World Heritage and Sustainable Development IAWHP EV 2011

Henry Crescini & Katharina Sandberg (eds.
WORLD HERITAGE AND SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT
CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
of the first WHS Alumni Conference organized by IAWHP e.V.
June 16th-19th, 2011
BTU Cottbus, Germany
ISBN 978-3-00-041891-4
DISCLAIMER
This publication contains a selection of papers by authors who presented during the 2011 Conference
World Heritage and Sustainable Development, organized by IAWHP e.V.
The responsibility and liability for the content of their texts, including references and citations, lie solely
with each individual author. The editors do not give any warranty that the content will be complete or
accurate; the editors are not liable for any damages or claims arising directly or indirectly from the use
of this material. All figures/pictures have been, unless otherwise indicated, produced by the individual
authors and must not be modified or reproduced separately from the accompanying text.
This publication may be downloaded free of charge for personal, teaching and research use. No
modification, commercial use or further reproduction is permitted.
Henry Crescini & Katharina Sandberg (eds.)

World Heritage and Sustainable Development Conference Proceedings
ISBN 978-3-00-041891-4
INDEX
Foreword by the Editors (Henry Crescini & Katharina Sandberg) _____________________________________ 2
The Concept (Smriti Pant & Ona Vileikis) _______________________________________________________ 3
SESSION 1: CONSERVATION AND MANAGING CHANGE
Conservation of Heritage and Sustainable Development - the Historic Centre of Athens as a Case Study (Eleni
Maistrou) _________________________________________________________________________________ 5
Documentation in World Heritage conservation - towards managing and mitigating change: The case studies of
Petra and the Silk Roads (Ona Vileikis, Giorgia Cesaro, Mario Santana Quintero, Koenraad Van Balen, Anna
Paolini, Azadeh Vafadari) __________________________________________________________________ 11
Managing Change of Traditional Cultural Landscape with Hayracks (Maja Oven Stani) _________________ 12
SESSION 2: CLIMATE CHANGE
World Heritage Natural Sites in Alberta, Canada: Managing Change (William X. Wei, Michael Henry, Joel
Fridman) ________________________________________________________________________________ 21
Threats of Climate Change Impacts to Conservation and Management of World Heritage Sites: A Case Study on
Sundarbans, Bangladesh (Shafi Noor Islam) ____________________________________________________ 32
Sustaining Landscapes Landscape Units for Climate Adaptive Regional Planning (Sandra Reinstdtler) ____ 45
SESSION 3: MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
World Heritage: Beacon for Sustainable Urban Development? (Dennis Rodwell) _______________________ 66
Cultural Routes and Serial and Transnational World Heritage Properties as tools for development: emerging
challenges and opportunities (Celia Martinez) ___________________________________________________ 75
90 Seconds for a Better Future (Konstantin Wenzel) ____________________________________________ 83
FOREWORD BY THE EDITORS

The 2011 Conference World Heritage and Sustainable Development was a premiere: It was the first major
event organized by the newly founded International Association of World Heritage Professionals e.V. (IAWHP).
As an initiative of alumni from the World Heritage Studies (WHS) programme at the Brandenburg University
of Technology (BTU Cottbus), its aim was and is - to gather alumni and other experts in the field of World
Heritage, and to foster the exchange of ideas and knowledge.
After overcoming several bureaucratic and technical difficulties, we are now glad to finally present the proceedings of the Conference. As this was the first such event, authors and participants may forgive the delay of
this publication.
We are convinced that the texts we present today remain relevant and will serve as a great reminder of the
presentations and discussions that took place in June 2011.
Our thanks go to Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Schmidt, Chair of Environmental Planning and head of the WHS
programme; with the help of his Chair, the conference could be held at the BTU Cottbus and IAWHP was able
to receive funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), without which the realization would
not have been possible.
As editors of this publication, we would like to express our gratitude to all our current fellow board members
for help and inspiration; thanks also to all the people who formerly served on the board for their pioneering spirit
and determination.
Finally, thanks to all authors and all readers.
We hope you will enjoy this publication.
Henry Crescini - Vice-President IAWHP e.V. 2012 - 2014
Katharina Sandberg Secretary IAWHP e.V. 2012 - 2014, 2011 Conference Coordinator
World Heritage and Sustainable Development IAWHP e.V.
THE CONCEPT
The International Association of World Heritage Professionals e.V.s (IAWHP) conference on World Heritage
and Sustainable Development, held at the BTU Cottbus from 17-18 June 2011, brought together professionals
and practitioners, WHS Alumni and other experts alike, specialized in World Heritage as well as other associated
fields to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the role of the World Heritage Convention in promoting
sustainable development.
During two days, through three thematic paper presentation sessions, the conference tackled questions related
to conservation and managing change, climate change and the millennium development goals, while the afternoon of the second day was dedicated to a round-table panel discussion on the ICOMOS Global Heritage Monitoring Network; and this publication comprises a selection of the papers presented during the first three sessions
of conference.
Session One focused on Conservation and Managing Change. In order to understand the ways in which the
process of conservation of World Heritage (WH) properties can contribute to sustainable development, this session addressed questions such as: what does conservation in the context of WH properties mean? Does conservation mean freezing the place in time so as to retain its Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) forever or is it a
means of ensuring that the OUV of such sites is adequately retained while also responding to the environmental,
social and economic impacts caused by the changes occurring with time? Assuming that change is inevitable,
what are the acceptable limits of change for a particular site? In what manner can change, especially to built
fabric, be managed sustainably at WH properties while respecting traditional conservation ethics and values?
First, with the paper Conservation of Heritage and Sustainable Development, Eleni Maistrou argues the relationship between the concepts of sustainable development and integrated conservation with the example of the
intervention in Plaka, Athens Historic Centre. Based on urban, architectural, and socio-economic analysis of the
area, a long term conservation intervention took place. Results have been internationally recognised for its integral approach including a participatory approach. Second, Ona Vileikis, through the case studies of Petra and
the Silk Roads illustrates best practices on methodology and tools of documentation in World Heritage conservation towards managing and mitigating change. Both examples show different methodologies and tools that could
be used to set up good baseline information in order to later detect the changes and find the right management
strategies. The full paper is not included in this book; the paper was published by the Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development and is available through the Emerald website. Lastly, Maja
Oven Stanic discusses the importance of the Hay Racks in Slovenia as key elements of the cultural landscapes
and how their use has been adapted along the time answering to the need of each period. Although there is still a
long way to go for their preservation, their use as a changing cultural landscape is recognised and valued by the
local communities.
Climate change was the topic of Session Two constituting a major global challenge to sustainable development
in the 21st century and is already showing a visible impact on worlds cultural and natural heritage. As communities have also changed their way of life, work and worship, the manner in which they use buildings, sites and
landscapes, sometimes even abandoning their built heritage completely, it is gradually becoming evident that
apart from physical threats, climate change will also have a great impact on social and cultural aspects of WH
properties. Therefore, this session addressed questions such as: How can the kind and level of change brought
about by climate change in WH properties be determined? Which changes are critical to the future survival of
the built, natural, social and cultural values of heritage sites for example, if local communities have adapted
their traditional lifestyle to keep up with climate change, what implications does it have for the natural and built
(cultural) landscape, and vice-versa? Or which threat mitigation and adaptation strategies can be adopted for
conserving and managing WHSs sustainably in the face of climate change?
William Wei starts this session posting the big challenge that Alberta has as it is the state that is proud to host
the largest number of World Heritage Natural Sites (WHNS) of Canada. This status gives an opportunity to
present as an example to other WHS a coordinated WHNS management strategy between social and economic
dynamics, including a multi-stakeholder framework as well as active monitoring. However, it has been highlighted the effect of climate change has only recently been introduced and will take part of the following agendas. Then, Shafi Noor Islam with his paper Impacts to Conservation and Management of World Heritage Sites,
aims to understand the threats of climate change impacts to conservation and management of the Sundarbans,
heritage property in Bangladesh. Some potential recommendations for the protection of this natural area are
made such as more attention in setting up conservation policies and community participation. In her paper, Sandra Reinstdtler provides a conceptual framework for dealing with climate change threats in cultural landscapes. She suggests a shift of focus to the landscape and regional scale in order to best be able to confront climate change, and she introduces the instrument of landscape units (LU), which can help identify potential threats
as well as solutions.
Finally, recognizing that culture is a vehicle for economic development, contributing to environmental sustainability as well as social cohesion and stability, Session Three on Millennium Development Goals answered the
questions such as: How can WH properties become a core asset in the achievement of MDGs, especially poverty
alleviation, environmental sustainability and promotion of global partnership? To do so the discussion will touch
upon the potential of WH properties in seeking local solutions to global agendas; prioritizing people in development processes and outcomes; promoting social justice, equity and global ethics; ensuring economic growth
without jeopardizing human development; setting standards for making development strategies more socially
and environmentally sustainable; and other related issues.
Dennis Rodwell through the paper World Heritage Beacon for Sustainable Urban Development, debates the
Millennium Development Goals in cities through the vehicle of the World Heritage Convention. He highlights
that World Heritage could be a high potential tool for sustainable development but point out that stakeholders
participation in all stages of the process is indeed essential. This article is followed by the discussion on Cultural
Routes and Transnational World Heritage Properties as Tools for Development Emerging Challenges and
Opportunities by Celia Martnez, where heritage values trespass national borders as a result of the implementation of the Global Strategy for a Representative, Balanced and Credible World Heritage List. In this paper she
links the concept of Cultural Routes with the Millennium Goals and discusses their relevance as resources for
sustainable development. Lastly, Konstantin Wenzel discusses how art projects can help to initiate and inspire
for sustainable development by facilitating the process of dialogue, values and change. With the project 90 Seconds for a better Future, he supports the concept of Education for Sustainable Development (EDS), allowing a
dialogue in sustainable development through participatory methods.
In the last session of the second day of the conference a round-table panel session was held where the pros and
cons of the establishment of an ICOMOS Global Heritage Monitoring Network an ICOMOS International
initiative currently in its initial phases of development was discussed. The panel was headed by Gustavo Araoz
(President, ICOMOS) and comprised of other prominent ICOMOS members including Kristal Buckley (VicePresident, ICOMOS), Prof. Dr. Leo Schmidt FSA (Head of Department, Department of Architectural Conservation, BTU Cottbus), Prof. Dr. Nobuko Inaba (Director, World Heritage Studies, Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba), and Christoph Machat (Executive Committee Member, ICOMOS). The proposed establishment of a network, now renamed as Global Heritage Trends Network, which
would assist the international conservation community in understanding and documenting changes taking place
at heritage sites worldwide and thus develop a better management system for safeguarding the sites for future
generations, was welcomed with much enthusiasm. In addition, during this session, which was moderated by
Sheridan Burke (President, ICOMOS ISC20C), the possible ways in which BTU Cottbus, as represented by its
Department of Architectural Conservation, and IAWHP e.V. could collaborate with ICOMOS International in
taking this initiative forward were discussed.
We hope you all enjoy our publication,
Smriti Pant Former President IAWHP e.V. 2010 - 2011 &
Ona Vileikis President IAWHP e.V. 2012 - 2014, Secretary IAWHP e.V. 2010 - 2012
SESSION 1 CONSERVATION AND

MANAGING CHANGE
CONSERVATION OF HERITAGE AND SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT - THE HISTORIC CENTRE OF ATHENS AS A CASE
STUDY
Eleni Maistrou
Architect, professor NTUA, Athens, Greece
Keywords: Integrated conservation, sustainable development, urban conservation, urban development

INTRODUCTION
The following intervention will argue on the common principles of Conservation on one hand and Sustainability on the other. The idea of sustainable development introduced by the Report of the Brundtland Commission
(World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) and the idea of integrated conservation introduced by the declaration of Amsterdam in 1975 share many goals. The Nairobi Convention (1976) and the
Washington Charter (1987) have the same objectives, promoting the idea for the safeguard and conservation of
historic cities.
Sustainability has three main components: environmental, social and economic (Rodwell, 2007), while historic
cities are characterized by two essential qualities: first the built and natural environmental and second the socio
cultural values and socioeconomic organization.
Sustainable development stresses the need for the carrying capacity of natural systems and integrates environmental and social concerns into all development processes.
Integrated (or Urban) Conservation adopts the principle of a controlled-growth development while protecting
the natural and cultural environment and maintaining the historic character of each place.
The broad public participation in decision making is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving both development policies.
I will present through the case of the Athens historic centre, known as Plaka, the way in which successful
conservation of historic cities consists an integral part of sustainable development, providing a balanced social
and economic life; moreover, I will show how the architectural heritage with its cultural, social and economic
value should help economise resources and combat waste, under the condition of its appropriate conservation
and reuse (Maistrou, 2006).
ANALYZING THE PROBLEM
Plaka constitutes the oldest part of the historic centre in Athens. It extends to the north and east foot of the
Acropolis and reaches up to the boundaries of the administrative and financial centre of modern Athens, occupying an area of approximately 40 hectares. It is a region inhabited since the Late Neolithic period (3.000 B.C.) to
this day without interruption; it has known periods of prosperity but also of ravage. In 1833 it was declared the
capital of the modern Hellenic nation and acquired its first plan.
At Plaka one can get in touch with monuments and testimonies from virtually every period in the history of
Athens Classic, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman monuments which, along with the buildings of the 19th and 20th
century, form a unique housing ensemble preserving the scale and style, as well as the urban fabric of the historic city.
During the first post-war decades, Plaka, precisely because of its special features, began transforming into an
area of intense tourist interest and leisure which, at the end of the 1960s, led to its alteration into an area of mass
tourist entertainment and recreation, while its inhabitants started abandoning it.
Many houses were converted into restaurants, bars and nightclubs; this immediately disfigured and extorted
them to acquire functions which were incompatible to their character and structure.
At the same time, the region saw the development of an intensive automobile circulation mainly transit circulation which, on some main road axes was cutting through the area and provoking serious disturbance, noise
and pollution. Narrow streets were completely occupied by parked cars from the neighboring commercial center.
Numerous buildings were demolished to create open parking spaces.
Public space was utterly degraded and permanently occupied either by parked cars or by tables, chairs and tourist merchandise.
Two more elements testified to the neighborhoods extensive functional and architectural degradation: on the
highest part of Plaka, towards the Acropolis, there was intense pressure from the archaeological service for expropriations of buildings, in order to complete the archaeological excavations. Many important neoclassical
buildings had already been expropriated, aiming at their demolition. This situation discouraged owners from any
thought of repairing and upgrading their buildings. At the same time, at the lower part of Plaka, which was in
direct contact with the historic centre, there were pressures to demolish old buildings and construct new ones
with the higher building coefficient valid for the area. Many old buildings were replaced by multi-storied constructions, while many others were salvaged by fear of finding archaeological remnants during the construction
of new buildings, as well as by the erroneous street layout in the plan that was valid for the area.
As it becomes clear, the course of the area towards complete destruction was already prescribed, given that it
had exceeded its bearing capacity, financial growth was realized to the detriment of the environment and the
social cohesion was dissolved.
It was evident that, in order to guarantee the survival of the region, it was necessary to redirect its course and to
create conditions for its sustainable development which would also include the protection of its historic identity
and its values and would incorporate the social dimension, given that development is based on three basic pillars: society, environment and economy.
THE PROPOSAL FOR UPGRADING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
The intervention for the town-plan upgrading of Plaka was based on two special studies ordered by the Housing
Dept. of the Ministry of Public Works. The first one was elaborated between 1973 and 1975 and the second one
between 1997 and 1978 by interdisciplinary expert teams headed by Prof. Dionysios Zivas (2006).
The main objectives of the studies were firstly to manage the change of the area and deal with the problems
resulting from its degradation and the architectural, functional and social alteration and secondly to highlight the
areas archaeological sites while at the same time preserving its historic fabric and the way of life in the modern
town.
Based on an extensive urban, architectural, and socio-economic analysis of the area, the studies suggested certain regulatory and legislative measures. The most important were:
Traffic arrangements that included a wide network of pedestrian ways,
Establishment of special land uses, aiming to reinforce the residential aspect of the area, to preserve the functions that support it and to prohibit the opening of entertainment venues that cause acoustic, visual and functional disturbance to their environment.
Listing of all historic buildings in the area, thus freeing them from the risk of demolition for archaeological reasons.
Legislative measures were supplemented by social and administrative measures as well as works for the upgrading of public spaces. These included:
The upgrading of public spaces and the replacement or improvement of aged public utility networks and the
development of pedestrian ways and public spaces including the supplement of their urban fixtures.
The establishment of special parking areas and spaces to be used exclusively by the residents who were given a
special parking permit.
THE INTERVENTION STRATEGY

