Cultural diversity, heritage and human rights

Cultural heritage protection was commonly seen in the past by heritage industry professionals as simply a technical matter – of applying the best or latest scientific solution to preserve or restore an artefact, monument or site. With the focus shifting towards intangible forms of heritage – ‘living heritage embodied in people’ – the paradigm has shifted. At the global level, UNESCO is the leading organization engaged in shaping attitudes to, forming statements of principle about, and engaging with its member states in, projects aimed at protecting cultural heritage and cultural diversity. Since at least its ‘Linking Universal and Local Values’ conference in Amsterdam in 2003, UNESCO has promoted the view that heritage protection does not depend alone on top-down interventions by governments or the expert actions of heritage industry professionals, but must involve local communities. UNESCO now argues that it is imperative that the values and practices of local communities, together with traditional management systems, are fully understood, respected, encouraged and accommodated in management plans if the heritage resources are to be sustained into the future (UNESCO, 2004, 9). Local communities need to have a sense of ‘ownership’ of their heritage; this reaffirms their worth as a community, their ways of going about things, their ‘culture’.