating heritage into the ...2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It reflects on the identity-building role of heritage, on multidimensional conflicts and the destruction of heritage, and considers conflict-solving strategies and future perspectives. Furthermore, it engages theoretically and practically with the concepts of responsibility, reconciliation and sustainability, relating mainly to four Sustainable Development Goals, i.e. SDGs 4 (education), 11 (e.g. World Heritage), 13 (climate action) and 17 (partnerships for the goals). More than 160 countries have inscribed properties on the UNESCO World Heritage list since the World Heritage Convention came into force. Improvements in the implementation of the Convention, such as the Global Strategy for a Representative, Balanced and Credible World Heritage List, have occurred, but other conflicts have not been solved. The book advocates for a balanced distribution of properties and more effective strategies to represent the global diversity of cultural and natural heritage. Furthermore it highlights the importance of heritage in identity building.
This book offers a comprehensive overview of the intellectual developments in urban conservation. The authors offer unique insights from UNESCO's World Heritage Centre and the book is richly ...illustrated with colour photographs. Examples are drawn from urban heritage sites worldwide from Timbuktu to Liverpool to demonstrate key issues and best practice in urban conservation today. The book offers an invaluable resource for architects, planners, surveyors and engineers worldwide working in heritage conservation, as well as for local authority conservation officers and managers of heritage sites.
The UNESCO World Heritage Convention has become one of the most successful UN instruments for promoting cultural diplomacy and dialogue on conservation of cultural and natural heritage. This book ...provides an overview of the convention through an interdisciplinary approach to conservation. It shows that based on the notion of outstanding universal value and international co-operation for the protection of heritage, the convention provides a platform for sustainable development through the conservation and management of heritage of significance to humanity. With increasing globalization of heritage, World Heritage Conservation is reviewed as an emerging interdisciplinary field of study creating new opportunities for inclusive heritage debate both locally and globally, requiring common tools and understanding. With over a thousand properties inscribed on the World Heritage List, from biologically diverse sites such as the Central Amazon Conservation Complex to the urban landscape of the metropolis of Rio de Janeiro, this book will help students, researchers and professionals in the identification, protection, conservation and presentation of World Heritage. Targeted at a diversity of disciplines, the book critically describes the strategies for implementing the convention and the processes of heritage governance for sustainable development.
The UNESCO World Heritage Convention of 1972 set the contemporary standard for cultural and natural conservation. Today, a place on the World Heritage List is much sought after for tourism promotion, ...development funding, and national prestige. Presenting case studies from across the globe, particularly from Africa and Asia, anthropologists with situated expertise in specific World Heritage sites explore the consequences of the World Heritage framework and the global spread of the UNESCO heritage regime. This book shows how local and national circumstances interact with the global institutional framework in complex and unexpected ways. Often, the communities around World Heritage sites are constrained by these heritage regimes rather than empowered by them.
Statistical landslide susceptibility mapping is a topic in complete and constant evolution, especially since the introduction of machine learning (ML) methods. A new methodological approach is here ...presented, based on the ensemble of artificial neural network, generalized boosting model and maximum entropy ML algorithms. Such approach has been tested in the
Monterosso al Mare area
, Cinque Terre National Park (Northern Italy), severely hit by landslides in October 2011, following an extraordinary precipitation event, which caused extensive damage at this World Heritage site. Thirteen predisposing factors were selected and assessed according to the main characteristics of the territory and through variance inflation factor, whilst a database made of 260 landslides was adopted. Four different Ensemble techniques were applied, after the averaging of 300 stand-alone methods, each one providing validation scores such as ROC (receiver operating characteristics)/AUC (area under curve) and true skill statistics (TSS). A further model performance evaluation was achieved by assessing the uncertainty through the computation of the coefficient of variation (CV). Ensemble modelling thus showed improved reliability, testified by the higher scores, by the low values of CV and finally by a general consistency between the four Ensemble models adopted. Therefore, the improved reliability of Ensemble modelling confirms the efficacy and suitability of the proposed approach for decision-makers in land management at local and regional scales.