The intervention at Plaka began in January 1979 and continued for many years afterwards.
The measures studied and suggested for the protection and revival of Plaka constituted a multi-scoped program
which obviously could not be applied from one day to the next. The intervention had to take place with as little
disruptions as possible in the neighbourhood and without causing reaction and protest from the residents and
professionals.
One should therefore aim at the greatest possible consent and acceptance of the program and the possibility to
apply general measures with immediate and obvious results, while at the same time having the possibility to
develop a more long-term program which would therefore allow to control its yield and effectiveness or, better
still, to make completions or corrections which might surge during the works.
Besides, by the end of the 1970s, the gradual alteration in the form and the social and functional structure of
Plaka, which had already been going on for more than twenty-five years, had, created distrust as to the possibilities or even the willingness of the public administration to apply an integral and consistent policy to reverse
these problems. Therefore, the intervention strategy had to create conditions that could convince the public of the
seriousness and coherence of the entire undertaking and trigger the active participation or at least the initial
consent of the interested parties.
Under these circumstances, an intervention system was adopted for simultaneous development on multiple levels, including general regulations of immediate enforcement as well as interventions that could be enforced
gradually.
Alongside all these actions and since the first stages of the intervention realized between 1979 and 1981, a
group of measures and actions were studied and applied, principally aiming at encouraging residents to actively
participate in the program and to accept help to make their own decisions. These measures included:
o
o
o
o
updating the residents and the broader Athenian public through special brochures describing the
aspirations of the intervention and its immediate or long-term results
offering technical advice to the residents and freelance engineers for the best possible confrontation of
their problems and offering advice for replacing commercial signs, by recommending the appropriate
solutions in each case
elaborating studies for the restoration of the faades of five listed buildings, with the accord of their
owners.
subsidizing with 500,000 drachmas the owners of listed buildings who would proceed to their restoration and offering low interest rates for loans for fifteen years with a rate of 11.5% by the Real Estate
National Bank (Ktimatiki Bank).
setting up a special office for Plaka, aiming at monitoring the development of the works and completing the necessary studies and actions.
The residents involvement was particularly helpful to the success of the intervention. The pressure that they
applied for implementing the intervention program contributed greatly to its success. It was the first time that a
comprehensive intervention plan for the protection of an area was realized in Greece, aiming not only to preserve
the historical profile of that area, but mainly to preserve and reconstruct the social and functional structure of the
city that had started to deteriorate.
THE RESULTS OF THE INTERVENTION
From the beginning of its implementation in January 1979, the project for the protection and revival of Plaka
also gradually created a totally different framework for the function and development of the area.
Freed of the intense automobile circulation, the streets and free spaces of Plaka returned to their comfortable
pedestrian circulation, as had also been the case in earlier days. The new formation of streets, the removal of
overhead electricity cables and the new road fixtures contributed to the recovery of the streets historic character.
An important role in this direction was played by the removal of numerous inelegant commercial signs or their
replacement by much better designed ones. In that manner, the faades of the buildings in Plaka were once more
revealed and their architectural value was highlighted.
The application of the decree for land use led to the liberation of the area from numerous nightclubs, thus relieving Plaka from overwhelming pressure and noise.
All these interventions resulted in the creation of a new spirit which led many residents and owners to repair
their houses and use them as residences or professional offices or for other commercial uses. So, hundreds of
buildings were restored through private initiative and therefore offered once again to the streets of Plaka their
authentic historic image. Many buildings belonging to the state were also restored and are used by the Archaeological Service of the Ministry of Culture to house the Ephorates (Magistrates Office) of Antiquities.
An important role was also played by the activity of the Coordinating Committee of the Associations of the
residents of Plaka, who were naturally very interested in the success of the intervention. The foundation and
function of the special Office installed in the area was another positive factor in the whole affair.
Finally, the first interventions to restore the faades of certain listed buildings, through the study and supervision of the Office for Plaka, convinced numerous proprietors to do the same. At that same time, and mainly
during 1979-1981, the Ministry of Culture began repairing and replacing various buildings under its ownership,
mainly around the area of the Aerides and the Roman Agora, thus contributing to the promotion of the historic
physiognomy of Plaka.
All this simultaneous action had a particularly interesting result. While up to 1979 Plaka saw the issuing of
building permits for demolitions or solely auxiliary building works, from 1979 one observed a considerable
increase of building permits for restoration-reconstruction of buildings and a decrease in demolition permits.
This image becomes truly impressive in 1985, when all issued permits involved the restoration of listed buildings.
However, in parallel to all these positive intervention results, certain trends started to gradually develop,
namely the exploitation of the new, more attractive image of Plaka and its deliverance from vehicles.
These increasingly strong tendencies, particularly during the last ten years, but also the submissiveness of Administration before the pressure of private individuals, mainly of professionals, and the respective laxity in the
observance of the statutory measures to protect Plaka contributed to a new alteration of the historic character of
the area and to the reappearance of unpleasant and unwelcome phenomena examined through a recent study.
THE MORE RECENT APPRECIATION OF RESULTS
A new study for Plaka was realized between 2001 and 2002, assigned within the context of the broader study
for the promotion of archaeological sites within the urban fabric of the historic centre of Athens.
The study aspired to highlight the very important archaeological sites placed within the fabric of the region and
to integrate them into a unified movement network, but moreover aimed at regaining control of the situation in
the area and more specifically: identifying the contemporary image of Plaka, inventorying the repercussions
from the intervention for its protection and revival, controlling the sufficiency of the legal framework created
and valid until today and verifying the emergence of eventual new problems from the time of the intervention
to this day.
A first important change which was identified concerns the spectacular improvement of the architectural physiognomy of Plaka, thanks to the repair and restitution of a large number of listed buildings as well as the removal
of the outrageous and inelegant commercial signs and advertisements placed on their faades. It is however
noted that there are more historic listed buildings awaiting restoration, so as to conclude the historic image of the
area.
A second ascertainment concerns the removal of the various, loud tourist entertainment venues from Plaka,
which was particularly positive for the restoration of its functional composition. It is however noted that coffee
shops and restaurants have increased, which also creates a significant problem, not only because of their number,
but also because of the unmeasured occupation of the free public spaces in Plaka, the sidewalks and squares, by
a very large number of tables and seats. Their density as well as the image they create are a negative influence on
the function of the residence and probably deter the introduction of new inhabitants.
On the important issue of the re-inhabitation in Plaka, it is noted that many restored buildings are used as professional headquarters or for purely commercial functions. Today, the density of habitation at Plaka can still be
considerably increased.
The interventions aiming to upgrade public space and the faades of the buildings also had positive results, but
in various cases they were judged as fragmentary and isolated. However, an important problem is still created by
the parking of vehicles in open parking spaces or even on the streets of Plaka, mostly illegally, which demonstrates the incapacity of the police to limit this particular phenomenon or even indifference for its confrontation.
The legal framework created for the protection of Plaka continues to be valid and has proven to be completely
sufficient. In reality, there is some laxity in its implementation, particularly during the last decade and certain
violations are accepted silently, therefore leading to the undermining of the results.
The price rise in the regions where interventions are taking place for turning sidewalks into pedestrian zones,
and the difficulty to maintain residences despite the decrees on land use which strive to control the spread of
tourist commerce and obtrusive recreation units constitutes a thorny issue.
CONCLUSIONS
The final conclusion that could be drawn is that the main parameters in the design of sustainable development
are, to a large extent, identical to the principles for the Conservation of heritage. They presuppose:
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
the balance between society, finance and the environment and the reinforcement of measures and
policies contributing to the protection and promotion of the local environment, natural and
built, as well as to the procedures for refueling production.
the institution of specific limits to the development of the area, in combination to measures helping
to control this development.
the promotion of a protection program of the local environment, with the participation of residents,
employees and the public sector. Moreover, it is necessary to create environmental upgrading
works for the area and to develop infrastructure and services to broaden and qualitatively upgrade the area
the creation of transport systems related to environmental and social concerns that minimize any
ecological and environmental impact and help to improve the socio-economic fabric of the
city
the reuse and minimum intervention in existing historic building stock that can fit into promoting
redevelopment within the urban core and thereby promote long term revitalization. Reusing
buildings can result in reduced pressure for expansion and into the renewed use of the urban
core.
broad public participation in decision making is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving sustainable development policies. At the same time, according to the Washington Charter, the participation and involvement of the residents is essential to the success of the conservation programme and should be encouraged.
The intervention in Plaka is an internationally acknowledged example and has received many distinctions (Europa Nostra award in 1983 and award within the framework of Habitat in 1998). The methodology applied in
the design and intervention, as well as the establishment of a special office which monitors the development of
the area to this day were considered groundbreaking for the time and constituted a model for later interventions.
REFERENCES
Maistrou, E. (2006) Sensitivity to the Cultural Historic Context as a Key Issue for Enhancing Sustainable Planning and Urban Design, in: Babalis, D. (ed.) Ecopolis. Revealing and Enhancing Sustainable Design,
volume 2. Firenze: Alinea editrice, pp.7986.
Rodwell, D. (2007) Conservation and sustainability in Historic cities. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Zivas, D.A. (2006) Plaka 19732003. The intervention to protect the old city of Athens. Athens: P.I.O.P.
10
DOCUMENTATION IN WORLD HERITAGE CONSERVATION TOWARDS MANAGING AND MITIGATING CHANGE: THE CASE
STUDIES OF PETRA AND THE SILK ROADS
Ona Vileikis1, Giorgia Cesaro2, Mario Santana Quintero1, Koenraad Van Balen1, Anna Paolini2, and
Azadeh Vafadari2
1
Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
2
UNESCO Amman Office, Jordan
This is the abstract of the paper presented during the conference, awarded as best paper and published in the Journal of
Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, Vol. 2 Iss: 2, pp.130 152.
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=17058575
ABSTRACT
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the application of documentation and recording techniques for
World Heritage conservation using the case studies of the Petra Archeological Park (PAP) in Jordan and the Silk
Roads Cultural Heritage Information System (CHRIS) in Central Asia. In the PAP case study, these techniques
could aid in the assessment of risks faced by World Heritage properties and threats to the integrity of the Outstanding Universal Values (OUV). With respect to the Silk Roads CHRIS case study the Geospatial Content
Management System (Geo-CMS) proposed aims to improve information management and collaboration among
all stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach Integrated surveying techniques and information management systems together with active stakeholder participation can be used as conservation and management tools. In the case of
PAP, using a systematic documentation tool (MEGA-J) to conduct site condition and risk assessment of cultural
heritage and combining photographs, maps and GPS measurements within a GIS platform allows for identifying
the location and intensity of risks, and the degree of vulnerability within the PAP boundaries and buffer zone. In
the Silk Roads CHRIS project the Geo-CMS brings together data from different fields, e.g. geography, geology,
history, conservation, to allow for a holistic approach towards documentation, protection and management of a
number of diverse sites to be combined in serial transnational World Heritage.
Findings The study provides insight into how digital technologies can aid in heritage documentation and conservation, including stakeholder involvement and training. Moreover, by means of the two case studies it can be
shown that a combination of digital technologies allows for an efficient mapping of buffer zones and risks and
how a Geo-CMS can form a common platform to manage large quantities of information of different origin and
make it accessible to stakeholders in transnational projects.
Originality/value This paper discusses the use of digital technology and the participation of stakeholders in
heritage conservation and documentation when dealing with complex World Heritage properties, e.g. serial
transnational and archaeological ensembles at high risk.
11
MANAGING CHANGE OF TRADITIONAL CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

WITH HAYRACKS
Maja Oven Stani
MA, World Heritage Studies 2002-2006, Slovenia
ABSTRACT
Slovenia does not have any cultural properties in the World Heritage List. Besides those on the Tentative List
and in the nomination process, there are several more, whose unique significance could be justified by criteria of
Outstanding Universal Value. One of these is the cultural landscape with hayracks (kozolec). These devices have
been used for centuries in traditional agriculture and form the traditional cultural landscape. They successfully
withstood post-war modernisation of farming from the 50s till the 90s, but the storage of fresh fodder in plastic
bales, the method known for thirty years, use of which has became widespread in Slovenia during the last decade, is truly endangering them. An opportunity for survival of traditional cultural landscapes is return to
healthy, bio-agriculture. However, only few cultural landscapes can be saved in this way, many more will remain
threatened. The state (Ministry of agriculture) offers aid to renew these hayracks (kozolec). However, their owners still confront issues of their proper use in the cultural landscape. Many of cultural landscapes are listed in the
cultural heritage register, meaning that they have been identified and that their owners have to obtain guidelines
from responsible professional agencies for any change. Such procedure however does not address issues pertaining to the abandoning of traditional farming in cultural landscapes and dilapidation of these devices.
The article deals with comprehensive preservation of traditional agricultural cultural landscapes and pertaining
buildings and devices in it. Preservation does not imply only the restoration of these devices by using traditional
materials and techniques, but also their suitable uses. Maybe even more clearly than in urban settings, in agricultural cultural landscapes we can witness reflections of lifestyles at certain time. Here structure, device and form,
are subjects of function. The question is how to manage changes on traditional objects if the use of cultural landscapes changes?
Keywords: Cultural Heritage, Cultural Landscape, Vernacular architecture, Architectural conservation
INTRODUCTION
Cultural landscapes with hayracks emerged in history in conjunction with placed agricultural production, as
interaction between nature and mankind. They are linked to economic and social development, which affected
the people's existence and quality of life. Furthermore, in Slovenia they represent tradition, history and identity.
Since the existence and development of this organically evolved continuous cultural landscape is conditioned
by its function, which is linked to traditional farming methods, it is becoming increasingly threatened. One of its
important features the hayrack, which successfully withstood various modernisations, even mechanisation after
the Second World War, as well as new methods for storing fodder, is today seriously losing its utilitarian function, especially during the last decade with the introduction of plastic baling techniques. Changes in cultural
landscapes correspond to dwindling traditional agricultural production. We are painfully aware that all traditional cultural landscapes cannot be maintained.
The article points out the exceptional significance of these cultural landscapes in the wider global context, presents the issues, tied to their safeguarding and guidelines for preserving the still vital traditional cultural landscapes. Backed by a comprehensive strategy, programme and financing scheme these cultural landscapes could
remain cultivated, used and coupled with a vision of healthy ecological agriculture and serve as a bridge between
tradition and the future.
12
THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE WITH HAYRACKS IN

SLOVENIA
Cultural landscapes where farmers from Carniola build hayracks (orig. Slov. Kozolec) were first mentioned by
the Slovene polyhistor Janez Vajkard Valvasor in the book The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola (orig. title in
German: Die Ehre des Herzogthums Crain), published at the end of the 17th century. (Valvasor, 1689, pp. 105)
The illustration in the text shows a classical stretched single hayrack being packed by peasants using pitchforks.
When and how development of other types followed has not been fully disclosed; several theories exist. It is
clear however that the structure functionally developed with the cultural landscape it stands in. Besides the
stretched single hayrack we recognise other types, such as the stretched double hayrack, cloaked hayrack, goat
or dog hayrack, Toplar (double single-roofed hayrack) and composite hayracks, which are combinations of
various types. ( Cevc, 1993, pp.17-18, op. 1) (Fig. 1)
Historically speaking, the emergence of cultural landscapes in which structures similar to hayracks were built,
marks a new stage in food production, farm management and agricultural labour. It is linked to the introduction
of organised farming around the World, albeit the structures for drying and storing differed. Social changes and
changes of the natural environment were also triggered. The emergence and development of cultural landscapes
with hayracks influenced food consumption and the population's quality of life, the new cultures they cultivated
affected biotic diversity in particular areas, while cultivation as such affected the organisation of cultural landscapes and their image.
Several names are known. The stated ones were used by the cited author.
13
Figure 1: Typology of hayracks; Drawing: Ivan Stani
The most sophisticated structure is the double single-roofed hayrack (orig. Slov. Toplar), which is simultaneously the most sophisticated structure for drying and storing hay in the World, while the simplest variety is the
single stretched hayrack. Several decades ago similar structures could be found around Europe, North and West
of the ethnic Slovene territory, all the way to Scandinavia. (Melik, 1931, pp. 59-77). We can still find them in
Asia: in China and Japan. (Melik, 1931, pp. 76-77 , Oven, 2006, pp. 59-71). Structures related to the Slovene
hayrack (kozolec) also developed in the Alpine area, but have by now mostly disappeared. (Fig. 2)
However the variety, adaptability, sophistication and state of preservation, as can be seen in Slovenia, cannot
be found anywhere else (Juvanec, 1984, pp. 7, Oven, 2006, pp. 55-81). (Fig. 3)
Fig. 2: Toplar (double single-roofed hayrack)
Figure 3: Sorica Cultural Landscape with hayracks
While stretched hayracks form the cultural landscape of open spaces, formerly mainly by fields, which have by
now mostly been changed into pastures or meadows, or by village paths (from the positions of consecutive hayracks we can still trace them today, even if they were later abandoned), the Toplar is most often integrated in a
farmstead or complex of buildings, forming a farm. In specific cases, as in Studor for example, they actually
form a separate village of Toplars near the village proper.
In fact this is a single type of cultural landscape that includes fields or pastures separated by forests. Such cultural landscapes can be found in several geographical regions in Slovenia, which differ in climate, terrain (hilly
or flat), geological features etc. Hayracks built by the fields or near the villages were adapted to these differences. Variety is reflected in building materials, size, ornamentation or function, as well as prevalent type of
hayrack.
14
LOSS OF FUNCTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY

The cultural landscape with hayracks is characteristic for most of the Slovene territory (almost two thirds of the
territory). When we deliberate on threats, this expansive part of the territory is the object. Within this territory
there are still significant cultural landscapes covering several hectares of land, where people still live traditionally. (Fig. 4)
Fig. 4: Use of the hayrack, source: Janez Vajkard Valvasor:

Die Ehre des Herzogthums Crain, 1689, p. 105
Cultural landscapes with hayracks organically developed and withstood many changes in agriculture. Even
Valvasor linked the significance and functionality of hayracks to two harvests, i.e. after the farmers harvested the
wheat or any other cereal they sowed buckwheat. Hayracks were used for quick drying. (Valvasor, 1969, (reprint: 1984, pp. 17-18). Buckwheat was known and sowed in Europe and the Balkans since 4000 BC.
The period after the Second World War was the time of massive modernisation of agriculture. Mechanisation
introduced machine-aided cultivation of land. Hayracks were still significant components of cultural landscapes.
New ones were built, albeit traditional materials such as wood or stone, formerly used for the columns, were
substituted by concrete. This change applied to socially-owned, as well as private properties.
Although the hayrack was seen as a landmark of Carniola by travellers and researchers (e.g. Valvasor), Slovenes didn't identify with their cultural landscape. Hayracks, similarly to the fields and pastures where they
stood, only had economic and social value. The hayrack, especially the Toplar variety, was already a kind of
status symbol the larger and more ornamented one, showed its owners wealth. (Cevc, 1993, pp. 148)
Slovene impressionist painters were the first to depict cultural landscapes with hayracks. The zeit-geist and
painting technique demanded true representation of cultural landscape, seen under different lighting conditions,
weather or season. Cultural landscapes with hayracks were often the motif of painter Ivan Grohar, who mostly
depicted the Gorenjska region or Rihard Jakopi, who centred on Ljubljana and its surroundings. The first also
introduced elements of symbolism. (Fig. 5)
Fig. 5: Sejalec, Ivan Grohar, source: National Gallery of Slovenia, permanent collection (oil/canvas 100 x 120 cm, sign. D.sp.:
Iv.Grohar 907, Ljubljana, Moderna galerija, inv. t. 457/S)
Cultural landscapes with hayracks were used as a homeland theme by Maksim Gaspari. After the Second
World War Yugoslavia was a federation of six Republics, which differed in language, prevalent religion, customs, habits etc., but also landscape characteristics and geography. Hayracks strongly distinguished Slovene
cultural landscape from the others. Symbols of Slovene identity came to the forefront in the 80s and 90s, all the
15
way to independence in 1991. Cultural landscapes with hayracks are still one of the most often representative
motifs (e.g. on calendars, postcards etc.), alongside the Lake of Bled, churches on hilltops, the coastal town of
Piran, the mountains, forests or solitary trees. (Kuan, 1998, pp.123-126).
This is also the time of serious demise of agriculture. Since the 50s farmers gradually abandoned the practise of
drying wheat in hayracks, but still used them for hay, maize and some other field produce. In the 90s the technology of storing fodder in plastic bales became predominant, a shift which seriously endangered cultural landscapes with hayracks. These are now mostly empty, remnants of a skeletal cultural landscape, while pastures
have been overrun by large, often white, plastic bales. Many structures have been left to ruin, others standing
closer to roads have been subject to misuse, e.g. various commercial uses, such as frameworks for advertisements, covered restaurant gardens etc.
Modernisation of agriculture and loss of functionality of these structures began to endanger these exceptional
cultural landscapes that evolved organically through the centuries.
COMPREHENSIVE PRESERVATION OF HAYRACKS IN THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
We must be aware that not all Slovene cultural landscapes, which are still full of hayracks of various types and
with specific regional characteristics (seen in building type, ornamentation, regional materials and their particularities) can be preserved.
As mentioned earlier in certain cultural landscapes agriculture is still closely adhering to traditional agricultural
production. There the land is used for agriculture and animal husbandry, the hayracks are still packed with grass,
grain or corn stalks, which are when dry moved to barns or stables.
Therefore, a strategy has to be produced, which would be the basis for preservation of cultural landscapes, recognised by their exceptional heritage characteristics, e.g. representatives of various regional, typological, historical examples or with exemplary crafts or artistic features, which are still used and where probabilities of future
use are high. This strategy must be grounded in evaluation.
The Register of immobile cultural heritage, managed by the Ministry of culture (http://rkd.situla.org/, accessed
15 Dec. 2011) lists several cultural landscapes with hayracks, as well as particular hayracks themselves (under
the heading kozolec there are 646 units and under the heading cultural landscape 93 units. One fourth of all
these units are cultural landscapes with hayracks. The rest are most often listed as monuments of local significance, meaning that their safeguarding, alongside other present heritage, is included in planning documents, but
also that their owners have to maintain them properly. Amongst them are also cultural landscapes (such as Studor, Cerknica, Rut, Sorica, Zali log etc.), whose state of preservation, authenticity and integrity, continuous use
etc. fulfil all criteria determined for listing as world heritage in the World Heritage list. Some of the hayracks,
especially those with exceptional artistic value, are protected by special acts as monuments of national significance (2 units).
Particular structures hayracks are the responsibility of detached regional units of the Institute for the protection of cultural heritage of Slovenia. On demand by owners they can offer advice concerning preservation and
determine guidelines for preservation of hayracks, listed as monuments, either national or local. Since 2005
owners of hayracks can apply for dedicated funds at the Ministry of agriculture, forestry and food for preservation of cultural heritage (such as old village cores, farmsteads, particular buildings, including hayracks). They
are often supported by the detached regional units of the Institute. Although this activity definitely benefited
preservation of many interesting hayracks as particular structures, it did not do much for the comprehensiveness
of cultural landscapes and functional role of hayracks.
One of the issues in comprehensive safeguarding of cultural landscapes with hayracks, which could be resolved
by declaring entire cultural landscapes as national monuments, is dispersed ownership. All such landscapes are
composed of many privately owned plots, meaning that most often particular hayracks are privately owned by
separate owners. These exceptional cultural landscapes can contain even more than 100 hayracks (e.g. the con-
16
nected cultural landscapes Sorica, Danje Torka, Zali log), which implies a corresponding number of owners.
Management plans can therefore encounter a major problem since all owners have to agree.
Smaller cultural landscapes, such as Rut, which is a hilly cultural landscape, lying in the foothills of the Alps
that encompass special types of hayracks characterised by round stone pillars, face a different challenge: the
population is ageing since the younger population groups are leaving the area because of poor job prospects.
Case study: Studor cultural landscape
The cultural landscape with hayracks in Studor near Bohinj is only one of several that are still used traditionally and has its specific characteristics (Fig. 6). The villagers of Studor cultivated the surrounding land for centuries while the pastures were used for obtaining fodder. During the centuries a group of hayracks of the toplar
variety developed at the village entrance, which became a village in its own right. The oldest one standing can
be traced back to 1825. The timber structures are covered with wood shingles and the oldest ones can be recognised by their half-hipped roofs. Because of continuous use some have had their original timber columns replaced with concrete ones, mostly in the 80s of the 20th century, meaning that the material relates to the time of
construction. During the harvest time the hayrack are filled with fresh hay or corn stalks. Throughout the year
farm machinery, appliances and vehicles are stored there (carriages, carts, mowers etc.). This village is not specific only because of its group of hayracks, but also traditional grazing of livestock, which is still a very important segment of the people's livelihood. In late spring, when the snow starts melting in the Alps, cattle are driven
to the higher lying pastures where they stay till the autumn, when they are driven back to the valley. In the
mountains we can see specific shepherd huts (also a unit on the Slovene tentative list, titled: Fuine Hills in
Bohinj). Production of cheese is typical; mohant is one of the indigenous types.
The entire area is safeguarded as part of the Triglav national park. The vIllage Studor and cultural landscape
with hayracks are listed in the Register of immobile cultural heritage and thus safeguarded as monuments of
local significance.
In Studor (Bohinj) the owners of a group of hayracks, Toplars are well-organised. They are quite aware of the
significance of their cultural heritage, the cultural landscape is still vital, traditional skills in the area production
of cheese and other milk produce, are still alive. The necessary step forward towards planned comprehensive
management of suitable sustainable development would be the establishment of a locally organised competent
manager or coordinator.
Fig. 6: Studor Cultural Landscape
THE FUTURE OF CULTURAL LANDSCAPES WITH HAYRACKS

