Cultural Heritage Management: The Role of Charters and Principles?

Abstract

       A number of countries now have charters or principlestounderpin approaches to conserving and managing cultural heritage resources. Additionally there are various conventions to guide us. The concept of cultural heritage, where heritage is taken to mean an inheritance from the past, embraces tangible aspects of heritage-physical fabric-and intangible aspects such as meaning of places and objects and traditions/ways of life. It also suggests that cultural heritage involves the notion of assets which are to be valued and cherished, not squandered. So in Cultural Heritage Management practice we identify, assess, evaluate and conserve assets based on what we judge their significance to be to our culture. Charters set out to assist in helping us define this critical notion of significance which must try to embrace both the tangible and the intangible, even though significance and related to meaning of places can be slippery notions. Critical to the existence of charters and conventions and related to defining significance is the process of establishing and assessing values and such matters as integrity of heritage places and their continuing authenticity. This paper sets out to review current interest in cultural heritage and the various charters we use to assess significance and to offer critical comment on them.