Involvement of the Local Population in Heritage Sites Management - Essay Example

Involvement of the Local Population in Heritage Sites Management College Introduction The management of heritage sites involves the conversation of valuable places, artifacts and natural environment that a certain group of people consider important. UNESCO identifies these sites as important component to the cultural identity of individuals, communities and groups (Bandarin, 2015, pp.5). However, some members of the society may be involved in the destruction of the heritage sites that other members feel obliged to protect, because they find them vital in preservation of the customs and the traditions hence necessitating effective management of the sites. Management of the heritage sites is crucial and the involvement of local population in the management of the heritage sites cannot be underestimated but it is not always possible to have effective management when the local population is involved in managing the heritage sites due to some conflicts during the reservation of the heritage sites. Heritage Most scholars classify cultural heritage under two categories, which are intangible and tangible heritage. The intangible heritage cannot be touched but they are abstract ideas that people practice and they have an effect on their way of life. They are activities such religious rituals, dances, music and festivals. Tangible heritage is in form of physical things that occupy a space such as a game reserves, buildings, ancient objects, and ruins. The local population or community is usually defined as the number of people who come together to form a group and they have common interests, loyalties, values, beliefs and goals they anticipate to fulfill together. Although due to modernization other forms communities have emerged, which can be classified as intangible and interests such as the internet and football mostly unite them. To understand the essence of engaging the local population and what causes it not to be effective always, it is necessary to assesses various situations all over the world in order to answer the question of management of heritage sites. There arises a need to carefully interrogate the preexisting research on the local costs and the advantages of having conserved areas. Then drawing facts from the survey, which is necessary in understanding the particular aspects of the conservations that need to be highlighted and fully addressed. After noting the aspects, it will be appropriate to have methodologies that assess the impacts and can be tested. Then conduct research and assessment that should aid in the evaluating of quality of the new information provided. Lastly, show the level of ignorance (David, 2014, pp.34). The essence of such an evaluation is to give facts on the socio-economical knowledge regarding various conservation areas all over the world. There will be various tasks to be examined during in the assessment. First will be to assess the levels and ways the population is displaced. Then assess the data at hand regarding conservation areas. From assessing data then determine the available schemes that have been put in place to generate wealth meant for the local population living near the heritage sites. Finally will be to show how lack of information about displacement and local wealth creation has resulted is distributed in all the regions (Hamber&Canney, 2012, pp.23). A Case study in Australia In 974 Australia was among the first countries to sign into the World Heritage Convention. After the ratification, nineteen new sites have been included on the world heritage conventional list. Among them are four heritage sites important for cultural and natural universal values such as the Willlandra Lakes, Kakadu National Park, Ulurukata Tjuta National Park, and Tasmanian Wilderness. There have been several contentious issues on the engagement of the local population in managing the World Heritage sites and especially the nomination process. Some scholars feel that the four Heritage sites are not enough, specifically for not noticing the rights and obligations to the country, then the failure to include the indigenous Australians’ traditions (Janssen, 2014, pp.622-629). The four World heritage sites vary in levels of decision making depending on the traditional Indigenous owners. In the original steps to try to determine the potential heritage sites, the first condition was the inclusion of both the cultural and natural values that meets World Heritage requirements and secondly, the nominated sites had to approve by the Traditional Aboriginal Owners of the region. If the nominations go through, then the World Heritage Committee is satisfied, then these will be a unique international example from Australia because it will be a demonstration of respect to the Indigenous people or the local population. In addition, it highly expected that the process would honor the United Nations Declaration regarding the rights of the indigenous people. According to Altman, in Australia there has been biological diversity occurrence in areas that we have indigenous Australian ecology. The indigenous traditional ecological knowledge and natural resource management are interrelated. The Australian government has been taking an active role of the indigenous management of lands through partnership, funding, and any other available form of support (Lawson, 2011, pp.34). Various recommendations may foster engagement of the indigenous people. The first step by the real and strategic engagement is to protect the natural and strategic values. Second is to engage in the management and decision making in the respective areas. The third step of recommendation is to support and recognize self-determined protocols in process of improving governance. Finally, is to have true partnership that demonstrates approaches that administer resources, together with the provision of help in financial management. The success of the recommended points fully relies on the willingness to conduct an analysis that will lead to comprehensively highlighting of the protected land. Then have the ability to respond to the emerging issues by improving the availed resources through using more flexible heritage management ways. Framework The study should capture the impacts of the protected areas and socio-economic impacts in areas it has never been conducted before and especially in the less privileged parts of the world and their livelihood is suggestively more affected by displacement from the areas occupied by heritage sites. In less privileged parts, the governments are poorer and they are less thorough on the displacement issues affecting the population. The