In Slovenia there are several traditional cultural landscapes that can compare to Studor near Bohinj and there
are several more related cultural landscapes outside Slovenia. It would be interesting to research the present
extents of related cultural landscapes in Japan and China.
Besides the well-preserved cultural landscapes of Studor, Rut, Zali Log Sorica or cultural landscape near the
Cerknica Lake, we still have others, which also have high cultural value.
17
We can however point out the direction and vision that can lead to successful, comprehensive and sustainable
preservation of cultural landscapes with exceptional significance.
Living cultural landscapes still exist, where we can in late summer still see hayracks packed with hay or
corn, sometimes even wheat stalks. The cultural landscape is cultivated or used, as are the standing hayracks.
Horses for example prefer traditionally dried fodder to the fresh variety kept in plastic bales. Farmers even
claim that ecological farming methods and traditional methods of drying fodder significantly improve the quality
of milk and meat.
Nevertheless, because of changes in the cultural landscape with hayracks it would, be illusory to expect preservation of all cultural landscapes. Abandoned, empty hayracks are just one of the indicators they stand in uncultivated cultural landscapes overgrown with grass, which does not even necessarily serve as fodder.
The first step in preserving cultural landscapes with hayracks, which developed and were used through centuries, is an accurate inventory of the present condition and its evaluation. Cultural landscapes have to be evaluated
as entities by applying all the criteria and characteristics that apply to cultural, as well as natural heritage. Special
emphasis should be given to traditional uses of such cultural landscapes, which should be specially supported
and stimulated.
The stated is simultaneously the first level of the strategy, which has to be conceived before actions ensue and
has to contain a precise vision and goal, but also resources needed to reach the goal.
Still used evaluated cultural landscape areas have to be legally protected by listing in the register of nationally
significant monuments. Furthermore they must have the advantage in any financial support schemes, whenever
applicable.
I would recommend the establishment of a foundation or fund regularly resourced by the Ministry of agriculture, forestry and food, Ministry of environment and spatial planning, Ministry of culture and maybe some others. The foundation could be resourced by other means as well (donations, events etc.).
According to the new Slovene law on safeguarding cultural heritage every particular area, listed as a monument
or heritage site, has a manager and has to be backed by a management plan
(http://zakonodaja.gov.si/rpsi/r04/predpis_ZAKO4144.html, accessed 20 Dec. 2011). Cultural landscapes, listed
as such monuments, should have management plans that include representative landowners and coordinators.
Even cultural landscapes that cannot reach the evaluation criteria for listing in the register of national monuments should be eligible for resources from this fund, as well as advice by professional agencies responsible for
the territory where the cultural landscape is located.
The strategy's goal is preservation of cultural landscapes, which represent an important part of Slovene identity,
but are simultaneously exceptionally significant for future generations in the global context.
Preservation therefore responds to the importance and necessity of ecological production of food and animal
fodder, sustainable use of soil and retreat to natural farming methods, which form the rationale behind the vision.
Fig. 7: Cerknica Cultural Landscape
18
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SESSION 2 CLIMATE CHANGE
WORLD HERITAGE NATURAL SITES IN ALBERTA, CANADA:

MANAGING CHANGE
William X Wei1,2, Michael Henry2, Joel Fridman2
1
Chair, Asia Pacific Management and Institute of Asia Pacific Studies,
MacEwan School of Business, Grant MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
ABSTRACT
The Province of Alberta is Canadas second most western province. Its borders touch the Canadian Rocky
Mountains to the west, the prairies to the east, the United States to the south and the Canadian arctic to the north.
Alberta is the third most productive province in Canada directed mostly by thriving resource extraction and
energy industries notably the renowned Alberta Oil Sands. Distinctively, however, Alberta also plays host to
the highest concentration of World Heritage Sites (WHS) of any Canadian province or territory: Dinosaur Provincial Park (1979), Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks [which includes Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay]
(1984), and Wood Buffalo National Park (1983) are three of Albertas four World Heritage Natural Sites
(WHNS). Waterton Glacier International Peace Park (1995) is Albertas fourth WHNS and the worlds first
international Peace Park. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (1981) is Albertas single World Heritage Cultural
Site. Aisinaipi (2004), also bordering Montana, has been submitted to the tentative list of WHSs.
This paper focuses on Albertas WHNSs management practices and contributes to the literature by adding an
account of how parks in the regional context of Alberta, and political context of Canada maneuver to conserve
its natural heritage in the face of a climate change phenomenon that is contributed to by diverse and contingent
social, demographic and economic factors. WHNS Managers are interviewed; their challenges and attitudes
toward natural heritage conservation in the face of climate change are documented convergent and divergent
responses. A context is first provided with an account of climate change according to Alberta along with and
overview of Canadian parks and protected areas literature. The paper is concluded with a discussion of implications. This paper sheds light on the acceptable limits of change for WHNSs in Alberta. Since Alberta hosts four
of the nine WHNSs in Canada and one that shares a border with the United States, Alberta is a unique case that
can illustrate a WHNS conservation strategy for Canada, and perhaps contribute to a coordinated WHNS management strategy more generally. The heavily industrial component of Albertas economy makes Alberta even
more prescient as a case study for WHNS management, as industry in the province heavily impacts social and
economic dynamics.
Keywords: national parks management climate change
SECTION 1: ALBERTA AND CLIMATE CHANGE
The Government of Canadas publication From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate acknowledges a growing concern and body of knowledge regarding climate change, and evidence that suggests
that these changes in climate are having observable impacts on both natural and human systems, with significant
social, economic and environmental implications (2007 p. 22). Climate Change, in this context refers to any
change in climate over time, whether it is the product of natural factors, human activity or both, as referred to
by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ibid. p. 23). This publication also asserts that human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land-use patterns have been the dominant causes of
climate changes observed since the mid-twentieth century and that temperatures and sea level will continue to
rise regardless of the global efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions (p. 22). For this reason, the publication
states, adaptation is necessary to deal with the current and near-term impacts of climate change (idem). Adaptation, which typically provides local benefits that are realized relatively quickly after implementation, refers
to any modification in a system or process made in response to changing climate. Adaptation involves making
adjustments in our decisions, activities and thinking because of observed or expected changes in climate, with
the goals of moderating harm or taking advantage of new opportunities (idem). Adaptation occurs within both
21
ecosystems and human systems (ibid. p. 23). While adaptation occurs spontaneously in response to climate
impacts within natural ecosystems, the process of adaptation in human systems can be complex and occur in
diverse ways such as behavioral changes, operational modifications, technological interventions, and revised
planning and investment practices, regulations and legislation and are determined by a wide array of social,
economic and environmental factors, involving careful planning, guided by both scientific research on climate
change and detailed understanding of the systems involved (idem).
Canada is projected to continue to experience greater rates of warming than most other regions of the world
throughout the present century, with northern regions and the south-central Prairies warming the most (Government of Canada, 2007). The impacts of climate change will be manifested in different ways in a number of sectors: Gradual shifts in average conditions will affect crops, forests, diseases, water availability, ecosystem health,
and infrastructure stability and be accompanied by changes in climate variability and the frequency of extreme
weather and climate events. These changes will result in both positive and negative social, economic and environmental impacts (ibid. p. 24). For example, in Canada, decreases in extreme cold during winter months could
positively benefit human health, energy consumption and agriculture, but negatively impact forestry, northern
transportation and non-renewable resource exploration. While some analyses suggest that moderate warming
could benefit Canada economically (due to increased agricultural productivity, reduced cold-weather mortality,
lowered winter energy demands, and benefits to tourism), such analyses do not consider other factors, such as
the inability to adapt, impacts on cultural identity or ecosystems, and the variability of climate change experiences across the country, resulting in climate stress and less resilience in some areas than in others (idem).
Over the past decade, literature regarding interdisciplinary research into climate change vulnerability and adaptation has expanded significantly, reflecting a growing awareness and cooperation amongst biophysical and
social sciences. For instance, the recognition of traditional ecological knowledge has become increasingly important in current research, as has the recognition of adaptation issues at the local scale.
Schindler (2007) illustrates that, over the coming decades, Alberta will be extremely susceptible to the impacts
of climate change, which will manifest in a number of ecosystems, sectors and industries. Due to its booming
energy-based economy, Alberta has experienced an increase in urban concentration over the past 50 years, a
trend expected to continue (pp. 279, 284). Since settlement, Albertas human population has already had a significant effect on its ecosystems:
The 25% of the Prairies occupied by the Prairie Ecozone is the regions agricultural and industrial heartland. It
is the most extensively modified region of the country there remain only remnants of the original mixed- and
tall-grass prairie, and less than half the presettlement wetland area. The pattern of settlements reflects their original functions as regional service centres and collection points along rail lines for agricultural products. Hundreds
of communities have vanished with rural depopulation, the consolidation of farms and the grain collection system, abandonment of rail lines and concentration of population, services and wealth in urban centres (pp. 280281).
The Prairies include some of Canadas fastest growing cities and economies. This fact, coupled with the processing of oil and gas, means that Alberta will require greater amounts of water in the future (p. 291):
Increases in water scarcity represent the most serious climate risk. The Prairies are Canadas major dryland.
Recent trends and future projections include lower summer streamflows, falling lake levels, retreating glaciers,
and increasing soil- and surface-water deficits. A trend of increased aridity will most likely be realized through
a greater frequency of dry years (p. 277).
A phenomenon connected with water availability is temperature increase. Schindler points out that
temperature records from the Prairies show significant positive trends, especially since the 1970s (p. 278).
Communities and institutions in the Prairies may be able to take advantage of these climate changes (longer
growing season and enhanced productivity of forests, crops and grassland etc. where there is adequate moisture).
However, even though warmer temperatures can result in an increased likelihood of extreme rainfall events,
increased aridity due to summertime drying (evapotranspiration) may offset such advantages (p. 291).
22
In regards to Albertas vegetation, while some effect might be predictable, little is known about which species
will be advantaged or disadvantaged by this type of climate change, as well as how species survival and variability will be affected by changing season patterns (p. 292). Vegetation zones are expected to shift and change
in species variation (p. 293). Major changes could occur in forested regions, occurring as either slow and cumulative decline or catastrophic loss due to major fires (p. 292).
Albertas wildlife will also be greatly impacted. While the prairie pothole region is the single most productive
habitat for waterfowl in the world, it is predicted that increased aridity and drought will reduce waterfowl populations (p. 293). Other aquatic species are at risk too, as their ecosystems experience warmer and drier conditions
(p. 294). In addition to population size, Wildlife migratory patternshave already been affected by recent climate trends, and further impacts are expected with climate change. Hunting-based industries, environmental
activities, fishing regulations and production, and traditional ways of life reliant on vertebrate biodiversity may
all suffer as a result (p. 293).
Within Albertas highly dynamic landscapes such as the Rocky Mountains and the dryland of the Prairie
Ecozone - extreme climate events, such as excessive rainfall or runoff from rapidly melting snow or ice, can
cause dangerous geological processes such as landsides, debris flows, rock avalanches and outburst floods (p.
295). These types of events are hazardous to public safety and infrastructure, thus having a negative effect on
recreational activity and residential development.
Alberta has a strong tourism and outdoor recreation-based economy, much of which centres on the provinces
natural landscapes and wildlife (p. 308). The communities that depend on these industries will face a number of
challenges in the coming years as climate change threatens to alter the nature of parks and recreation areas. Although tourism in Albertas national parks is projected to increase over the next few decades, due mainly to an
increase in average temperatures and visitor seasons (p. 313), a loss of wildlife in certain protected areas of interest could have the opposite effect, reducing recreational tourism based on viewing and hunting. Lower lake
and stream levels during the summer may negatively influence water-based recreation such as fishing, swimming, boating, canoe-tripping and whitewater activities and rapid spring runoff may make such activities too
dangerous due to high water levels and hazardous conditions (idem).
Certainly, the consequences of Climate Change will have a significant effect in all of the parks, both in the
prairie and mountain ranges. Increases in forest fire frequency and intensity, increased forest disease outbreaks
and insect infestations, and loss of boreal forest to grassland and temperate forest (ibid. p. 293) are equally
threatening to Albertas parks and are expected to influence the nature of protected ecological communities. In
Albertas mountain parks climate change has already caused vegetation and associated wildlife to migrate to
higher elevations, and this will accelerate under future warming, offsetting the increase in visitation that would
occur due to increased average temperatures (p. 314). The dynamic and complex nature of Climate Change on
potential shifts in ecosystem distribution and composition has not as much been taken into account (Scott and
Lemieux 2005; Lemieux and Scott 2005), and has only more recently begun to be broken down in a systematic
manner (McNeely, 1993; Markham, 1996; Bartlein et al., 1997; Halpin, 1997; Hannah et al., 2002; Scott et al.
2002).
In a study conducted by Lemieux et al. (2008), they indicate a clear disconnect between the perceived salience
of the possible impacts of climate change on protected areas and the capacity (funding, staff expertise etc.) of
protected natural areas agencies and organizations to respond. The study builds on recent research on climate
change impacts and adaptation strategies in Ontario, and works to enhance adaptation and adaptive capacity in
support of climate change decision-making and policy development. Their research had three primary objectives;
to evaluate the desirability of climate change adaptation options, to evaluate the feasibility of the various options, and to prioritize the various options and provide a first-order list to Ontario Parks. The study addresses
both institutional-specific policy initiatives to address climate change but also management adaptation needs
identified in the scientific research, and seems to be the first of its kind in Canada. In the short run, the authors
identify the need to create an enabling environment that can strategically respond to climate change associated
circumstances.
23
SECTION 2: PARKS CANADA MANAGEMENT APPROACH, THEORY & PRACTICE

Since the establishment of the first parks in Canada, several aspects of protected area management have
changed, evolved, and matured over time. Three aspects are summarized here: First is the values of park management as parks changed from a place for recreation to a place for broader ecological goals and values, which
eventually lead to the definition of ecological integrity as a strategy towards the conservation of biodiversity.
Second is the approach to park management that changed from viewing protected areas as islands of wilderness,
to networks of ecological processes and a system of ecological representation. Third is the way in which park
managers have interpreted change as an ecological process itself. Indeed, evolvement of these aspects did not
happen necessarily in succession, but rather the evolution of one aspect informed and/or prompted simultaneously evolution in the others.
Prior to 1930, each national park was legislated under its own federal act, and management for each park was
guided by the stipulations specific to the corresponding act. Banff National Park in Albertas Rocky Mountains
was the first Park established in Canada in 1885 and several parks outside the Banff region were created thereafter. The establishment of the initial parks in Canada was influenced more by the nations focus on economic
development and the value of parks as places for recreation and tourism rather than on the need to preserve wilderness (McNamee, 2002). As natural parks multiplied in number, an ad hoc network began to develop and the
broader values of protecting natural ecosystems began to play a larger role in their development. The Canada
National Parks Act, established in 1930, brought all national protected areas under the same legislation. The Act
itself exemplifies the dual focus of recreation and conservation, which were the impetus of park creation at that
time. The Act states Parks are hereby dedicated to the people of Canada for their benefit, education, and enjoyment, subject to the provisions of this Act and Regulations, and such Parks shall be maintained and made use of
so as to leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations (The Act, S.C. 2000, c. 32:4[1]). Subsequently, conflicts between the use of parks for the public and the protection of ecological values prompted further legislation, highlighted by documents such as the Parks Canada policy statement of 1979, the National Parks
Act Amendments of 1988, and revisions to the Guiding Principles and Operational policies in 1994. These
documents successively indicate that ecological integrity should be Parks Canadas the federal department
responsible for protected areas management at the time primary consideration. In 1998, The Parks Canada
Agency was formed, first under the Ministry of Canadian Heritage and now under the Ministry of the Environment, and responsibilities were carried over.
The principle of ecological integrity has been elevated through legislative documents and policy guidelines to
be the paramount principle in park management, and it is now considered a perquisite to the application of any
park policy and to park use more generally (Wright and Rollins, 2002). Ecological integrity was ultimately entrenched as a guiding principle of park management in the most recent consolidation and amendment of the
Canada National Parks Act in 2000. The Act defines ecological integrity as, with respect to a park, a condition
that is determined to be characteristic of its natural region and likely to persist, including abiotic components and
the composition and abundance of native species and biological communities (The Act S.C. 2000 c. 32: 2[1]).
The Act states ecological integrity the first priority of the Federal Government Minister responsible for park
management, and the prime factor underlying all aspects of Agency operations (The Act S.C. 2000 c. 32:8[1]).
Along with the evolvement of the park management guiding values and principle toward ecological integrity,
so too has the approach and interpretation of park management evolved. As Canada has matured as a nation,
while an ad hoc network of parks might have appeared in the first half of the 20th century, there has been increasing loss of wilderness. Wider economic activity and a growing population has affected unprotected areas. Kevin
McNamee, the one time Director of Park Establishment for Parks Canada, explains: For much of their history
parks were wild spaces located within larger expanses of wilderness and more recently has industrial and
agricultural development on adjacent land moved right up against national park borders (2002a, p. 44). This has
created an island effect of endangered spaces. Recognition of this park as an island effect, by both civil society and legislators, prompted efforts to create a more systematic approach to park management (see McNamee,
24
2002b). In 1971, Parks Canada developed a natural regions approach to guide protected area expansion, this
involved the creating of eco-regions, 1 which classified regions that are representative of the different physical,
biological, and geographic characteristics across Canada. The importance of this eco-regions approach is that it
marks a definitive change from the previous islands of endangered spaces rational to a systems rational. Two
other factors furthered the development of this new approach. Acknowledgement came in a 1987 report by Parks
Canada that the magnitude and frequency of transboundary concerns will increasingly become a problem
(Irvine 1987, p. vi) and, indeed, there was recognition for the first time that the ecological integrity of protected
areas is susceptible not just to internal threats but external threats as well. Also, in the 1980s, the park system
approach matured to consider patch dynamics (Forman and Godron, 1986; Forman, 1995; Theberge and
Theberge, 2002). Patch dynamics encouraged managers to consider beyond simply capturing the representative
elements of the countrys diverse ecosystems, but to take into account linkages and corridors for species and
ecological processes between protected areas and other spaces. Patch dynamics situates parks and reserves
within the landscapes that surround them. Indeed, as of the Canadian Protected Areas Status Report (2005),
Canadas land-based ecological classification system designates 177 eco-regions, which nest in 15 broader ecozones. This framework not only serves to represent the ecological diversity of Canada, but it also allows for the
measurement of the size of protected areas within each region and for the consideration of placement, so the
ecological processes that manifest among and between parks can be considered.
The Conservation Areas Reporting and Tracking System (CARTS), a national web-based portal, works on the
basis of the ecological classification system and utilizes GIS and mapping technology to summarize Canadas
protected areas. CARTS enables both scientists and policy-makers to better assess the countrys protected areas
network, and allows a more precise approach to the benchmarking of ecological integrity and, to an extent, the
sustainability of uses of the broader landscape (Environment Canada, 2005). The ecological classification system
also allows for reporting on the methods used and the basic capability of monitoring for parks across Canada.
The challenge of change, and indeed the interpretation and understanding of change in the ecological context of
protected areas in Canada has evolved along with the guiding principles and approach to management. Dealing
with uncertainty in what are dynamic ecosystems calls for an adaptive and active management approach (Woodley, 2002; Theberge and Theberge, 2002). Nevertheless, historically, as parks were considered natural areas set
aside for the purposes of protecting, preserving or conserving representative ecosystems, there was a perception
that they required no management that nature could simply take its course. But now, with ecological integrity
legislated as the paramount guiding principle and an ecological framework to provide categorically a system to
zone and manage protected areas, the role of park managers has evolved from being a protector of wild processes to active managers of ecosystems with a defined ecological goal (Woodley, 2002). Chief Scientist of Parks
Canada, Stephen Woodley, comments that this represents a fundamental shift in the manner in which change is
interpreted in protected areas in that no one particular state or era in time is necessarily correct or ideally natural (ibid., p. 99). Therefore, Woodley goes on to indicate that there will typically be debate about why changes
are occurring and whether or not such changes are detrimental to ecological integrity and that adaptability in
management approaches is important so actions can be taken simultaneously with testing for their effects on
ecological integrity (ibid., pp. 100-101). Still, however, Theberge and Theberge (2002) comment that the increased cost of the research component for adaptive management practices, and its added complexity, limit the
extent to which such approaches can be practiced.
PARK MANAGEMENT PLANS
All parks must have Management Plans established within five years of the creation of the park, and the plans
must be tabled in both houses of Canadian Federal Parliament. The Parks Canada Agency has guidelines for
these Management Plans to ensure consistency and standardization. Each management plan must contain a
Eco-regions are defined as Natural landscapes and/or environments of Canada which may be separated from other such landscapes and environments by surface features which are readily observable, discernable and understandable by the layman as well as
by the scientist and others more familiar with the natural features of Canada (National and Historic Sites Branch, 1971, p. 3).
25
long-term ecological vision for the park, a set of ecological integrity objectives and indictors and provisions for
resource protection and restoration, zoning, visitor use, public awareness and performance evaluation (The Act
Section 11[1]). More recently, public participation in park management planning has been required for, but the
nature of this involvement has been a balance between a traditional form of consultation to a more cooperative
process of consensus (Wright and Rollins, 2002). Business plans at the Agency (Parks Canada) level as well at
the individual park level are also required to set out the financial accountabilities and short-term actions for
monitoring.
EXPERT INTERVIEWS
A series of expert interviews was the basis of our research. The qualitative interview allows us to gather nuanced and context embedded information. It enables the researcher to hear the response and understanding of
respondents toward different phenomena and certain practices (Mason, 2002). The interview process consisted
of three interviews of field-unit managers in Alberta national parks with UNESCO World Heritage Natural Site
designation. The parks included in the study from south to north were Waterton International Peace Park,
Banff National Park, and Jasper National Park. Woodbuffalo National Park was excluded due to time restraints.
An initiating email was sent to the external relations manager in the field unit of prospective participating parks.
The email was a proposal of our research project as well as a request to interview the appropriate field unit manager in a position to address issues of climate change. Every park that we approached to participate in the study
welcomed the opportunity, and encouraged contact to specific park field-unit managers. Contact was then made
with the identified field unit managers, and a proposal to schedule a telephone interview was forwarded along
with an information sheet for participants. As the interviews were scheduled an interview script consisting of six
questions was provided to the corresponding field-unit manager. The interviews followed a semi-structured
methodology, where the script provided a loose structure of the interview but during the interview the respondent was given the broadest opportunity to establish a narrative and create their own structures of relevance
(Trinczek, 2009). Each interview lasted about 40 minutes and was conducted in the spring of 2011.
The interviews were then transcribed, and through a routine organization and handling of data, they were coded
and indexed for relevant information (Mason, 2002). The script was analyzed for five specific points of reference, or themes:
1) How the field unit manager understood the relationship between UNESCO and the park and/or what
the designation as a WHNS meant for the park.
2) How the field unit manager understands or conceptualizes the phenomenon and/or challenges of climate change as it relates to the park; and how do the file-unit managers contextualize the role of the
park within the climate change dynamic. 3) The approach of the field unit manager to confront consequences of climate change.
3) The actions taken by field unit managers to confront consequences of climate change.
4) The perceptions of the field unit manager of the Parks Canada agency and the current tools for park
management planning.
Proximately, the transcripts were cross-referenced to highlight convergences and divergences among the field
unit managers in regards to the five points of reference.
RESULTS
CONVERGENCES:
Theme 1 UNESCO
The relevance of the UNESCO designation on National Park management

The designation is significant for the recognition it gives and the international profile it lends to the
park. The obligation to maintain a high standard of stewardship of the park is re-enforced by the recognition of the site as significant not only for Canada, but for the entire world.
26
Although the WHNS designation does not particularly effect the management of the park directly
(parks are foremost obligated to the Parks Canada Agency and its legal and policy standards), the reasoning behind the designation, along with WHNS requirements, is in-line with the legal and policy
standards that guide the park management.
Theme 2 Understanding of Climate Change and the role of the Park
Climate change has the potential for eco-system wide consequences.