Cities are in a constant process of change and are the theater of interaction among people and their complex, historically multi-layered, culturally diverse living environment. Therefore, various ...interests, needs, and values affect these dynamics of interaction and urban change, which bring challenges and opportunities for the development of cities. Particularly, when urban development deals with such complex living environment and the management and conservation of both listed and non-listed heritage - as in the case of World Heritage cities - a variety of public and private, and global and local stakeholders are affected by processes of change. Inclusive approaches in the negotiation of these changes that involve all these actors is increasingly advocated for a more sustainable urban development. In the past three decades, the emergence of the so-called living heritage approach promotes the empowerment of those communities, groups, and individuals that keep heritage alive in participating in decision-making over the management of urban developments, and heritage management and conservation that affect them. The preservation of their continuous relationship with their heritage is considered key to fostering the mutual benefit of cities, heritage, and society. While research worldwide offers examples of best practices, the implementation of these approaches still faces many barriers and new challenges. This book aims to explore how (World) Heritage Cities are dealing with the preservation of their living heritage, what is needed for its effective management, what approaches are adopted, and what challenges and opportunities are encountered. Results offer an overview of current practices, which also include some of the first testimonies of their evolution in the time of a global pandemic (COVID-19), that can inform future research and urban
strategies.
Extant studies have found that the inscription of World Heritage sites (WHS) has no or negative effect on tourism in China, which does not explain why Chinese local governments are eager to apply for ...WHS. This study employs the difference-in-difference approach and city-level data from China to assess the effect of WHS over a more extended period, starting from initiation instead of inscription. The results indicate that WHS initiation can promote tourism, while WHS inscription reduces tourism revenue. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis reveals that WHS initiation has a more positive effect on domestic tourism revenue in the eastern region of China. In contrast, WHS inscription has a more negative effect on tourism revenue in the western region.
The World Heritage Committee routinely receives information about the state of conservation of WH properties from State Parties or ICOMOS or IUCN mission reports. While State Party Reports are often ...incomplete, outdated or even incorrect, Advisory Missions suffer from being too short and understaffed in order to fully grasp the local situation. The author will show that the observations of civil society must be brought in as checks and balances to let the WH Committee have a full understanding of the dynamics that affect World Heritage Properties. For many years, UNESCO has been requiring the participation of local communities in all procedures of the World Heritage Convention - from tentative lists and nominations to management and monitoring. However, State Parties remain reluctant to implement this - both on the site level and on the Convention level. In response to this situation, World Heritage Watch has been founded as a global network of civil society actors whose goal is to contribute to the safeguarding of World Heritage Sites by bringing information to the attention of the WH Committee, and to strengthen the role of civil society in the proceedings of the World Heritage Convention. Based on practical experience from the field and four years of activity within the organization, the presentation will explain what civil society has achieved, suggest where the challenges are and how they can be met, and provide an unvarnished outlook on the future of the World Heritage Convention.
The increased occurrence of extreme climate events, such as marine heatwaves (MHWs), has resulted in substantial ecological impacts worldwide. To date, metrics of thermal stress within marine systems ...have focussed on coral communities, and less is known about measuring stress relevant to other primary producers, such as seagrasses. An extreme MHW occurred across the Western Australian coastline in the austral summer of 2010–2011, exposing marine communities to summer seawater temperatures 2–5°C warmer than average. Using a combination of satellite imagery and in situ assessments, we provide detailed maps of seagrass coverage across the entire Shark Bay World Heritage Area (ca. 13,000 km2) before (2002 and 2010) and after the MHW (2014 and 2016). Our temporal analysis of these maps documents the single largest loss in dense seagrass extent globally (1,310 km2) following an acute disturbance. Total change in seagrass extent was spatially heterogeneous, with the most extensive declines occurring in the Western Gulf, Wooramel Bank and Faure Sill. Spatial variation in seagrass loss was best explained by a model that included an interaction between two heat stress metrics, the most substantial loss occurring when degree heating weeks (DHWm) was ≥10 and the number of days exposed to extreme sea surface temperature during the MHW (DaysOver) was ≥94. Ground truthing at 622 points indicated that change in seagrass cover was predominantly due to loss of Amphibolis antarctica rather than Posidonia australis, the other prominent seagrass at Shark Bay. As seawater temperatures continue to rise and the incidence of MHWs increase globally, this work will provide a basis for identifying areas of meadow degradation, or stability and recovery, and potential areas of resilience.
An extreme marine heatwave (MHW) occurred across the Western Australian coastline in the austral summer of 2010/2011. We quantified change in seagrass coverage across the entire Shark Bay World Heritage Area (ca. 13,000 km2) before (2002, 2010) and after the MHW (2014, 2016). Our temporal analysis documents the single largest loss in dense seagrass extent globally (1,310 km2) following an acute disturbance. Spatial variation in seagrass loss was best explained by a model that included an interaction between two heat stress metrics. As MHWs increase globally, this work provides a basis for identifying areas of meadow degradation and resilience.
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