wealthier parts of the world will also be surveyed, especially in relation to the parts that are considered politically marginalized (Licciardi & Amirtahmasebi, 2012, pp.34). The Method to assess consequences The consequences of displacement due to reservation of heritage sites is likely to have adverse effects on the population, then there is the possibility of having potential advantages from the displacement that may have resulted from the establishment of heritage sites. To conduct an effective enquiry it will be necessary to know whether in the first place people have been moved the conserved places, and incase the eviction has not taken place, it necessary to know if it being awaited. Michael Cernea in 1990s he came up with a conceptual model of the risks involved in the resettling and displacing of people. The World Bank in an analysis study that involved involuntary displacement of people used the model. The model is known as (IIR) meaning Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction The model has 8 impoverishment risks that include Joblessness, Landlessness, marginalization, Homelessness, increased morbidity and mortality, food insecurity, social disarticulation and the loss of commonly shared property such as water, cultural sites and forests (Mosler,2011,pp.54). Ineffectiveness through local population management It has been a practice for protected areas to be isolated and in such cases; people living within the environs of the heritage site are evicted. The eviction occasions hardships, added expense, and impoverishment. It can be argued that biodiversity does alleviate poverty but it rather aggravates poverty because the lives of the affected people change drastically due settling down in new neighborhoods and the funds provided for compensation may not. Sufficiently compensate for the social-economic costs incurred. To understand the social dimension of conservation, there various reasons towards the approach that renders the involvement of the local population to be unsuitable in management of the heritage sites. The first reason is that there is widespread knowledge that the heritage areas cause inconvenience among the local population and they feel that their existence in the area has been threatened resulting to outright resistance or non-cooperation. The conservation and state authorities usually strive to protect the areas in order to reap the maximum benefits from the conservation without putting the cost involved into consideration. The question of compensation makes it hard to determine whether the money given can fully pay for the inconveniences bearing in mind that some projects take many years to establish and flourish again (Zan,2013,pp.167-184). In addition, the engagement and participation between the local population and conservation organization is normally handicapped because of bickering between the two parties. Their history makes the two parties to have conflicts emanating from the interests vested by each party and lack of a neutral party to indulge in resolution, may deny chances of active participation from the community. Second, Conservation is ought to be a powerful a tool in poverty eradication and wealth creation. The intended cause of conservation is enriching the local population. After compensation, there are no mechanisms in place to understand the impacts it has on the population. The local politics makes it hard for the local population to be engaged in management of heritage sites because the conservation organization may wish to evade the demands of the local people. Thirdly some groups of people have suffered abuses from the conservation policy, which have even caught the attention of the cultural survival organization and human rights due to the point of exploitation (Pendlebury,2013,pp.709-727). The poor rapport injures on the possibility of the local population being engaged effectively on the management of the heritage sites, because the policies that have been made seems to antagonize the interests of the local population. The National government and the international conservation organizations have the agenda of expanding the areas occupied by the conservations in order to increase the hefty packages of money they receive from the conservation. However, despite the numerous gains reaped from the conservations there are biodiversity hotspots and areas, which are not fully secured resulting to animal and human conflicts. The wild animals kill the local people and terribly destroy their crops. The engagement of the local population in such conservations is very poor not even cater for the security of the neighboring communities but also to their source of livelihood. Conclusion As highlighted in the case of Australia above, the necessity to have the local population engaged in the management of the heritage sites cannot be underestimated. The local population hosts the heritage site and the people are active in the running of the various heritage centers (Winter, 2012, pp.123-137). However, it is not in all cases that the management by the local population leads to efficiency of the conservation centers. The poor relationship between the conservation authorities of the sites and the local population interferes with efficiency that is necessary in the running of the heritage sites. . References Bandarin, F. and Oers, R. (2012). The historic urban landscape. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell. David Dent., (2014). Soil as World Heritage. Springer Netherlands. Hambler, C. and Canney, S. (2012). Conservation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Janssen, J. (2014). Modernising Dutch Heritage Conservation: Current Progress and Ongoing Challenges for Heritage-Based Planning and Management. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 105(5), pp.622-629. Lawson, D. (2011). Multi-species conservation in the context of global change. [Davis]: University of California, Davis. Licciardi, G. and Amirtahmasebi, R. (2012). The economics of uniqueness. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Mosler, S. (2011). Heritage politics in Adelaide. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. Pendlebury, J. (2013). Conservation values, the authorised heritage discourse and the conservation-planning assemblage. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 19(7), pp.709-727. Winter, T. (2012). Beyond Eurocentrism? Heritage conservation and the politics of difference. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 20(2), pp.123-137. Zan, L. (2013). Economic Discourse and Heritage Conservation: Towards an Ethnography of Administrations. Heritage & Society, 6(2), pp.167-184. Read More