Particular consequences are inevitable, like receding glaciers and northward migrating ecological systems.
As a national park entity, they cannot lead a charge to stop climate change, because geographically
they are mere postage stamps on the landscape.
Understanding of a Time Caveat that while climate change may be happening rapidly on a geological scale, the processes of climate change happen very slowly on an administrative scale. This presents
a challenge for park managers to incorporate climate change into management considerations.
Theme 3 Approach to managing in the context of climate change
Threats to park ecological integrity has primarily been defined in terms of particular qualitative features, for example, water flow regime, vegetation regimes, species population, etc. One respondent referred to this as the program level.
Climate change is not currently being addressed in any focused or specific manner climate change is
acknowledged so far as consequences of climate change implicate ecosystem dynamics at the program
level.
Focus is devoted to maintain natural diversity and resilience of ecosystems, to minimize the disruption
as these systems adapt to the disruptions instigated by climate change.
An observance that climate change is slowly starting to be integrated into the management frame of
thought
Theme 4 Actions to confront climate change challenges
Monitoring plays a big role. Gauging the natural range of variability that is inherent in ecosystems
works to inform management strategies.
Some form of partnership or cooperation to facilitate dialogue with parks, communities, political entities, and/or industries adjacent to park boundaries.
Theme 5 Parks Canada Agency and legal and policy tools available
Parks Canadas legal and policy standards mesh well with WHS requirements.
The Parks Canada policy suite is strong enough and flexible enough to deal with changing environmental conditions and changing societal expectations.
Parks Canada is beginning to look at program level dynamics through the lens of climate change, but
is in very initial stages of doing so.
Principles that currently guide park management, such as ecological integrity and eco-region representation, and the use of policy tools like the management plans, will not change in the near-term, but
the manner in which those principles are fulfilled and the way those tools are used may change.
27
DIVERGENCES:
Theme 1 NA
Theme 2
The heritage role of the park was mentioned by two respondents, but conceptualized differently: One
respondent noted that the national parks are the only remnant example of the national landscapethats all we got left [sic], therefore, as part of our heritage, weve got to protect these
parks. This conceptualizes parks as artifacts that can be passed on to future generations. An alternate
conceptualization of the heritage role of national parks as described by one respondent is so society
can compare them to landscapes that are used more intensively. To inform society what is happening
in representative and relatively less used parts of the landscape so that it might inform their life-style
choices.
Theme 3
Monitoring approaches can differ depending on the park, its location and possible adjacent communities. For example, in the Waterton International Peace Park researchers from the USA obtain many research permits within the Canadian park boundary.
Theme 4
Monitoring programs tailored to the circumstances of each park.
Each field-unit manager described partnerships differently. The most striking difference was that two
respondents described dialogue processes with other entities (government, industry adjacent communities, outside researchers etc.) as business as usual or just a normal way of doing business. One
respondent went on to describe a participatory, multi-stakeholder framework that is unique, the multistakeholder framework for dialogue as a collaborative approach that looks at holistic management. Discussions currently taking place revolve around issues of land access management, which
can indirectly manage the effects of climate change.
It is a different way of doing business. It is not from a command and control point [of view]. I cant tell any
other jurisdiction what to do I try and be apart of creating conditions conducive that we benefit more from
working together than separately [sic].
This framework has been in progress for only a few years, and goes far beyond the boundaries of the
park to include private land-holders, larger industry stakeholders of various sectors (oil, agriculture,
forestry), the governments of Alberta and BC and county and municipal governments. Other parks
and/or jurisdictions might be in various stages of this kind of initiative, but it is heavily reliant on individuals.
This is just not how other jurisdictions or industry is trained This is a new model of cooperation is a new
model a collaborative approach where it is interspaced, respectful [and] it takes time to develop that trust
for a working relationship.
Because there is no formal framework that is government mandated to do this kind of work, the initiative has to be approached in a way that tells the stakeholders to be selfish because, for companies or
governments to participate, they have to see a benefit to their cooperation. In a sense, jurisdictions
have to learn a little bit about other peoples business, to understand what they need to be satisfied or
people will start to walk away.
Theme 5
One field unit manager specified the changing demographic of Canadians as becoming more relevant
to the Parks Canada Agency in the future. With considerable immigration from countries all over the
28
world with different cultures, and more and more Canadians (roughly 80%) living in urban rather than
rural areas, it is not enough for Parks Canada to do good science, but to make parks more relevant to
people. Parks Canada could play a larger role, engage and influence Canadians about environmental
issues and climate change.
IMPLICATIONS
Climate Change is only beginning to enter the dialogue of WHNS management in Alberta, and parks and protected areas management in Canada more generally. Both the size of parks with respect to the global landscape
along with the time caveat goes along with a realization that the approaches and activities available to field unit
managers is limited. One respondent defined this scope as limited to the anthropogenic footprint, disturbance
variance, and restoration. Summarily, while field managers are aware of climate change they are also aware that
they cannot prevent it. Threats to park ecological integrity are identified qualitatively and managed at the program level. This aligns with the review of theory and practice in Canadian parks management. While monitoring
and partnerships are engaged actively throughout parks, they are acted upon in different ways. The multistakeholder framework to engage in management strategies to encompass communities and interests outside the
park can inform other partnership strategies. While the existing policy suite of Parks Canada agency is strong,
and flexible enough to accommodate changing environmental conditions, more scenario planning, and initiatives
to help researchers take a look at programs through the lens of climate change may be introduced in the future.
Particularly, to gauge and respond to dynamics relating to the rate of change, specifically the time caveat dilemma in the management equation. As it stands, however, WHNS in Alberta, and parks and protected areas in
Canada are still limited in their ability to address climate change directly. Actions are still limited more or less to
the anthropogenic footprint inside park boundaries affected by visitor control, disturbance management, and
restoration. There is opportunity to add to the management arsenal, and through increased participation in multistakeholder engagement frameworks to coordinate activity outside park boundaries. Indeed, in the future we may
see the Parks Canada Agency playing a larger advocacy role for parks and protected areas with climate change
taking a larger place in the dialogue relating to ecological integrity, eco-region representation and biodiversity.
REFERENCES
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Halpin, P. (1997) Global climate change and natural-area protection: management responses and research directions, Ecological Applications, 7, pp. 828843.
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Bush, E. (eds.) From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate 2007. Ottawa: Natural Resources Canada, Earth Sciences Sector, Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Division, pp. 1-22.
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30
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31
THREATS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS TO CONSERVATION

AND MANAGEMENT OF WORLD HERITAGE SITES: A CASE
STUDY ON SUNDARBANS, BANGLADESH
Shafi Noor Islam
Institute of Geography, Free University of Berlin, Germany.
ABSTRACT
The Sundarbans is the largest single productive mangrove forest of the world and it is situated in the south west
coast of Bangladesh. Its landscapes consist of a large number of fluvial and tidal lands, features created by the
three mighty rivers the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna. Moreover, it has outstanding universal value
to humanity and is diminishing on a global scale due to climate change impacts, and substantial uses of natural
resources. It was declared a UNESCO World natural Heritage site in Bangladesh in 1997. In the Sundarbans
case, Sea Level Rise (SLR) would result in saline water moving further into the delta, which could be the major
threat for coastal mangrove wetland ecosystems management. In addition, upstream fresh water extractions can
cause changes that could damage mangrove ecosystem services. The fate of the Sundarbans mangrove is uncertain, depending on different SLR. The negative impacts on the Sundarbans with 45 cm SLR would lead to the
destruction of 75% of the Sundarbans heritage site. Beside these, more environmental problems will arise in the
coastal belt such as water pollution and scarcity, soil degradation, and deforestation which will damage of mangrove biodiversity and its ecosystem services. Therefore education for climate change impacts awareness and
applied research and training should be initiated in order to change the attitude of the people and the government. It is necessary and urgent to develop technically feasible, low-cost, locally available affordable and appropriate devices to develop the capacity and an adaptation strategy to conserve and live with water-related extremes. The objective of this paper is to understand the threats of climate change impacts to conservation and
management of the Sundarbans heritage site in Bangladesh and to make some recommendations for alternative
solutions for the protection of the Sundarbans World Natural Heritage Site in Bangladesh.
Keywords: Sundarbans Heritage Site, Climate Change Impacts, Threats, Conservation and Management.
1. INTRODUCTION
The World Heritage list now includes 936 outstanding sites around the world. The nature of these sites is extremely varied and they include monuments, cities, natural features, landscapes, seascapes and cultural landscapes (Gibson, 2006). This being the case, an examination of the threats of climate change on iconic monuments and natural sites will serve to draw attention to these issues, which affect not only World Heritage Sites,
but also the planet as a whole (idem). The unique role of the World Heritage Convention in this area is the premier instrument entrusted to protect the worlds most precious sites of outstanding universal value (Gibson,
2006; Kokkonen, 2006). However, the debate on climate change over the last fifteen years has been largely
oblivious to the possible impacts on such heritage. According to the IPCC, almost 67 percent of the glaciers in
the Himalayan and Tien Shan mountain ranges have retreated in the past decade. Drastically affected glaciers
almost everywhere, including Sagarmatha National Park (Nepal), Kilimanjaro National Park (Tanzania) and
Huascaran National Park (Peru), Jungfau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn (Switzerland), Polar glaciers in Greenland (Denmark) are retreating at an even faster rate (Sidi, 2006). Glaciers in the European Alps have lost approximately
one third of their area and half of their mass, and since 1980 almost 20 to 30% of the ice has melted. If this trend
continues, then by 2050, 75% of the glaciers in the Swiss Alps are likely to have disappeared (Thompson et al.,
2002). Glacier melting in the Alps will affect important European rivers such as the Rhine, the Rhone or the
Danube and thus pose a threat to European fresh water supply (Thompson et al., 2002). Some sites, including the
historic mosques of Timbuktu (Mali) have faced severe challenges from the environment for centuries. The
global warming also holds deplorable consequences for marine life and coral reefs, of which some are World
Heritage sites (Gibson, 2006; Kokkonen, 2006).The climate change threat weighs on a number of World Heri-
32
tage sites, including the sites in the city of London (UK) as well as Venice and its Lagoon (Italy). At the end of
this century, Venice will be inundated daily. Many areas of the world will also be affected to a degree that eventually proves dramatic. To use World Heritage sites as an example, rising sea levels threaten the great mangrove
forests of the Sundarbans that cover 10,000 km in the Ganges delta of Bangladesh and India (Islam, 2005;
Hazara, 2007; Islam and Gnauck, 2009). At present, these mangrove forests protect low-lying inland areas, home
to millions of people, against storms and the sea (Gibson, 2006; Kokkonen, 2006). In July 2005, the World Heritage committee recognized the genuine concerns raised by various organizations and individuals relating to
threats to World Heritage properties that are or may be the result of climate change. The impacts of climate
change are affecting many World Heritage properties and are likely to affect many more in the years to come. It
insisted on the need to develop a strategy to assist states parties to implement appropriate management responses
(Gibson, 2006; Kokkonen, 2006). The Sundarbans is the largest single productive mangrove forest of the world.
Its landscapes consist of a large number of fluvial and tidal lands, features created by the three mighty rivers the
Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna. Moreover, it has outstanding universal value to humanity and is diminishing on a global scale due to climate change impacts, and substantial uses of natural resources. It was declared a UNESCO World natural Heritage site in Bangladesh in 1997 (Islam, 2003). The coastal zone of Bangladesh is the low-lying zone in the world where 36 million people are living within 1 meter elevation from the
high tide level (IPCC, 2007). It has also been predicted by IPCC and MoEF of Bangladesh that 3 mm/year Sea
Level Rise (SLR) will take place and 2500 km land will be inundated furthermore due to salinity intrusion and
tidal inundation, about 20% of cultivable land; and 17 million (15% of the population) coastal people will have
to be displaced or homeless by 2030. These coastal people are directly or indirectly dependent on the Sundarbans
mangrove ecosystem goods and services (Rahman and Ahsan, 2001; Islam and Gnauck, 2010; Akter et al.,
2010).
In the Sundarbans case, SLR would result in saline water moving further into the delta, which would be the major threat for coastal mangrove wetland ecosystems. In addition upstream fresh water extractions can cause
changes that could damage mangrove ecosystem goods and services (Islam and Gnauck, 2010; Akter et al.,
2010). The fate of the Sundarbans mangrove is uncertain, depending on different SLR. The negative impacts on
the Sundarbans if 10 cm SLR will inundate 15% of the heritage site and with 45 cm SLR would lead to the destruction of 75% of the Sundarbans heritage site (IPCC, 2007; Ahmed and Alam, 1999). Beside these, more
environmental problems will arise in the coastal belt such as water pollution and scarcity, soil degradation, and
deforestation, which will cause damage of mangrove biodiversity. In such a situation, it will further create an
unstable mangrove ecosystem services, agricultural production and food insecurity adjoining the Sundarbans
heritage site (Akter et al., 2010; Islam and Gnauck, 2010). The lack of knowledge, awareness and seriousness of
the immense problems that are facing the country in the immediate future is most striking (Islam and Gnauck,
2010). Therefore climate awareness education and applied research and training should be initiated in order to
change the attitude of the people and the government (Islam, 2005; Islam and Gnauck, 2007). It is necessary and
urgent to develop technically feasible, low-cost, locally available affordable and appropriate devices to develop
capacity and adaptation strategy to conserve and live with water related extremes (Islam and Gnauck, 2010;
Rahman and Ahsan, 2001). A number of important ecological and social factors have been identified, and vulnerability assessment can be an important tool in planning mangrove biodiversity conservation and developing
an eco-tourism management approach (Islam, 2003). Conservation policies must therefore be based on a proper
appreciation of proposed modified eco-tourism models and other actions. The community as a whole may participate in and all classes benefit from conservation and improvements from sustainable heritage site management (Islam, 2003; Islam and Gnauck, 2010). The paper has been prepared based on primary and secondary data
sources. The objective of this paper is to understand the threats of climate change impacts to conservation and
management of the Sundarbans heritage site in Bangladesh and to make some potential recommendations for
alternative solution for the protection of the Sundarbans World Natural Heritage Site in Bangladesh.
It is important to appreciate that the main threat from rising sea levels in such areas is not the direct effects of
gradual upward creeping of the sea level, but the livelihood of the coastal people is more frequently and possibly
the most severe problem (Doody, 2000). In these areas soils are affected by different degrees of salinity. For
instance, about 203,000 hectare very slightly, 492,000 hectare slightly, 461,000 hectare moderately and 490,200
33
hectare strongly salt-affected soils are assessed in the southwestern part of the Sundarbans World Heritage region (SRDI, 2000; EGIS, 2000; Islam and Gnauck, 2008). Therefore sea level rise, salinity intrusion and shortage of upstream fresh water supply are a big challenge for the mangrove biodiversity conservation and management of mangrove ecosystem services (Islam and Gnauck, 2010; 2011).
2. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objective of this paper is
o
o
o
to understand the threats of climate change impacts to conservation and management of the Sundarbans heritage site in Bangladesh;
to simulate the impacts of future trends of environmental vulnerability of the people who are dependent on the natural heritage goods and services in the coastal region;
to make some practical recommendations for alternative solution for the protection and sustainable
management of the Sundarbans World Natural Heritage Site in the Ganges delta in Bangladesh.
3. THE SUNDARBANS CASE AREA

The Sundarbans, the worlds largest mangrove forest, is located at the southern extremity of the Ganges River
Delta bordering on the Bay of Bengal (Islam, 2003). The Bangladesh part of the Sundarbans spreads over the
districts of Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira. The Sundarbans region is located in the southwest corner of the country (Islam and Gnauck, 2008). It covers almost 62 % of total land cover and geographically it lies between latitudes 21 31 N and 22 30 N and between longitudes 89 18 E and 90 18 E (Fig. 1) (Katebi, 2001).The region enjoys humid tropical monsoon climate with proximity to sea as an added advantage. Temperature varies
from 20C in December-January to 34 C in June-July with an annual range of about 8C. Moreover, mangrove
wetland spreads over the Ganges delta with an average elevation of 0.9 to 2.1 meters above mean sea level. The
lower Ganges delta was under sea around 6000 -7000 years ago. As a result of that, there was a rapid trend of
deforestation by human habitation which caused the shifting of mangrove vegetation from north to south. Considering this statement the Sundarbans mangrove in Bangladesh originated at least 5300 to 7000 years ago,
which is a relatively short age compared with global age of mangrove (Saha and Datta et al., 2001).
On the other hand, Bandyopadhya (1968), Alim (1984), Siddiqi (2001), Gopal and Chauhan (2006) observed
that the Sundarbans developed from gradual deposition of silt carried by the Ganges from the Himalayas which
is not much older than 7000 years.
The rivers of the Sundarbans are more stable than the main stream of the Ganges. The erosion and accretion
balance in the Sundarbans has been estimated to be 146 km for the period 1960-1984 (Jabbar, 1995; Siddiqi,
2001; 2001a).
Fig. 1: The geographical location of the

Sundarbans in the Ganges catchment
(Map Source: Islam and Gnauck, 2008)
The deltaic swamp of the Sundarbans is flat with micro-topographical exceptions only. It runs from north to
south at a slope of 0.03 m vertically per km of horizontal distance. Micro-topographical variation is due to rivers,
34
streams and tidal flow. The forest floor is 0.90m to 2.11m above the sea level (Bird, 1969; Hussain and Acharya,
1994). The landscapes consist of a large number of fluvial and tidal landscapes created by the continual deposition of weathered materials carried by three mighty rivers namely Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna. The
Sundarbans reserve covers 6017 km of forests, wildlife sanctuaries, sand bars, rivers, creeks and canals (Islam,
2003). The area of the Sundarbans (east, west and south wild life sanctuary) is 1400 km, where the land area of
heritage site is 910 km and the water body covers 490 km (Islam and Gnauck, 2008). A network of rivers and
creeks criss-crosses its dense evergreen rain forests. Mangrove vegetation stabilizes the coastline, enhances land
building and enriches both soil and aquatic environment. It provides homes and food for wildlife, and nursery
grounds for fish, shrimps and prawns. Almost 3.6 million people are directly dependent for their survival on
these biologically rich ecosystems, where they find honey, shells, crabs, fishes, shrimps, wood and fuel wood
and fodder (MAP, 2000). It also provides ideal habitats for a variety of unique plants and animals of which some
are endemic. It is very rich in biodiversity with about 334 species of plants, 282 species of birds, 49 species of
mammals and 210 species of fishes and 63 species of reptiles, 10 species of amphibians and mollusks (Rashid et
al., 1994; Amin and Khan, 2001). One finds here tides flowing in two directions in the same creeks and often
tigers swimming across a river and huge crocodiles basking in the sun. The wild sanctuaries are divided by a
complex network of tidal waterways, into 3 separate areas, which are of distinct interest; mud flats, small islands
of salt and latent mangrove forests. This is an excellent and influential example of an ongoing ecological progress; it displays the effects of monsoon rain forest (Rashid et al., 1994; Amin and Khan, 2001).
The Sundarbans mangrove forest is a dynamic, fragile, sensitive complex ecosystem in delicate balance with
the factors of soil water and the environment. Its importance for its floristic composition, economic uses, and as
a wildlife habitat has created for it a unique position not only in terms of forestry but also in terms of landscapes,
culture and heritage (Islam, 2005). The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has considered the natural heritage
site nomination criteria N (ii) and (iv) and declared the Sundarbans as a natural World Heritage site in Bangladesh in 1997 (Islam, 2003). The explanation of the criteria (ii) and (iv) is that the Sundarbans is of great significance in forest culture, environmental processes and mangrove ecological balance on the coastal parts of Bangladesh. It plays a potential role in protecting the coastal marine ecosystems and providing coastal ecosystem
services (Islam, 2001; Islam, 2005; Siddiqi, 2001a). The Sundarbans heritage site, which has outstanding universal value to humanity, is diminishing on a global scale; thus, according to the UNESCO World Heritage convention, the conservation of World natural Heritage is of importance to humanity and is the legal obligation of the
state parties (Islam, 2005).
4. DATA AND METHODOLOGY
Present research was carried out based on primary and secondary data sources, and the interdisciplinary approach has been considered. Climate change impacts on the Sundarbans World Heritage site and the surrounding
communitys socio-economy, and environmental issues have been the focal points. Climate change impacts, Sea
Level Rise (SLR) and its impacts on the Sundarbans and its ecosystem services were analysed. Water level rise
and salinity intrusion in the upstream area of the Sundarbans are creating environmental negative impacts in the
local communities as well as damaging the mangrove ecosystem and its services. The different data collection
methods have been followed such as: field investigation through interviews, questionnaire survey, imagery
analysis, water and soil sample collection (44 locations) and chemical analysis, and use of Focus Group Discussion (FGD) methods. There were 21 FGD meetings (with 210 participants), carried out with the local stakeholders, government officers, farmers, fisherman, young entrepreneurs and students. Besides, the essential secondary data has been collected from literature review, and used of various publications such as books, journals,
official documents and reports from government agencies, IPCC reports (2007) and NGOs and international
organisations.
5. CONCEPTUAL THEORY OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS
The impacts of climate change in any given region depend on the specific climatic changes that occur in that
region. This is because local climatic changes can differ substantially from the global average climatic change
35
(Harvey, 2000). A consideration of climatic change at the regional level would therefore appear to be mandatory
in the development of both national-scale and global-scale policy responses to the prospect of global warming.
Indeed, this imperative has been driving the effort to develop better predictions of climatic change at the regional
level (Harvey, 2000). The theory behind climate change impacts are illustrated in Figure 2 below. Anthropogenic
factors impact the environment and influenced on urban water (Harvey, 2000).
Climate Change
Natural and
Anthropogenic factors
Sea Level Rise
Temperature change
Salinity
Tidal Inundation
Tidal floods and salinity

intrusion in coastal areas
Erosion
High/ Cold Temperature
Increase public expenditure on mitigation measures
Quality damage of
water and soil fertility
High salinity in surface,

ground water and in soil
Damage of mangrove biodiversity

and ecosystem services
Threats to cultural and natural

World Heritage Sites
Fig. 2: Flow chart of climate change impacts of coastal water quality and soil
There is scientific consensus that natural and human activities are beyond reasonable doubt the main explanation for the current rapid changes in the world's climate (Harvey, 2000; Drake, 2000). The concentration of atmospheric CO2 in 1750 was 280 ppm, and increased to 379 ppm in 2005, representing a whopping increase of
100 ppm in 250 years (IPCC, 2007). The IPCC projected that the estimate of total SLR of 49cm, with a possible
range of 20 cm for the 21st century (IPCC, 2007).
This poses problems especially for people and infrastructure on coastal areas and low-lying areas of the world.
For example, the cyclone-vulnerable and tidal wave attacts on offshore of coastal Bangladesh could be devastated with terrible consequences for all people of the coastal region of the country (Thomas, 2004; IPCC, 2007).
The ratio of soil and organic matter production to decomposition is lost through water and wind erosion (IPCC,
2007), which is one of the main factors that adversely affect on ecology, and it is the root cause of coastal water
damage, which is reducing of social welfare of coastal population (Fig. 2) (Harvey, 2000). Climate change leads
to floods, salinity intrusion and erosion. These three factors may cause damage to coastal surface and ground
water quality and mangrove ecology (Fig.2) (Hidayati, 2000). Climate change results in fluctuation of temperatures, which may affect the ecology and coastal ecosystem services. Besides SLR and temperature change, there
are some other factors that influence surface water and the coastal mangrove ecosystem (Fig. 2). Owing to lack
of these opportunities, the coastal ecosystems quality is falling in developing countries, especially in the lowlying countries like Bangladesh (IPCC, 2007), resulting in insecurity of coastal cultural and natural heritage sites
(Fig. 2) as well as the livelihoods of coastal communities (Islam, 2001).
36
6. CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON THE SUNDARBANS

The coastal zone of Bangladesh is the low-lying zone in the world where 36 million people are living within 1
meter elevation from the high tide level. A 3.4 mm/year Sea Level Rise (SLR), has also been predicted by IPCC
and MoEF of Bangladesh, which is substantially more than the global average of 1-2 mm per year (IPCC, 2007).
The high rate will take place and 2500 km land will be inundated, also due to salinity intrusion and tidal inundation, about 20% of cultivable land; 17 million (15% of the population) coastal people will have to be displaced
or homeless by 2030 (Fig.3) (GoB, 1999; IPCC, 2007). These coastal people are directly or indirectly dependent
on the Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem goods and services. In the Sundarbans case, SLR would result in saline
water moving further into the delta, which would be the major threat for coastal mangrove wetland ecosystems.
In addition, upstream fresh water extractions can cause changes that could damage mangrove ecosystem goods
and services. As the rate of coastal erosion is found to be strongly co-relatable with the rate of Sea level rise, this
implies increased erosion and submergence of the island systems (Hazara, 2007). The fate of the Sundarbans
mangrove lies with different SLR: the negative impacts on the Sundarbans, with 10 cm SLR, will inundate 15%
of the heritage site and, with 45 cm SLR, would lead to the destruction of 75% of the Sundarbans heritage site
(IPCC, 2007; Islam and Gnauck 2010). Beside these, more environmental problems will arise in the coastal belt
such as water pollution and scarcity, soil degradation, and deforestation, which will cause damage of mangrove
biodiversity and ecosystem services (Doody, 2000; Akter et al., 2010; Islam and Gnauck, 2010).
BANGLADESH
Fig. 3: The Sundurbans World Heritage Site and the Coastal Location
The sinking Sundarbans mangrove deltaic islands are one of the first climate hotspots in Bangladesh and India
(Fig.3). It sets a precedent for the impacts of Sea Level Rise which poor populations in low-lying coastal Bangladesh will face in the future(Islam and Gnauck, 2007; 2009). Increased displacement of people due to loss of
habitation and land will increase Bangladeshis count of climate refugees and add to the burden of poverty under
which we are already reeling. At this critical juncture where we only have eight years to act, strong and timebound mitigation measures must accompany measures for adaptation (Islam and Gnauck, 2011). The vulnerability of the Sundarbans to climate change impacts is very high in comparison to other coastal areas of India and
Bangladesh. Over 70,000 people from the Indian Sundarbans area and 3.6 million people around Bangladesh
Sundarbans area are at the risk of losing their habitat permanently due to SLR, increased cyclone intensity and
flooding by the year 2030 (Islam, 2003; Hazara, 2007; IPCC, 2007; Islam and Gnauck, 2007; 2010). A country
like Bangladesh cannot afford the costs required for adapting to the impacts of climate change. Moreover, with a
whopping 150 million population Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable to climate change impacts, while
developed countries must take a much larger initiative to combat climate change impacts.
6.1 Impacts on Coastal Mangrove Ecosystems
Global sea water level rise has been causing numerous problems to the global economic system, especially to
the coastal areas. The most critical problem is land fresh water resources lose in the coastal areas. Its negative
37
effect on the coastal ground water resources has been thought to be critical too. In general, the sea level rise
directly causes the coastal line to shift inland from off shore with magnitude dependent on the slope. Sea water
intrusion into the coastal aquifers occurs not only by density-dependent mechanism (UN-ESCAP, 1988). Currently, coastal saline water is gradually moving in the upstream areas, and river water salinity moves up as far as
Kumarkhali River port in Magura district, which is 271 km from the coast (EGIS, 2000; SRDI, 2000, Islam and
Gnauck, 2008; Akter et al., 2010). The salinity trends are higher in the Sathkhira, Khulna, Bagerhat, Borguna,
Jhalokhati, Potuakhali, Bhola and southern part of Noakhali districts. The trends are higher in the southwestern
region of Bangladesh and comparatively less saline intrusion occurred in the eastern region of the coastal region;
these trends are also affecting the whole coastal ecosystems (Ali, 1999; Islam, 2006; Islam, 2001; Akter et al.,
2010). Due to the penetration of saline water, the soil is also becoming highly saline and soil fertility is getting
low (Fig. 4). Figure 4 shows the saline water intrusion model in the Sundarbans region.
Fig. 4: Sea Level Rise and Saline Water

Intrusion in the Sundarbans Region
The trend is showing that the penetration trend is an upward movement. Therefore the mangrove flora and
fauna are also facing trouble to receive quality water for vegetation growth and survival of fauna in the coastal
mangrove areas. Issues are policy making, planning for coastal resources, integrated resource management,
coastal wetlands and marine resources sustainability, local environmental ecological perspective; and the current
lack knowledge of coastal environment and understanding (Jalal, 1988; Akter et al., 2010; Islam and Gnauck,
2010).
The Sundarbans mangrove World Natural Heritage site has unique universal values on one hand; on the other
hand it is playing a potential role in balancing coastal ecosystems in the Ganges delta. Moreover, it provides
potential mangrove ecosystem services. There are 4 types of mangrove services are offered by the Sundarbans
natural heritage site (Table 1). These Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem goods and services are collected and used
by the 36 million coastal dwellers who are directly or indirectly dependent on the mangrove ecosystems goods
and services. The panic is that the present high salinity intrusion and penetration rate is much higher than in
previous years. As a result, more of the coastal area is affected of Sundarbans mangrove forest. In some special
areas, flora and fauna are under threat due to damaging trend of ecosystems in the coastal region. Therefore the
mangrove ecosystem services are also affected and reduced due to the same reasons. If the affecting trend could
continue, the whole Sundarbans will suffer a lot, perhaps the whole Sundarbans will go under water (Islam and
Gnauck, 2011).
The Sundarbans mangrove ecosystems services (Table 1) are components of nature, directly enjoyed, consumed, or used to yield human well-being. Ecosystem components include resources such as surface water,
oceans, vegetation types and species (Islam and Gnauck, 2010; 2011).
38
Table 1: Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem services
GENERAL SERVICES
Supporting Services
MANGROVE ECOSYSTEM SERVICES

Food production
o Water purification and supply
o Soil quality and generation of fertility
o Forest basin maintenance
o Biophysical support to other systems
o Habitat and nursery support
o Pollination of crops and vegetation
o Decomposition of waste and absorption capacity
o Supply of raw materials
o Erosion control and protection of offshore from
cyclone
Provisioning Services
Provisioning capacity of freshwater

o Productivity of crops
o Provisioning land basin
o Cultivated land basin
o Mineral resources
o Nutrient cycling
Regulating Services
Climate regulating
o Gas regulation
o Flood regulation
o Disease regulation
o Disturbance regulation
o Purification of air and stable temperature
o Biodiversity diversity regulation
Cultural Services
Nature reserves basin

o Aesthetic and ethical values
o Recreational and tourism values
o Spiritual and religion values
o Education and research bases
o Heritage and Sense of place
Ecosystems process and functions are the biological, chemical and physical interactions between ecosystems
components. The above 4 types of Sundarbans mangrove ecosystems services are functioning in the Sundarbans
region, which is now under threat due to anthropogenic influences and climatic change impacts on natural resources (Islam and Gnauck, 2010; 2011). It could be fostered if the benefits from ecosystem services are not
underestimated. The reduction of ecosystems services could be mainly attributed to the action of man in his
environment. The Sundarbans mangrove natural Heritage site is a public good which is affected due to climate
change impacts and anthropogenic influences on upstream fresh water supply from the Ganges River (Islam and
Gnauck, 2010).
6.2 Conservation and Management of Sundarbans World Heritage Site
The management techniques attempt to minimize impact by controlling the use and by manipulating the site
itself (Hussain and Acharya, 1994). In the Sundarbans, a management plan was initiated long ago, mostly with
the aim to produce forest products such as wood, fuel-wood and thatching materials (Islam, 2003). The management of the Sundarbans mangroves was initiated during 1983 84 under the 10 years management plan written by Heiring (Hussain and Acharya, 1994; Islam, 2003). The present working plan was prepared by Choudhury
in 1968. The working plan divided the forest into Exaecaria agallocha, Heritiera fomes and Sonneratia apetala
39
working cycles (Hussain and Acharya, 1994). The substantial use of natural resources is one the major threats
for the Sundarbans natural heritage sites conservation and management. Considering the present situation, an
adequate interdisciplinary management plan is still missing in the Sundarbans natural World Heritage site in
Bangladesh. The important question to be asked is how the subversive impulses of globalisation can be reoriented towards rejuvenation of heritage values and revival of local identities, which are necessary to recognise
and celebrate local heritage in a global world. The Sundarbans World Heritage site is such site which is under
threat due to mass tourism and human influences on natural resources. The effective management will require a
mix of both visitor and site management. In developing site management plans, it is important to strive to maintain a natural appearance, particularly in wild land recreation areas. For the Sundarbans case, the three main
components of effective management such as the goal and design of protected areas, the appropriate management systems and the delivery of the services and programs to fulfill objectives have necessarily to be implemented. It has been realized that the natural heritage resources rely on the active participation of the coastal
communities in protecting, maintaining and conserving their surrounding resources. Local community-based
management could be the best strategy in integrated coastal mangrove heritage management, which could ensure
the involvement of the coastal society and stakeholders in the implementation stage (Islam and Gnauck, 2010).
Through community involvement and use of local technology, the community, as the prime user of the mangrove heritage resources, should be considered in protecting water resources in the coastal areas of Bangladesh.
To realize the current situation, an eco-tourism model could be proposed as appropriate tool and a policy for
local participation for sustainable heritage management.
7. DISCUSSION
The Sundarbans natural heritage site is playing a potential role to open up the regional social traditions and culture; for example, the indigenous people around the heritage area believe in the forest deity, their culture and
tradition developed based on the forest. The Sundarbans is the home of the Royal Bengal Tiger and the Tiger is
the cultural identity of the Bengal national (Islam, 2003). Besides these, Sundarbans is being used in various
national institutions (Islam, 2003). As a whole the Sundarbans natural heritage site has influenced the Bengali
literature, tangible and intangible culture for human beings and it has reflected among tradition, culture, society,
individuals class, art, music, poem, novel story, tragedy, cultural identity and the belief of different ethnic
groups of people of Bangladesh on local level to national level.
There are 36.8 million coastal people directly or indirectly dependent on the Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem
goods and services (Islam and Gnauck, 2007, 2009). But the present fate of the Sundarbans mangrove seems that
the negative impacts on the Sundarbans will damage the major portion (75% of the forest) of the mangrove forest and its ecosystem (IPCC, 2007; Islam and Gnauck, 2010). This estimation could be the most harmful damage
of human communities in the Sundarbans coastal region. Beside these, more environmental problems will arise
in the coastal belt such as water pollution and scarcity, soil degradation, and deforestation which will damage of
mangrove biodiversity (Ahmed et al., 1999). Such a situation will further create a threat for coastal culture and
unstable mangrove ecosystem services, agricultural production and food insecurity adjoining the Sundarbans
heritage site.
The lack of knowledge, awareness and seriousness of the immense problems that are facing the country in the
immediate future is most striking. Therefore climate awareness education and applied research and training
should be initiated in order to change the attitude of the people and the government. It is necessary and urgent to
develop technically feasible, low-cost, locally available affordable and appropriate devices to develop capacity
and adaptation strategy to conserve and live with water-related extremes for the protection of the Sundarbans
natural World Heritage site which is playing a important role in protecting the coastal ecosystems, local economy, and is providing mangrove ecosystem goods and services for 36 million coastal people in the southern
region of Bangladesh. It has also an influential role to improve the local and national culture and heritage. As it
is under threat because of climate change impacts and sea level rise, therefore an adaptation and management
strategy is necessary for the protection of the Sundarbans natural world Heritage site between Bangladesh and
India.
40
8. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The climate change impact has added an additional negative impact for the stakeholders in the Sundarbans
coastal region. Mangrove planting will arrest the rate of coastal erosion, making these deltaic islands survive
longer (Hazara, 2007). This is an immediate adaptation measures, and the people for the sake of their lives and
livelihoods are taking this action collectively. However, it is evident that unless large-scale measures to stop
climate change by means of emission reduction are taken globally, a substantial part of the Sundarbans might
disappear from the map (Hazara, 2007). There is a potential realization that an effective coastal natural resource
management is essential, and appropriate management structures should be developed based on the contemporary study findings and the increasing demand of the coastal people in the Ganges delta in Bangladesh. The protective measures have to be undertaken within the framework of national cultural and natural heritage resource
management planning.
The following issues are strongly recommended for implementation in the Sundarbans World Natural Heritage
site region for better conservation and management:
Increase public awareness concerning climate change impacts and environmental training and education, particularly related to the importance of the sustainable use of world natural heritage resources as
well as mangrove wetlands.
Provide information to the coastal communities concerning climate change impacts and natural resources collection, properly uses for long-term protection measures.
Ensure community involvement and participation in the maintenance and protection of coastal natural
and cultural resources development and management.
Transfer technology and information to the local community for sustainable use of coastal resources
and desalination and tidal flooding measures.
Continue the environmental discourse and dialogues for understanding the importance and inevitability of mangrove and coastal resources and their appropriate use in sustainable manner.
Develop and strengthen capacity building of the local community groups, local governance, stakeholders, NGOs, national policy makers and planners who are involved in coastal natural and cultural
resource management activities.
Maintain upstream fresh water supply and mitigate the affects of SLR and tidal inundation and high
salinity intrusion in the Sundarbans regions.
Policy, principles, plans, programme for sustainable coastal resource management should be more
concreted and specific guideline direction (Islam and Gnauck, 2009).
The mangrove and coastal natural resource issue is missing in the national water policy in Bangladesh
(GoB, 1999), therefore Sundarbans natural heritage site and other coastal natural and cultural issues
should be included properly in the national development agenda, in addition a policy guideline of heritage resources and management issues should urgently be incorporated in the national development
policy in Bangladesh.
Therefore an integrated coastal natural and cultural resource management policy and guideline framework is necessary and is urgent for Bangladesh.
All the aspects of Bengal Culture and Heritage studies and research should ensure for future development and sustainable management of heritage resources. In such situation a Heritage Studies and Research Institute (HSRI) should be established in a public university in Bangladesh for graduate studies,
and short training courses could be offered for the professionals for capacity building and good governance to ensure conservation and management of Bengal natural and cultural heritage sites in Bangladesh.
41
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44
SUSTAINING LANDSCAPES LANDSCAPE UNITS FOR CLIMATE

ADAPTIVE REGIONAL PLANNING
Sandra Reinstdtler
Department of Environmental Planning, Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU) Cottbus, Germany
ABSTRACT
Climate Change affects nearly all aspects of our physical, social, ecological, economic and cultural environment and as a consequence will induce challenges for human life, security, infrastructure, ecosystems (services),
the worldwide face of our landscapes and all spatial planning activities.
Our outstanding universal values (OUV) and witnesses of human lifes natural and cultural expressions the
UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscapes, Biosphere Reserves and all other protected zones within nonprotected areas could not be troubled more. Special attention has to be paid to decrease the deficit of instruments
being able to deal with high instability factors and the complex cause-and-effect relations in adapting for climate
change.
Focus is to be laid on the need for a globally transferable and integrative landscape planning and research instrument. A diversified usable and integrative assessment tool is needed in order to be able to indicate resilience
of landscapes for climate instable factors, continuing and gradual climate change or extraordinary hazards at the
regional level and the landscape scale. Moreover an interdisciplinary and integrative instrument is required,
which gives the opportunity for involving and informing the most diverse concerned stakeholders, institutions
and policy makers.
Apart from mitigation and adaptation such as Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental
Assessment, hazard, vulnerability and risk analysis, as well as newly invented tools like climate proofing and
the request about necessity of inventing instruments, these existing concepts have not been analysed at all. This
article presents a conceptual framework on how the idea of integrating the landscape planners` and geographers`
assessment tool of the landscape units can be specifically developed as a landscape mediator supported by GISlayer techniques for data analyses and indicating resilience of landscape structures. Furthermore the combined
observation on landscape and regional planning level is selected as the most powerful tool for advancing sustainable planning, management and for sustaining landscapes.
Keywords: Landscape Units, Climate Change, Cultural Landscapes, Resilience, Adaptation, Regional Planning, Landscape Scale, Landscape Planning Instrument.
1. INTRODUCTION
This treatise concerns the challenge of how the dynamic, changing nature of our global climate can be captured, including landscapes within ecosystems, economies and social as well as cultural systems (Hall, 2009).
The perspective of sustaining landscapes will be presented in a cohesive conceptual framework. Two main issues
will be discussed: firstly the importance of the landscape as well as regional (planning) scale for assessing the
needs, opportunities, planning and management options for climate adaptive plans (Hall, 2009). The second part
is about re-inventing the nature of landscapes` systems and their definitions in relation to the sustaining of landscapes in times of climate change through the instrument of the landscape units. How far does an integration of
the instrument of the landscape units in landscape, regional and climate adaptive planning, assessment and management give benefits and the ability to cope with climate change? To be generated are the scientific considerations behind the idea of supporting the needs for planning for warding off threats (Ringbeck, 2008, after
Rssler, 2007) initiated by abrupt or accelerating effects on climate change (ibid.). In addition, focus is laid on
an instrument used at regional and supra-regional level as well as landscape (planning) related issues to identify,
analyse, measure and locate mainly accelerating dangers already threatening the cultural or natural property or
posing a potential future threat.
45
Structuring these ideas of the theoretical concept about system abstraction throug the instrument of landscape
units, an overview has to be created about the challenging topics and requests, about the main status of climate
change correlated to cultural and natural landscapes and most certainly about land use development and change
(Hall, 2009, Antrop, 1997). The significance and main impacts within the landscape perspective have to be
drawn out in the first step with respect to sustaining landscapes and regional planning processes. Basic relevance
for this theoretical experiment lies also in defining climate change in correlation to the main perspectives of
sustaining landscapes and the regional landscape planning processes, which are discussed also in chapter two.
These considerations and definitions of planning for climate change will be specified within chapter three in
terms of the importance of landscape scale and regional planning level (cp. Hall, 2009). Further on, the question
of how to adapt to climate change surely cannot be fully answered, but a sketch is drawn up and first initial considerations have been done in interaction with inventing the instrument of landscape units for climate adaptive
planning. In this conceptual framework with implementing secondary data, it is argued and will be verified in
later chapters that the current concept of integrating landscape units as common tool for planning for climate
change is highly relevant and suitable for studies of complex systems. Dynamic changes and system identities
have to be included in analysing, measuring and planning processes (Adger, 2005). The to be depicted current
concept of using landscape units (LU) for providing challenges of dynamic changes and system identity have to
be verified in later steps. The proactive landscape meta-model (which is not observed by the author in this study)
will be able to directly strengthen the idea of implementing LU combined with benchmarking concepts as a
transmitter for transparent, transnational data and information as well as measurement and mission as policy
exchange and networking between partners of similar properties. Planning for climate change, as to be confirmed in the concluding chapter, can only benefit in its efficiency for combating climate change and global
warming from a more complete, integrative, transparent and explicit open sourced action on all levels (Adger,
2005) and sorts of action. For these aspects chapter three indicates the most pending landscape planning aspects
for climate change.
Attention has to be paid to the fact of different observation scales and grades of landscapes (being the topical
issue for this study) as the landscape scale within the regional level. The importance of the landscape scale and
the regional planning level are treated in the fourth chapter. Chapter five deals with analysing LU as well as
implementing LU in planning processes for climate change for confirming and verifying the hypothesis of its
advantages and necessity of implementing LU. The article suggests, but does not describe in detail also the theoretical framework of further studies of the proactive landscape meta-model CA(LU) - Climate Adaptive Land
Use within Landscape Units. In the final section an overall summary is given to the fact of challenging planning
in times of accelerating global warming in sea- as well as landscapes.
The aim of this article is to canvass the subject dealing with the assignment of probabilities to the precautionary, preventive and adaptive planning against the threat of the more continuing and gradual climate change (in
the landscape). The effect of land use and landscape functions will be assessed, as well as the potential of the
traditional geographical and landscape planning instrument of landscape units for adaptive and strategic regional
planning.
Agreement can be reached upon the relevance in finding planning strategies for handling and managing landscapes within the new uncertainties resulting from climate change impacts. Therefore this study should lead to
the outcome of theoretical planning directions on regional scale and a first hypothesis about the potential of
applying adaptive regional landscape planning within LU.
The hypothesis states that the methodology and instrument of the LU within the landscape scale is the most
convenient geographical and mapping methodology of planning for climate change while simultaneously keeping the multifunctional regional level, its diversified needs, information and stakeholder openness.
2. SIGNIFICANCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
The landscapes of OUV and witnesses of human lifes natural and cultural expressions the UNESCO World
Heritage Sites, especially natural and cultural landscapes, Biosphere Reserves and all other protected zones
46
within non protected areas could not be troubled more (UNESCO, 2008). Special attention has to be paid to
decrease the deficit of instruments being able to deal with high instability factors plus the complex cause and
effect relations in adapting for climate change.
Climate Change affects nearly all aspects of our physical, social, ecological, economic, technical and cultural
environment and as a consequence will induce challenges for human life, food supply, security, infrastructure,
ecosystem (services), the worldwide face of our landscapes (MEA, 2005) and all spatial planning activities.
Within defining that Climate change refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity (Wilson, 2010) 1 the relevance behind the term of what are clearly conceptions and dependencies to natural and cultural systems can be approved. Within the definition of cultural landscapes itself after Carl Sauer (1925, p. 46), the dependencies and significance of climate change for landscapes
become more obvious: the cultural landscape is fashioned out of the natural landscape by a culture group. Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, the cultural landscape is the result.
The relevance for our 21st century world and its more or less sustainable future development can be solidified
with notifying the broad range of scientific fields dealing with climate and atmospheric sciences 2. A closer consideration into the range of these areas of climate and atmospheric science, the ones relating to this scientific
theoretical framework of planning procedures in general are predominantly the climate dynamics and variability
as well as climatological and atmospheric environmental issues.
Included in this framework of considerations and climate dependent subjects are spatial planning interests, the
research field of climate instabilities and further on dependencies to human civilising complexes, the environmental system and science-policy itself. In general as well as for climate instable situations in particular, planning interests are required to have appropriate topical limitation, land use related innovations, necessary dissolution of boundaries and the necessity of (geographical) abstractions. So we have to face to those affected and
most different involved stakeholders as well as multivariate data analyses within changing conditions in the
landscapes (cp. IPCC, 2007; UNEP, 2007), regions, different ecosystems (cp. UNESCO, 2008; MEA 2005) and
in multi scalar interference of different functioning natural and cultural induced systems on planet earth in total
(Kokkonen, 2006). The social imperative on the significance is surely implemented. With acknowledging the
fact of uncertain, yet exactly to be determined changes, it will be reached more certainty about the significance,
impact and risk frequency, moreover the magnitude of climate change, global warming being already inevitable
in all levels and scales of our world`s landscapes (IPCC, 2007; MEA, 2005; UNEP, 2007; UNESCO, 2008).
Within the ecological, economic, social and cultural significance of climate change it can be reached consensus
that the shorter history of land use and landscape development in correlation to climate change in combination
with other drivers have been developed in a most unstable way. The development and unstable historical
changes are growing faster, in addition they are now even more unstable due to progressing and accelerating
climate change.
This usage differs from that in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)... (Wilson,
2010) with notifying a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods
(Wilson, 2010, after UNFCCC, 1992).
2
Atmospheric and Climate Sciences are for example
dealing with specifications in meteorological, climatological and
atmospheric environmental issues; climate dynamics and variability; agricultural climatology; building climatology and
forestry climatology; dendroclimatology; applied meteorology; atmospheric sciences; biometeorology; cosmical meteorology; hydrometeorology; medical meteorology and medical climatology; navigation climatology; polar meteorology; remote
sensing; tropical meteorology; radar meteorology and radio meteorology; air chemistry and the boundary layer, clouds and
weather modification; atmospheric acoustics, electricity, optics, physics, radiation and sounding; aviation climatology;
clouds and precipitation physics; marine meteorology and meteorology- associated geophysics; phenology and paleoclimatology; satellite meteorology and synoptic meteorology; weather systems, numerical weather prediction (Source:
http://www.scirp.org/Journal/acs, accessed 10 June 11)
47
It has to be faced by multivariate activities, which enhance climate change predictions within forecasting scenarios for securing more stable conditions and improving unstable ones. There are a large number of diverse
political treaties, activities, commitments, protocols and agreements dealing with the mitigation and adaptation
to climate change impacts, which are providing the grade of significance: the first World climate conference in
1979, the 1988 established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as getting a key role on the
world agenda, the United Nations climate treaties like the 1992 UNFCCC treaty adopted in the Rio Earth Summit entering into force as a convention in 1994 , the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) in 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The first Conference of the Parties (COP) of the UNClimate Convention in Berlin despite several following COP`s up to the latest Bali Action Plan agreed at COP
13 in 2007 and the Cancn Agreement from 2010 represent the significance and greater need for offensive political activities (Commission of the European Communities, 2009; Ribeiro et al., 2009). Since the year 2005
climate change has been incorporated on the World Heritage Committee`s agenda as one of the greatest dangers
to the World Heritage sites (Ringbeck, 2008, after Rssler 2007). In addition to these, in the European Union a
green paper on climate adaptation was discussed in 2007 considering sectors of agriculture, water management
and biodiversity conservation (Commission of the European Communities 2009). By the end of 2008, the EU
had launched a so-called white paper with its climate change adaptation policy (Commission of the European
Communities, 2009). Several other more or less effective state dependent political actions have followed inbetween these international and transnational political activities.
These treaties, programs, agendas and legally binding frameworks for climate actions are the most vital ones
for the political period of combating climate change beginning then in 2013.
Nevertheless, the United Nations Climate Change conferences held in Copenhagen 2009 and Durban in 2011
illustrate - on the one hand - the failing of the post-Kyoto process and - on the other hand - the tremendous political challenges we have to face to in climate change policy. Even notifying the successful science-policy cooperation within the greater success of IPCC it has to be stated:
Taking political decisions and commitments with their diversified interests and conflicts within the states for
optimizing the climate related political framework is more time consuming rather than perfectly effective (Roggema 2009). This emphasises the imperative for concentrating on and getting arranged planning tools better
fitted to our future challenges and policy in land use and landscape specific manner (ibid). It also signifies the
implications for missions in coordinating and matching the most diversified other drivers of land use and landscape change despite climate change related impacts, which will be explained in more detail in the following two
chapters of chapter 2.1 and chapter three of Planning for Climate Change.
2.1 Impacts of Climate Change within Landscapes
Climate change within enduring (Quarternary) or smaller glacial periods already formed the periglacial landscapes (Kster, 1999). The mainly human induced climate change (IPCC, 2007) and warming is progressing
continuously and as seen in the latest publications, the Western Antarctic Ice Shelf (WAIS) is melting off faster
(Humbert, 2012; Rignot et al., 2008) than already expected in the 1970`s (Thomas, 1979). The WAIS is fringing
the Weddel Sea and, not being any longer a barrier for West Antarctic ice streams, draining the Antarctic Ice
Sheet (Humbert, 2012), which means on the one hand Sea Level Rise (SLR) will arise more than expected as
one of the effects; on the other hand, it may induce other direct, indirect, cumulative or synergistic impacts on
abiotic and biotic life cycles and systems, e.g. it may indirectly influence other maritime streams. Ecosystems,
landscapes and its land use predestinations may change or land will be lost in total as already predicted for small
island states within the next thirty years (Kokkonen, 2006).
When acknowledging the earth system in its integrity, these studies are quite incomplete as also latest research
is showing to focus more also on the seascapes impacts (Kokkonen, 2006; Gibson, 2006), correlating directly
(e.g. land reduction or loss) or indirectly to the landscapes: The oceans' accelerated warming may reduce the
short term warming at the surface and increase the long term warming of the deep sea (Levitus, 2012). Global
48
warming in total is accelerating and cumulating rise of SL(R) more than expected even with less warming after
IPCC (2007) by the atmospheric greenhouse effect the last 15 years.
Coping with the consequences of climate change and global warming sceneries, the examples of ice melting
within the WAIS, the oceans' deep sea accelerated warming in general or the glaciers in the continental mountainous areas are all signalising: They have featured the essentials of different action fields within climate instability and uncertainty, continuing and gradual climate change or rapid (also called abrupt) climate change and
extraordinary hazards appearing more frequently.
Moreover, climate instability and uncertainties directly correlate to more unstable climate and in the long term
will have the effect of changing weather conditions and weather phenomena less correlating to the seasons
disposition. In general, the weather phenomena are influenced by average (land- and water-) surface temperature
increase (global warming) and precipitation quantity and patterns dependent in their extent and variability on the
specific observed geographical region (IPCC, 2007). Continuing and gradual climate change deals with the longterm changes in climate and so with the time scale in quantity and quality of effects by global warming, global
average sea level rise, risk of coastal erosion, precipitation quantity and weather phenomena (see chap. 2) on the
worlds systems. In its classical definition gradual climate change could be termed after Arnell et al. (2005,
citing IPCC, 2001) a change occurring at historically very high rates, but within the range projected by the
intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), i.e., an increase of 1.5 to 5.8
C in global average temper ature over the 19611990 mean by 2100 (IPCC, 2001).
Rapid or abrupt climate changes are nonlinear changes in climate, which are per term going back to the theory
of crossing a threshold and switching to a new state on global or regional scale (US National Research Council,
2002). The collapses of the North Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation and the WAIS are some examples for
abrupt climate change (Arnell et al., 2005). In addition to the collapses of the Thermohaline Circulation and the
ice sheets, the melting of glaciers, changes in El Nino southern oscillation, the instability of monsoon rainfalls
and the thawing of permafrost soils are globally scaled climate related, contemporaneous phenomena. The regional, more precise land use and landscape impacts are furthermore discussed in detail in the following chapters. Regional field research, scenario- and modelling- analysis have to be and already have been verified by
several projects and case studies.
Within the facts of globally rapid changes it has to be differentiated between abrupt and the accelerated
changes and sub categorised accordingly (Arnell et al., 2005). Accelerated change means after Arnell et al.
(2005) where the rate of climate change increases rapidly: these include changes due to large feedbacks,
such as the release of methane into the atmosphere following warming at the sea bed or of permafrost 3.
Up to these climate change determinants extraordinary hazards are more frequent phenomena influencing our
world`s systems and life. The increasing weather-related natural disasters are part of their occurrence like the
influences of increased or decreased water yield dependent floods and droughts or resulting wildfires, windanomalia like tornados, wind and water-anomalia like tropical cyclones (synonymous terms: hurricanes, tropical
storms or depressions, typhoons) and tsunamis. Summarising in abiotic and biotic classification some of the
most common hazards, which can best be dealt with per precautionary principle and with preventive measures
forecasted disaster (WMO, 2008): a) astrophysical with meteorites; b) biological with epidemics, pests; c) geological with volcanoes, earthquakes, mass movement (falls, slides, slumps); d) hydrological with floods, flashfloods, tsunamis, tropical cyclones, droughts; e) human-induced with armed conflict, fire, pollution, infrastructure failure or collapse, civil unrest and terrorism; f) meteorological with hurricanes, tornadoes, heat-waves,
3
This accelerated change may result in an abrupt change in climate, but will not necessarily do so. There is also a scale issue:
abrupt climate changes are generally implicitly taken to affect large geographic areas. Gradual climate change will mean that some
localized marginal areas will experience substantial changes in climate regime, which may locally be perceived as rapid and abrupt
(Arnell 2005).
49
lightning, storms, fire; g) climate change with increased storm frequency and severity, glacial lake outburst
floods (WMO, 2008).
Astrophysically induced disasters are for sure facts, which include uncertainty factors less predictable or less to
be mitigated or adaptable in terms of optimizing planning systems and tools. Partially also geologically induced
disasters are non-direct ones, but on the specified planning perimeter they can be better avoided. For geographical locations as well as for the character of World Heritage Sites it means to calculate also the considerably varying potential threat posed by natural disasters (see above, e.g. storms, fire, floods or earthquakes).
Acknowledging these action fields for precaution and warning systems combined with multifarious impacts
between the global to local spatial and time scale, it can be stated for the impact significance and the necessity
for adaptive planning measures: climate change affects nearly all aspects of our physical, social, ecological,
economic and cultural environment and as a consequence will induce challenges for human life, health, food
supply, ecosystem (services), security, the worldwide face of our landscapes and all spatial planning activities.
With summarising Climate Change in (and unexceptionally outside) the protected perimeter of World Heritage
Sites (WHS) and within the OUV, authenticity and/or integrity of cultural and natural landscapes can be affected
most harmfully:
The World Heritage Committee notes that the impacts of Climate Change are affecting many and are likely to
affect many more World Heritage properties, both natural and cultural in the years to come (Colette and
UNESCO, 2007). This is already obvious in recent developments related to inscriptions of WHS located in Asia,
South America and Australia, which now had to be inscribed on the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger
(Ringbeck, 2008, after Rssler, 2007). International climate research (IPCC) and examples of natural disasters
such as extraordinary floods in riverine regions of World Heritage cultural landscapes or salinity intrusion as one
of the impacts by flooding of the delta regions of the World Heritage Natural Site within the worlds` largest
mangrove forest of the Sundarbans Region (Islam, 2008; Islam and Gnauck, 2009; UNESCO, 2007) have
shown beyond doubt that climate change also effects in greater manner World Heritage Sites and the inscribed
cultural and natural landscapes (UNESCO, 2008). In general, it means both for outstanding as well as for ordinary, non-protected landscapes within its ecosystems, that landscapes and land use systems will be affected by
climate change impacts at all scales from the local to the regional and national up to the sub-continental level.
2.2 Defining Climate Change in correlation to Sustaining Landscapes and Regional Planning Processes
Worldwide landscapes so this is the perimeter and focus - are changing at an unpredictable and increasing
speed. In the 20th and 21st century it has to be admitted that besides densely populated, industrialised and agglomerated areas, agricultural land(scapes) are covering most of the Earths` terrestrial surface therefore the
importance of the research on how to reach sustaining cultural landscapes is not questionable.
Although the exact changes within progressing global change disturbances in landscapes remain uncertain,
non-protected landscapes and the natural as well as cultural or mixed World Heritage Sites, Biosphere Reserves
and other protected areas are primarily affected (UNESCO, 2008). The question is not in how far landscapes are
or were sustainable systems at all. More precisely, the resilience grade of landscapes has to be investigated:
Which parts of landscapes and land use systems are more resilient or survive climate change? Landscapes have
to be defined in new ways, acknowledging and implementing their climate factors and their sustaining feasibility, which will be of greater interest for landscape and climate change related research and within this theoretical
concept for the later achievements of the author for the CA(LU) Climate Adaptive Land Use within Landscape Units proactive landscape meta-model.
Despite this greater abstractive matter of climate and sustainability, it is crucial to define the most effective
planning level for assessing and assembling the sustaining grade of landscapes with the aim to achieve the next
step of analysing and indicating the resilience grade of landscapes. On the one hand, the assessment of the best
possible precautionary, preventive, protective, collaborative and cooperative as well as legal measures and actions (UNESCO, 2008) for combating climate change impacts needs to be integrated on all scales and levels of
50
spatial planning hierarchies. Therefore, sustainable planning and management processes in general require the
assembling and creation of sustaining and resilience structures in landscapes and their regions. After Bastian and
Steinhardt (2002) this is the case not only for climate change issues, but in general a fundamental understanding
of the landscape ecology and science patterns has to be confirmable for reaching more balanced solutions. Even
the status and extent of impacts for accelerating risks of landscape change (IPCC, 2007; UNEP, 2007; MEA,
2005) and for the regions (EEA, 2008) are obvious. Despite the integration of highly appreciated and important
measurements (Adger et al., 2005) for combating climate change, achieving landscape resilience and sustainable
management processes and also for advancing the sustaining grade of landscapes on all levels the US National research council already stated in 2002:
After a decade of trying to implement Agenda 21 at a national level, a number of recent reviews of how to
progress sustainability are concluding that the appropriate scale to address the concept is at the regional or subnational level. These reviews suggest that regions are the appropriate basis for considering sustainability. If
spatial-specific denominations and analyses should be implemented effectively for the purpose of sustainable
planning, the optimal level of integration is the regional one. The opportunity for climate change related planning is facing the same optimum.
3. PLANNING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
The main step to precede planning for climate change is to understand that climate change is proceeding irreversibly and is currently over 90 per cent human-activities induced (IPCC, 2007). Progressing climate change
further on needs the urgent perspective and acute action of also human induced preventing measurements. The
fact that it is humanity that has to use, describe and order ideas about system change has to be highlighted. These
ideas are about natural-cultural induced system change. They are essential features for scrutinising planning
systems in spatial, environmental, landscape planning as well as nature protection, sustainability assessment and
sustainable management in general. The main questions for research that should matter, are: What are the drivers, pressures, state, impacts, objectives, responses, measurements, mission statements and needed planning tools
in planning for climate change today? Does the whole planning systematic have to be proofed? (Roggema, 2009)
To increase efficiency of climate change planning, prevention, correction in (risk) management, mitigation and
adaptation, collaboration on formal as well as informal planning level and legislation (WHS) should be the planners' management options in planning for climate change. Special attention has to be paid to decrease the deficit
of todays planning system in corresponding to the insecurity factor in our societies uncertain future dealing
with turbulent circumstances within different environments, increased by long-term changes due to climate
change and in the field of energy supply amongst more others (Roggema ,2009). Defining after Emery and Trist,
turbulent environments can be described as follows: the dynamic properties arise not simply from the interaction of the component organisations, but also from the ground itself. The `ground` is in motion. (Roggema,
2009, p. 324, after Emery & Trist, 1965).
But how to deal with multidimensional scientific specifications, variabilities, high instability factors and the
complex cause-and-effect relations in adapting to climate change for saving the grounded `mother earth`? First
of all, by drawing the most frequent interrelations and planning objectives in a summarising figure (Fig. 1): This
selection helps abstracting and simplifying the matters within the most spatial depending interdependent issues
in planning for climate change. In this figure and completely in this treatise as a whole a theoretical framework
for spatial environmental landscape planning in times of climate change is represented. The main scopes interesting for environmental sciences are the climate dynamics and variability together with climatological and atmospheric environmental issues. Therefore the most important atmospheric and climate science fields for spatial,
environmental and landscape planning are the ones of the multifarious micro-, meso-, macro-climatic processes
influencing our Planet Earth`s Life-Cycle.
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Fig. 1: Planning Objectives for Climate Change
Special attention has to be paid to decrease the deficit of instruments being able to deal with these named high
instability factors and the complex cause-and-effect relations in adapting to climate change (Roggema, 2009).
With these instruments pressures, dynamics and impacts can be transferred into sustainable planning, processes,
measurements and mission statements. To be acknowledged and included in these focal points are the mentioned
best possible precautionary, preventive, protective, corrective, collaborative, cooperative as well as legal measures (Adger et al., 2005) and actions (UNESCO, 2008; Colette and UNESCO, 2007) for combating climate
change. Giving examples for planning and measuring preventive actions, they are coordinated and scoped by
monitoring, reporting and mitigating approaches (UNESCO, 2008; Colette and UNESCO, 2007). Preventive
adaptation should be unexceptionally considered and defined also in the sense of prevention, although adaptation
in the common understanding would be classified more as a protective measure. But especially in means of sustainable land use planning on local, regional and supra-regional level adaptation should also come across as a
preventive action. Protective or corrective actions and measures known from quality management (CAPA
Corrective Actions Preventive Actions) intend to be included and adapted by local management, global and
regional (adaptation) strategies, risk management and preparedness procedures (UNESCO, 2008; Colette and
UNESCO, 2007). Within the sharing of knowledge as collaborative and cooperative action, it has to be operated
with best practice and knowledge exchange, communication, networking, education and research (UNESCO,
2008; Colette and UNESCO, 2007). Legal actions are the ones to be mostly efficient. These ones should not lead
into reorganising legal settings in total, but adding climate change related planning aspects.
In the political action plans, synergies and definitely conflicts can be dealt and integrated with in the areas of
the demand of mitigation thus as the energy saving demand, energy supply and adaptation by using climate
change strategies (Davoudi et al., 2009), re-invented or new planning systems and instruments (Roggem,a 2009).
Coming back to the preventive mitigation as well as the preventive actions (e.g. erosion or flood prevention)
such as protective adaptation planning and management procedures, disjunctions are the order of the day: The
climate change mitigation interest groups are seriously working hard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for a
low-carbon future and the adaptation interests are going forward for a continuous process of adaptation and
resilience, which even on field level might be used in conflicting and contradictory ways (Kane et al., 2000).
Spatial planning needs to engage with and learn about this complexity within these contra valences (Davoudi et
al., 2009). But the spatial planning community is not uniform itself as it comprises planners and other professionals, politicians, developers and civil societys interests (Wilson 2010). Global change disturbances should
be reason enough for refraining or minimising these pseudonymous challenges by better facing to the main ones
as a task for society as a whole (Frommer et al., 2011). Frommer et al. also states as one of the main complex
challenges to get confronted with the future climate acknowledging spatial orders, different sectors, levels and
also overarching generations (ibid.). The other more challenging planning as well as observation and scenario-
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creating objective should be the inclusion of all uncertainty factors beyond the climate relevant ones: demographic change and economic structural change as two of the other uncertainty focal points (ibid.).
Despite some of these uncertainty factors the knowledge about future scenarios, the lessons learned about experiences from the past, decisions and previously described actions have to be stated within instable percentages,
then proven, invigorated and at least fostered. In these procedures for planning for climate change, the process of
general landscapes planning (see chap. 4.1) is essential to be considered and included. Concerning the consequences of climate change, the steps of procedures should be initially, according to Frommer et al. (2011), to
identify the vulnerability and to estimate risks and chances for communicating these aspects in a process of dialogue. Hereupon it is challenging to find proper and well-fitting adaptation measures for a different range of
actions. Besides it is not easy to implement them later into planning processes within the material time setting
(Adger et al. 2005; Frommer et al. 2011, after Prutsch et al. 2010; Frommer 2009; Overbeck et al. 2008).
Within these adjustments of landscape planning procedures in general and the current theoretical framework in
particular, the mainly observed action field and planning instance is the one of preventive (anticipatory, proactive) and corrective, protective adaptation (UNESCO, 2008; Wilson, 2010). But what stands behind the terminus
adaptation? It is about an adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic
stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. Various types of adaptation
can be distinguished, including anticipatory 4, autonomous and planned adaptation (Wilson, 2010). The different
sorts of adaptation can be described as follows:
While anticipatory adaptation takes place before impacts of Climate Change are observed, autonomous adaptation does not constitute a conscious response to climatic stimuli but is triggered by ecological changes in natural systems and by market or welfare changes in human systems. (ibid.) It is also called spontaneous adaptation.
Planned adaptation is the result of a deliberate policy decision, based on an awareness that conditions have
changed or are about to change and that action is required to return to, maintain, or achieve a desired state.
(ibid.)
Naming these common instruments for developing a proper planning and research background in the field of
landscape combined with climate change research, it has to be stated again that the scale of observation is mostly
influencing the precision grade in assessment, the outcomes and later planning and management suggestions
(Krnert et al., 2001). As one of the main outcomes in these studies, the landscape and regional (cp. US National
Research Council, 2002) scaled observation are the optimum assessment basis for climate change related research. Therefore, LU are an instrument for combining both levels in an appropriate manner. The instrument is
predestined for synthesising the two observation levels by best analysing the needs for facilitating more resilient
planning for climate change and even sustainability assessment. In how far the optimising functions of this hypothesis are operating will be described in the following chapters.
4. IMPORTANCE OF LANDSCAPE SCALE AND REGIONAL PLANNING LEVEL IN TIMES OF
CLIMATE CHANGE
4.1 Importance of the Landscape Scale
The significance and importance of the (cultural) landscape scale was emphasised by the inclusion of cultural
landscapes as OUV on the World Heritage List and the Global Strategy in 1994 (Rssler, 1995). The initiative
for including cultural landscapes as WHS and for enhancing the Global Strategy and linkage between both were
given by living cultures, in particular traditional settlements and sites (ibid.). The significance of a chosen scale
for evaluating and managing different assessment purposes in the field of climate change has already been verified by different case studies (Adger et al., 2005). When selecting criteria for successful adaptation, then factors
of influencing adaptive capacity, calculating indicators, the scale of observation (Krnert et al., 2001) is of
greatest interest for efficient solutions (Adger et al., 2005). The scale to be observed and verified for climate
Anticipatory adaptation is known as well as proactive (Wilson 2010) or preventive adaptation (UNESCO 2008).
53
effective spatial planning is the landscape scale with special focus on cultural landscapes. Observing, analysing
and assessing on the (natural or cultural) landscape scale are synonymous to the level of landscape planning
manners and its plans and instruments. Landscape planning comprises analysing for protection, maintenance,
development as well as recreational aspects of nature, culture, land use and landscapes. The similar protective
objectives and focal analyses are getting more clear by introducing the term: Cultural Landscapes - cultivated
terraces on lofty mountains, gardens, sacred places [...] - testify to the creative genius, social development and
the imaginative and spiritual vitality of humanity. They are part of our collective identity (UNESCO World
Heritage Centre, 2011).
The landscapes biological diversity, capability, operativeness, regenerative skills and sustainable (land) use of
the natural and cultural resources and goods, variety, unique character, beauty, recreational and cultural values
are observed. ...those landscapes having a distinct and recognisable structure which reflects clear relations between the composing elements and having significance for natural, cultural or aesthetical values. [...] They refer
to these landscapes with a long history, which evolved slowly and where it took centuries to form a characteristic
structure reflecting a harmonious integration of abiotic, biotic and cultural landscapes (Antrop, 1997). In addition to these objectives, the time scale is included in the landscape scale as a crucial aspect in planning procedures for spatial, environmental, landscape issues in general and particularly in climate related assessment. Up to
that demands, measures and mission statements (the German Leitbild) for realising the aims of nature protection and landscape conservation additionally to the development of future landscapes are to be embodied and
explained on all levels of spatial planning (ARL, 2011). These demands, measures and mission statements are
exceptionally inclusive on the landscape scale and most effective on the communal, supra-communal and regional level within the framework of landscape planning and within the integration of all spatial planning activities (ibid.). These aspects also tend to support the climate related assessment issues.
Other objectives and advantages of assessing throughout the landscape (planning) scale and its research and
action fields are the already implemented different principles of action. The different instruments of landscape
planning, including environmental and partially spatial planning, support the following principles of action: the
precautionary principle, the prohibition for degradation, the imperative of the prevention and reparation function
as well as partially the spatially inclusive and comprehensive approach. Furthermore, the costs-by-cause (polluter pays) principle, the principle of documentation (monitoring) and the decision-making cascade by using
land are observed action fields. These principles of landscape planning instruments are then executed in weighting relation to the national mission statements as well as by the bottom-up and top-down counter-currentprinciple (Krnert et al., 2001), the legally binding and political directives, moreover the societal and superior
concerns (AR,L 2011).
But how can the landscape scale and integrated climate change planning be dealt with? The landscape scale
already implements landscape planning procedures. Furthermore, the process of landscape planning integrates
diversified aspects for respecting and planning for climate change (chap. 3). Following aspects have to be considered for respecting and including both of landscape scale and planning for climate change:
the state of nature, culture, land use and landscape; the assessment and planning principles of inventory control
by field research of the abiotic facts like climate, air, soil, water; and the biotic facts like fauna, flora (biotopes)
and landscape (cultural) scenery (Krnert et al., 2001; Bothequilha et al., 2006).
The last processing step and result of these overlays of status quo, assessment of multifarious land facts and
development goals as well as measurements on communal level is said to be combined in the landscape plan as
one of the landscape planning tools (ARL, 2011; Krnert et al., 2001; Bothequilha et al., 2006).
Similar procedures with different degrees of detailed grades have to be done for the mapping and so for plans
correlated to the regional (landscape framework plan) and state (landscape programme) level by following the
German spatial planning and integrative spatial-specific hierarchy (ARL, 2011). The outcomes of the analysis,
respectively their interpretation and valuation, influence the manifold planning- and decision-making-processes
and approaches.
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Summarising the status of the landscape approach and scale the main available data and information of, e.g.,
landscapes with their abiotic and biotic terms, histories of development (landscapes / land use in change) and
settlement history help to sort out climate change related and pending action fields. Moreover, the landscape
approach inhabits time-scaled observations and adapting capacities to the common specialised experiences
within specific land use forms, which themselves help again in more detailed measurements for adapting to climate change. The aims for protecting and developing landscapes are so far predestined viewpoints for adapting
to climate change on the regional level.
Furthermore, the different more or less disturbed general landscape functions can support to include in planning manners the most effected aspects of our physical, social, ecological, economic, technical and cultural environment. Landscapes, their research and planning fields support or catalyse functioning ecological, social, agricultural or life systems. Within sustaining landscapes, functioning ecological balance, social abilities and security, physical health and food supply, economical, commercial and service functions as well as enduring cultural
heritage are enhanced and have to be included in spatial regional planning. Figure two embraces these functions
as well as the correlations of biotic and abiotic factors, which landscape characters depended on. A small number
of abiotic factors influence a large number of biotic, cultural aspects, and by implication affecting the other way
around.
Fig. 2: Different interwoven spheres in a landscape (by Dieterich, 2011; slightly modified by the author)
Taking into account some of the most common functions and parts of ecosystem services, the outstanding and
wide-ranging relevance of the term landscape can be even evaluated in terms of its sustaining ecological, resilient (cp. the factor of landscape resilience with Plieninger and Bieling, 2012), cultural, social and economic
assets, and also in terms of its abiotic and biotic correlations and legally protected goods: the abiotical ones are
expressed by the term ecological landscapes, inhabiting the environmental media of climate and air, soil, water, geomorphology, geology (Dieterich, 2011). The biotic components of ecological landscapes are vegetation, animals and human biology. Biotical components in landscapes are containing also the terms of economical landscapes, social landscapes and ritual landscapes (ibid.) (Fig. 2). Economical Landscapes in a balanced state retain food security, clothing, house building, fortification and urbanisation, exploitation of resources, craftsmanship, trade and mobility for society. Social Landscapes promote social strategies and behaviour, social stratifications and political institutions, families and kinship, friendships, alliances, warfare, survival
strategies, communication and interaction. Within ritual landscapes holy places and monuments, nature deities
and -gods, burial practices, symbols and shamanism are implemented (ibid.) (Fig. 2). The diversified perspectives and scales to focus on within the construction of landscapes have no single natural scale where landscape
assessment is being observed. The range of spatial, temporal, and organisational scales in landscape systems and
55
its research is obvious in being wide ranged (Bothequilha et al., 2006) and thus predestined for implementation
in planning for climate-related optimisation.
These summarised important functions and the influences in spatial planning, like loss of land resources, development of periphery (Brouwer et al., 2008; Primdahl and Swaffield, 2010), abandonment of the soul of
landscapes (Roca et al., 2011), habitat and biodiversity loss, depopulation, desertification and marginalisation
pressures (Brouwer et al., 2008) can only be met in a holistic form. Also other interference factors such as
spreading settlement structures and urban sprawl, general built and infrastructural development or density as
well as the already mentioned land use development and recreation planning (ibid.) are being particularly implemented to landscape perspectives. Financial gaps for protection and development are being bridged partially
by the ecosystem service approach as well as the mentioned principles within landscape planning like the costsby-cause (polluter pays) principle. Also, planning policies with the aim of preventing natural catastrophes and
climate change, mitigating, green, renewable energy and energy-efficient planning are being included within the
landscape approach.
Further on some of the direct drivers of climate-related changes are: discontinuous changes, intensification of
land transformations (Mansvelt, 1999; Brouwer et al. 2008), diverse functionalities with correlating deepening
pressures, deficit of buffering capacity in spatial, cultural, abiotic and biotic relations, devastated, simple, homogeneous and non-contextualised landscapes, places having lost their former identity (Roca et al., 2011). These
drivers are to its best assessed from a landscape scaled view. All in all, the landscape level needs to be incorporated in the spatial analysis approaches and its several planning methodologies in an ecological manner (Leitao
and Ahern,, 2002), for resilience and combined landscape research (Plieninger and Bieling, 2012) as well as for
sustainability and climate specific assessment.
4.2 Importance of the Regional Planning Level
Selecting the regional level and regional planning perspective means to enable and support sustainable planning options on the most efficient level (US National Research Council, 2002; Schmidt et al., 2008) 5. Combined
landscape planning as well as research and environmental, spatial, urban planning on the regional level gives an
optimised starting point for a good approximation to region specific land use concerns (Storch et al., after von
Haaren and Nadin, 2003). New development purposes and feedback to the regional and landscape levels can be
evaluated for the regions specific related drivers, pressures, impacts, responses and measuring options, which
correlate to the greater changes by global warming. The currently observed region can be better acknowledged
for its specific identity, vulnerability or resilience (EEA, 2008). It is also an answer to a scientific request that
has been discussed for the last two decades: whether scientific spatial research is better carried out from the
viewpoint of local development versus the analysing perspective of regional development (/science) (Polse,
2007). Regional level, scale, planning and research is an approach worthy combining with landscape planning
and science for analysing existing or ancient sustainable land use habits while balancing status quo and direct
subjections with its sustainability grade and abiotic climate stimuli and change.
A regional perspective reveals the landscape and spatial aspects of a region in which a site occurs. Included in
this perspective are the already mentioned ecological, socio-economic and political pressures for land use
changes and their impacts. The different drivers of changes in land use change like infrastructural, population or
economic job availability influences are some of the factors concerning regions (Fig. 3), which are already included in strategic regional development (within landscapes). The educational situation, housing location and
migration processes may influence the regional population. Depending on the quality of education in the majority of societies, the employment sector is able to react with job availability, a near business location and even a
choice of location (Fig. 3). The infrastructure, together with the grade of mobility and transport, also structures
The regional planning level is most suitable for implementing spatially-specific designations for sustainability. (cp. chap. 2.2, US
National Research Council, 2002).
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the region and the ways the land is used, which basically needs a standard of supply and a demand for resources
(Fig. 3).
Fig. 3: Global to regional scaled climate change and its challenges for transferring data and framing values and parameters
Climate change-related planning possibilities and advantages are enhanced by switching to the scale of regional
plans. Integrating detailed abiotic and biotic landscape related information helps serving for probing risk areas
on the regional level. Potential, more resilient areas in correlation to climatic instabilities like hazards, climatic
seasonal shifting and collapsing land use forms can be located on the regional basis in a more precise way. Furthermore, the integration of landscape planning in regional planning processes can help estimating the necessity
for strengthening resilience management in the selected focal areas. So the differently scaled data challenges
from the local to the regional scale can be overcome to a higher degree by the regional and landscape reflection.
Global climate change can be reflected and transferred from to regional scale through the concept of climate
sensitive regions. So the high potential of regional planning and science in general can be described in the assessment of climate sensitive regions (Fig 3, Fig. 4) (Stock, 2010; IPCC, 2001) and its possibility for benchmarking, networking, information and strategies exchange of similar characteristics (CA(LU)-model). This
needs a systematic, regional reflection in an integral form, acknowledging the enumerated regional planning
objectives. The regional catchment area, land use and regulation (management) also have to be characterized for
observing a climate sensitive region (Fig. 3). The contiguity of socio-economic (e.g. commuting routes) and
natural systems such as river basin catchment areas are some of the interesting topical issues combining these
regional reflections, regional catchment areas as well as land use and regulation management (Fig. 3). Figure
four reveals the dependencies of different objects, influences, drivers and impacts in the framework of climate
sensitive regions:
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Fig.4: Objectives of Climate Sensitive Regions, redrawn after Stock, 2010
Having selected the (climate sensitive) region, the further climate sensitive objectives of 1.climate stimulus,
2.non-climatic influences, 3.the reaction, 4.the adaptation and mitigation and 5.the overall resulting climate impacts, the climate sensitive regions have to be assessed (Fig. 4) (Stock, 2010; IPCC, 2001). When analysing the
climate stimulus, the relevant changes of climate parameters have to be compared to the reference climate. Ideally climate scenarios are involved in this step. They can reach an approximation of climate effects to the assessed climate sensitive region (Fig. 4) (Stock, 2010; IPCC, 2001). The non-climatic influences have to be
evaluated according to sensitivity, e.g. by the characteristics of landscape`s topography and land use. The reaction as the secondary state of change has to be implemented in the assessment procedures. Reactions of secondary change of states are, among others, erosion, exposition, slope or soil conditions and other biotic conditions.
Running the assessment of the secondary change of state gives some results in order to gather information about
the adaptability and the mitigative character for planning and management options in the specific more ore less
climate sensitive region. Following the next step for assessing regions in climate sensitivity, it has to be adapted
throughout proactive changes of state (Fig. 4). Or mitigating effects by energy saving measures or supply are
implemented (Fig. 4) (Stock, 2010; IPCC, 2001). The adaptive erosion- and flood prevention or mitigative implementation of energy saving measures and technologies or the supply of renewable energy in form of water
power, geothermic, solar energy or biomass production are some of the outcomes for strategic spatial management options. These ones among others may prepare a region for climate change. The overall resulting climate
impact with Delta f (D1, D2, D3, D4) will then give a concluding standard of the specific analysed climate sensitive region (Fig. 4) (Stock, 2010; IPCC, 2001), so that more specified management options can be surveyed. So
the regional planning level as an instrument of territorial governance, sustainable management (Schmidt et al.,
2008) and (mitigating,) adaptive climate-related planning has its cognitive, normative and certainly strategic
advantages for combating climate change.
5. INTRODUCING THE INSTRUMENT OF LANDSCAPE UNITS FOR CLIMATE ADAPTIVE
PLANNING
Landscapes are the fundamentals for regional planning and thus for life quality, economic, cultural, ecological,
tangible and intangible drivers as well as for ecosystem services (MEA, 2005). Landscape planning with its
instruments and regional-based plans can melt together at its best with the common understanding of sustainable
management (Mansvelt et al., 1999). Connected to these aspects and important for managing climate change in a
more effective way, is the climate check, implementing sustainable regional governance with its tool of climate
58
proofing (mainly adaptation) and emission saving (mitigation). Other possible assessment tools are the environmental planning instruments of Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment
(compare Schmidt et al., 2008), hazard, vulnerability and risk analysis. The new invented tools like climate
proofing and the request about necessity of inventing new instruments will not be examined in this study, neither the transferring role of the LU for implementing and combining to these other instruments. Although this
field of research is a tremendously vital one for the topic of planning for climate change and already has been
accessed by the scientific awareness (cp., especially, Roggema, 2009), it is not pursued here.
But surely it has to be surveyed exactly in form of combining these instruments (Fig. 5). So apart from an
analysis of existing concepts for mitigation and adaptation (Fig. 5), this article presents the conceptual framework on how the idea of integrating the geographers` and landscape planners` assessment tool of the landscape
units can be specifically used and later to be developed as a CA(LU) proactive landscape meta-model supported
by GIS-layer techniques and indicating resilience of diverse landscape structures. The proposed optimising tool
for planning for climate change is the newly to be implemented landscape units (LU), whose opportunities and
advantages will be described in the following.
Fig. 5: Policy-, planning and management-tools for planning for climate change
Once the LU have been established, they will show the landscapes best effective characteristics, not only because of getting optimized regional governance structures and sustainable management, but also for integrating
adequate climate adaptive land use, for which abiotic, biotic, economic and cultural landscape data are required.
But how can sustainable regional governance and climate adaptive land use be integrated in the existing planning
frameworks? Firstly, the role of landscape and regional planning for a sustainable integration of climate adapted
land use in regional planning procedures has been introduced and clarified already. Secondly, now the focus will
be on the LU as an instrument for combining multivariate data levels with the challenge of implementing climate
adapted land use in regional plans through landscape plans and landscape framework plans.
Before requesting what could be done for managing climate adaptive planning, the purpose, term and definition
of Landscape Units (LU) will be introduced shortly: After the smallest unit of the ecotopes for observations of
landscape ecology, the LU represent the next higher level of assessment patches being integrated in the greater
land system (Bastian and Steinhardt, 2002). According to Niemann (1982) LU can be defined such as: Landscape units are sections of landscapes with different dimensions and chorological structure. Each landscape unit
can be distinguished by its own, relatively stable set of natural and anthropogenic factors, and its functional
expression is characterised by a specific complex of landscape elements (Krnert et al., 2001). The free state of
Saxony in Germany distinguishes the weighting components of natural areas and real land use qualities (ibid),
59
while Krnert et al. (2001) are accentuate the actual land use as the guiding criterion for identifying the character
of LU.
Mainly interesting for this study is the importance of LU for characterising land use in correlation to other
landscape qualities (Fig. 6) on communal to regional level, which help to accelerate the climate impact factors
(climate stimuli) and the sensitivity of the observed landscape parts. Scientific requests for introducing the instrument of LU are:
o
o
Are the landscape units a good transferring tool for integrating climate adaptive spatial demands into
regional plans?
Can this instrument help overcome scale and information challenges (EEA, 2008) from landscape
level to the regional level instead of including new climate adaptive land use categories as buffer
zones in the regional plan?
Is it a suitable instrument for implementing planning for climate change by acknowledging the multifunctional status of regional plans and the specific demands on field observation as well as research
for having tangible data basis, for regional governance thus exchanging information between the people concerned and for benchmarking comparable case studies? If yes, how could it be transferred into
the planning practice?
One of the main working requests after this list of issues is, in how far the LU can newly be implemented for
indicating potentially threatened landscape parts in correlation to climate change and the pressure it causes directly, indirectly, cumulatively or synergistically influencing landscape and land use. So what could be done for
managing climate adaptive planning within landscape units?
Fig. 6: Landscape Plannings connectivity to regional planning in the German planning system
The challenge of scale-shifting and transformation challenges within the planning levels and hierarchies
(Krnert et al., 2001) was already mentioned within the chapters of importance of landscape scale and regional
planning level. In the following scheme (Fig. 6), the importance of the landscape plan for climate-related data
and information stability on communal level is highlighted. The scale-shifting is then established by the LU. By
gathering the data and information (Fig. 6), by assessing and selecting the diversified LU, the first defining approach of Alexander von Humboldt (beginning 19th century) is already implied that a Landscape is the total
character of a region of the earth as perceived by man. It is afterwards possible for the LU not only to implement the landscape framework plan (on the regional to state level) for orientation planning on a higher scale, but
also to directly include landscape planning demands into spatial planning demands and their instrument of the
multifunctional and integrated regional plan (e.g. within the German spatial planning system). Furthermore, the
60
integration of landscape planning in regional planning processes can help to estimate the necessity for strengthening resilience management in the selected focal areas. On the one hand, communal landscape plans are already
implemented partially in differing detailed grade and scale into the landscape framework plan on regional to
state level (Fig.6) (ARL, 2011). On the other hand, the findings of landscape and environmental analysis within
the landscape plan are transferred into spatial planning procedures of land use plans (Fig.6) and through the
landscape framework plan implementing into regional plans (ibid.).
The different data, information and synchronised analysis adapted to the integrated regional plan could also be
established on national scale and level as well as European and world policy level throughout LU (Fig. 7) and
the coupled CA(LU) proactive landscape meta-model. The LU within its landscape model will enable to implement and compare throughout the diversified levels and scales of actions from the regional to the national or
European or worldwide planning and political features.
Fig. 7: Landscape Units as a transferor into Global Regions
Fig. 8: Rivershed unit as an example for functioning Landscape Units in (global,) European and national Regions
(WRRL= EU-Water-Framework-Directive)
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The technological methodologies for creating the LU, its proactive landscape meta-model and its mostly GISbased maps with also using satellite images, remote sensing and other mapping fundamentals cannot be discussed in detail in this study. Unambiguous modeling and mapping are of greatest importance for verifying
planning and management solutions on spatial level. Apart from that maps are also tools for communication,
information exchange and representing the relationships between a plan, its elements, measurements and development features. The example of the river shed units with water catchment areas, already practiced within the
background of the EU- Water-Framework-Directive (WRRL, Fig. 8), presents a similar working instrument,
which can partially verify the hypothesis of its functioning LU in planning for climate change.
6. CONCLUSIONS
Following the Brundtland-Report of Our Common Future [t]he environment is where we live; and development is what we all do in attempting to improve our lot within that abode. The two are inseparable. Reflecting
the work in hand within this best thesis of Brundtland, it can be stated on the one hand: the `environment` is
melting together within the landscapes of our world and `development` is succeeding most effectively within the
regional (globalising) spheres. These two are just as unifying as environment and development.
The proposals of this treatise are partially based on a case study, whose outcomes will be published in the near
future, and have to be verified by the author in this study in more theoretical abstraction and only within secondary data. Still there are operating questions to be answered for continuing research: Which analysing steps,
matrix, modeling system does the landscape units need in order to be most accentuated and also comparable?
Will the later proposed matrix be the best choice in correlation to its parameters abstraction grade and value for
its answers to be fulfilled? In how far can the other methodologies of climate change mitigation and adaptation
be included in the matrix and where are the linking scores?
In the near future, studies will be also completed and adapted within developing and verifying other optimised
opportunities of LU in the CA(LU) proactive landscape meta-model, also within more case studies, a comparative analysis and regional field-research. Long-term monitoring procedures within most diversified regions are
planned and would also strengthen and verify planning, research, protection, development and management for
reaching advanced effective instruments, methods and models in combating against the already significant impacts of climate (as well as landscape) change and global warming.
Despite these potential action fields, the paradox of management should be introduced, finalising one perspective for describing the advantages of LU for climate adaptive planning. As the global impacts of climate change
are obvious, it is necessary to choose the most suitable scale to effectively strengthen planning outcomes. Within
this treatise it has become obvious that the landscape perspective and the regional scale, which are both united in
the landscape units, are an optimum for gaining semi-stable to more stable circumstances in planning processes.
Units in general, and landscape or river shed units in particular, help to focus on solutions. These the same
structural, characteristic, elementary unifying units can overcome the gaps of unsuccessful planning by helping
to focus on spatially bound solutions that are in their communal to regional perspective optimally sized for having continued success and visible efforts (Forman, 2008, after Forman 1995; Seddon, 1997). Solving greater
challenges needs dividing into (landscape) parts, and by this tipping the scale for balancing to solutions (Krnert
et al., 2001; Forman, 2008, after Gladwell 2000). This way, complex cause-and-effect relations do not seem to
be too complex for reaching solutions anymore; but attention has to be paid in choosing the exact viewpoint,
scenarios, matrices, parameters and abstractions in order to be able to reach optimized results and in this case an
instrument for creating integrated response, measurement, planning and management options.
Saving the Brundtland-statute of unifying environment and development at least seems to get closer to its roots
when acknowledging the predominant proposed perspectives.
62
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65
SESSION 3 MILLENNIUM
DEVELOPMENT GOALS
WORLD HERITAGE: BEACON FOR SUSTAINABLE URBAN

DEVELOPMENT?
Dennis Rodwell
Architect-planner, consultant in cultural heritage and sustainable urban development, Scotland, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
In 1972, key words in the UN + UNESCO lexicon were environment and protection. These featured in the
1972 UN Stockholm Conference and the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Key words today are
sustainable development and climate change. Whereas the former was defined in the 1987 Brundtland Report
under the three-fold heading of environment, society and economy, the United Nations has now recognised culture as a critical fourth component and driver.
The primary outcome of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention is a highly selected list of sites identified
for protection and conservation according to academically derived criteria of outstanding universal value. Over
the period since 1972, the motivation for inscription has progressively shifted from cultural recognition to economic gain; the effect, in many instances, has been to render World Heritage Sites socio-economically exclusive. At the same time, the United Nations has been operating to a radical set of inclusive agendas, and the
eight Millennium Development Goals articulate this clearly.
In the four decades since it was adopted, the World Heritage Convention has demonstrated adaptability: particularly in the matter of categories and definitions of cultural heritage. In parallel, it has developed systems of
management and monitoring that have the potential to be exemplary. To what extent, however, is the World
Heritage concept sufficiently resilient to embrace the Millennium Development Goals: in short, for inscribed
sites to serve as Beacons for Sustainable Development?
The author of this paper has been actively engaged as a researcher, practitioner and promoter of best practice in
the field of urban conservation and sustainable urban development since the 1960s. This paper is a personal
reflection based on wide-ranging professional observation and hands-on experience. It is focused on cities, the
most numerous category of sites on the World Heritage List and, globally, home to over half todays world
population. It seeks to contribute to one of the most important debates of our time and to present directions for
the realisation of certain, at least, of the Millennium Development Goals in cities through the vehicle of the
World Heritage Convention.
INTRODUCTION
Selective lists
From its initial conceptualisation in the 1960s as a Trust a Red Cross for Monuments to raise funds for the
rescue of a shortlist of monuments in danger, such as the temples of Ramses II at Abu Simbel in Egypt threatened by the construction of the Aswan dam, to its articulation of world heritage, outstanding universal value,
and initiation of the list, the genesis of the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention is well documented
(Batisse and Bolla, 2005).
The concept of lists of monuments dates back to the early nineteenth century (Rodwell, 1975), the pronouncement of conservation principles to later that century (Morris, 1877), and the sequence of international standard
setting documents from the 1930s. Factors which help to explain (in Europe, at least) the ever expanding spectrum of lists of cultural heritage, embracing both immovable and movable objects and intangible expressions,
include societal changes prompted by the upheavals of the First World War, the emergence of the Modern
Movement as a dominant force in architecture and urban planning, the devastations of the Second World War,
and the transitions from agricultural through industrial to consumer economies and from rural to urban societies.
66
Key concepts: heritage, culture, anthropological vision

In this process, the etymologically broad concept of heritage has, especially since the 1960s, taken on a linguistic meaning that is limited. Thus, the heritage construct interprets heritage as something that relates only to the
past, is preserved as historical evidence and is packaged for tourism (Hewison, 1987) (Figs 1 and 2). The perception that heritage is the antithesis of creativity remains dominant across sections of todays architectural profession, giving rise to major challenges in the management of historic cities.
Fig. 1: Ephesus, Turkey. Ancient archaeology packaged for tourism
Fig. 2: Ironbridge Gorge, England. The

industrial revolution packaged for tourism
Only recently has the anthropological vision emerged: a dynamic approach that is focused on processes that
safeguard cultural identity and diversity and secure their creative continuity in harmony with the evolving aspirations of peoples and communities (Rodwell, 2007a). This represents a step change from a focus on objects to be
selected for preservation to processes to be nurtured and sustained: human driven rather than artefact driven;
inclusive rather than exclusive. It is this anthropological vision that is primordially in tune with the recognition
that culture is (or rather should be) a key driver for sustainable development, not the heritage construct.
The concept of culture is, however, also a victim of categorisation and limitation. When defined as the set of
distinctive spiritual and material, intellectual and emotional features of a society or social group (UNESCO,
2010a), it has no limit in time or space. But where, in the precise same document, we are informed that the
culture sector represents 2-6 per cent of the GDP [Gross Domestic Product] in many OECD [Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development] member countries and in developing countries, the statistic impresses more for its marginality than for its significance; also, for the fact that it is only evaluated in economic
terms.
Likewise, in proportionate terms, whereas cities house over half todays world population and almost half of
cultural heritage properties on the World Heritage List relate to cities, the relative statistics are 3.5bn and 346;
and of the latter, only 200 are inhabited places, the balance being monuments, groups and sites in an urban context (UNESCO, 2010b). Conservative estimates suggest that there are a total of some 250,000 inhabited places in
the world today.
Thus, culture is defined in marginal economic terms and not for its contribution to environment and society
and, taking the long calculation, the World Heritage List relates to a mere 0.14 per cent of the worlds inhabited
places: 346 out of 250,000 (Fig 3).
67
Fig. 3: Bath, England. Cities on the World Heritage

List make up only minuscule proportion of the
worlds urban heritage
The challenge
The initial challenge, therefore, is two-fold: to render both culture and World Heritage relevant to sustainable
urban development. The challenge is further intensified when one tries to rationalise how World Heritage can
make a meaningful contribution to achieving the Millennium Development Goals or at least components of
those within reasonable ambition: which may include poverty alleviation and associated societal and health issues, environmental sustainability, and the promotion of global partnerships.
It is this authors contention that for World Heritage to make such a contribution, and thereby to act as a Beacon for Sustainable Development, will require a radical reappraisal of the strategy for implementing the World
Heritage Convention. The Convention itself is a fixed commodity; business as usual, however, is not an option.
19722012: THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WORLD HERITAGE CONVENTION
Context in 1972
Anniversaries provide an ideal opportunity to reflect on past achievements and to anticipate future ones. Critical to any reflection on the World Heritage Convention is understanding of the context in time that gave birth to
it. It is no coincidence that between 1972 and today key words in the international lexicon have changed, and
that protection, for example, has in effect been superseded by sustainable development.
Where cities were concerned, the 1960s were a time of wholesale development and reconstruction in which the
Modernist mantra was dominant. The seeds for a benign or precarious, depending on ones point of view
truce between the emergent Conservation and Modernist movements were established in the two Athens Charters of the early 1930s: the 1931 Restoration Charter and the 1933 Charter of International Modernism. The
former, revised as the Venice Charter in 1964 and adopted as the principal doctrinal document of ICOMOS upon
its foundation the following year, reinforced the anticipation of the time that survivals from the past would be
highly selected, limited in number, and subject to methodologies of top-down curatorial care that would necessarily be intensive and expensive.
Additionally, the 1933 Charte dAthnes, whilst recognising the protection of highly selected individual buildings and groups as representative examples of fine architecture, condemned any attempt at aesthetic assimilation through the use of historical styles for new structures in historic areas (CIAM, 1933). The 1964 Venice
Charter likewise insisted that new work must be distinct from the architectural composition and must bear a
contemporary stamp, an insistence that is widely interpreted to be inclusive across the historic environment
whether in conservation work or new-build (ICOMOS, 1964).
68
Context today
It is important to reflect on whether either of these two seminal documents anticipate an easy right of passage
from the essentially exclusive, top-down notion of selective protection to the quintessentially inclusive, bottom-up concept of sustainable development. The World Heritage Convention, with its emphasis on establishing
a list of the best of the best (or exemplars of the best) did not anticipate this fundamental change in context, one
in which retention of what exists has come to be recognised as an essential contribution that conservation can
make to the environmental constraints of our planet and the socio-cultural desires and needs of its diverse peoples (Rodwell, 2007a). This is not to critique the established, historical top-down approach to protection;
rather, it is a call to re-position it, extend its horizons and expand its achievements. In other words, to remove
conservation from the margins of the sustainable development agenda and place it centre stage, to make conservation the norm rather than the exception, and to position the World Heritage Convention as a Beacon in this
process. This is a major opportunity for those of us engaged in the conservation field.
Evolution of the World Heritage concept
Whereas the 1972 Convention cannot, in practical terms, be changed, its wording has proved resilient to the
passage of time (UNESCO, 1972a). Thus, for example, the categories of cultural heritage defined at Article 1
monuments, groups of buildings and sites now embrace inhabited historic towns and cultural landscapes, both of which are recognised as dynamic systems that need to be managed as such and not simply preserved (UNESCO, 2008).
Also, whereas sustainable development was not articulated as such until the Brundtland Report (World Commission, 1987), it could well be argued that the concept was anticipated in Articles 4 and 5 of the 1972 Convention and simply got lost in the English translation. Where the English text reads presentation, which is taken in
the Anglophone world to mean interpretation in the awareness-raising educational sense, the French reads
mise en valeur, terminology that has been at the heart of proactive, adaptive urban conservation in historic
cities in France since the enactment of the 1962 Loi Malraux.
Parallel UNESCO initiatives have also informed the implementation of the 1972 Convention, including intangible heritage (UNESCO, 2003) and cultural diversity (UNESCO, 2005a), as have others that have influenced it
more directly notably the Nara Declaration (Lemaire and Stovel, 1994). This has run alongside an expansion in
the spectrum of tangible heritage featuring on the World Heritage List: from manifestations of Euro-centric high
culture to industrial heritage and the vernacular; and with ever more creative approaches being adopted by
nominating state parties in their endeavours to add to the List.
Context for 2012
An important component of reflections in the build up to the 40th Anniversary of the Convention is the numerical one. As the List approaches a thousand properties, is there an optimum number? And related to this, is
the 1994 Global Strategy robust enough to be truly representative?
Are these, however, the questions we should be asking if we are serious in the resolve to integrate World Heritage with sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals?
Articulating the question
Although no answer was proffered, the author of A History of Architectural Conservation articulated an imperative question when he asked if the conservation movement, as it evolved from the eighteenth century,
cannot be considered as concluded, and whether modern conservation should not be redefined in reference to the
environmental sustainability of social and economic development within the overall cultural and ecological
situation on earth (Jokilehto, 2004). This begs a whole series of questions: not least, is a highly selective approach to listing still relevant in todays world?
69
THE WORLD HERITAGE BRAND'

Potency
Although, as we have seen, the relative statistics of urban sites on the World Heritage List are unimpressive,
the brand has acquired a potency that is hard to resist. There are of course inconsistencies: in some state parties
the brand has been hard to market, especially where there are long established national categories; in others, both
heritage and culture are defined in terms of whether properties and manifestations appear on the tangible or
intangible Lists. If they do, they are heritage; of not, their value as culture is devalued or ignored. This both
limits the ability of the World Heritage Convention to contribute to broad environmental agendas and challenges
it to respond positively.
Negative and positive impacts
Further, without in any way seeking to detract from the countless positive benefits of the World Heritage brand,
examples of negative impacts are a cause for concern. In this, two examples will suffice: one of a city that is
already on the World Heritage List; the other, one that aspires to be.
Firstly, the city of Zamo in Poland, where the exacting demands of architectural historians and conservators
coupled with a particular view of the historic city as a gentrified tourist attraction have encouraged a policy to rehouse the established socio-economic community on the urban periphery (Rodwell, 2007b; Rodwell, 2010). To
date, fortunately, this policy has not been implemented (Figs 4 and 5).
Fig. 4: Zamo, Poland. Architectural historians

and conservators have opposed the use of the
principal market square for outdoor markets on
the premise that they would compromise its architectural character
Fig. 5: Zamo, Poland. The project to gentrify

this World Heritage City would to lead to the
re-housing of the established socio-economic
community on the urban periphery
Secondly, the city of Xian in China, where the combined pressures of topdown investment from outside coupled with ambitious plans for regeneration as
a national and international tourist destination have informed plans that would
radically change the physical and social structure of the city and, as with
Zamo, exclude the resident community (Feighery, 2010). Such commodification of heritage has been characterised elsewhere: Tourism is a great modern
industry. [...] We had lots of those during the Industrial Revolution and we have
been cleaning up the mess ever since (Youngson, 1990) (Fig 6).
Fig. 6: Turin, Italy: a hurdy-gurdy in front of
the royal palace. The commodification of
heritage.
70
To counter-balance this with two positive examples, both on the World Heritage List:
Firstly, the city of Regensburg which this author first visited and researched in 1971 and most recently in
2011 has pursued an over-arching regeneration strategy for the city-region that has retained social balance in
the historic centre and, whilst well-manicured for visitors, also retains its traditional mix of small-scale independent artisan workshops and shops (Figs 7 and 8).
Fig. 7: Regensburg, Germany. A historic city

that retains its traditional mix of small-scale
independent artisan workshops and shops.
Fig. 8: Regensburg, Germany. The longterm regeneration strategy for the cityregion has retained social balance in the
historic centre
Secondly, the re-invention of the former Vlklingen Ironworks, also in Germany, as the European Centre for
Art and Industrial Culture, an inspirational partnership project for exploring new opportunities for the creative
reuse of an important industrial heritage site (Grewenig, 2010).
THE UNESCO HISTORIC URBAN LANDSCAPES INITIATIVE
This initiative, triggered by the 2005 Vienna Conference and Memorandum (UNESCO, 2005) and the main
project of the UNESCO World Heritage Cities Programme, constitutes an ambitious attempt to co-ordinate an
integrated, cross-disciplinary concept for the management of historic cities. The initiative anticipates the adoption later this year, 2011, of a new UNESCO Recommendation that is envisaged to apply to historic cities worldwide, and amendments to the UNESCO Operational Guidelines that will apply to cities nominated for and inscribed in the World Heritage List (UNESCO, 2010b).
Academically, the most recent consolidated definition of historic urban landscapes is the one agreed at the expert planning meeting held in Paris in November 2008:
Historic urban landscape is a mindset, an understanding of the city, or parts of the city, as an outcome of
natural, cultural and socio-economic processes that construct it spatially, temporally, and experientially. It is as
much about buildings and spaces, as about rituals and values that bring people into the city. This concept encompasses layers of symbolic significance, intangible heritage, perception of values, and interconnections between the composite elements of the historic urban landscape, as well as local knowledge including building
practices and management of natural resources. Its usefulness resides in the notion that it incorporates a capacity for change.
It would be pre-emptive to anticipate the practical outcome of this primarily academic exercise in definitions
and formalised documentation. Suffice it to say that the process to date has been critiqued on at least three important counts:
Firstly, it repeats, albeit in muted form, wording in the 2005 Vienna Memorandum that has been heavily contested not least as the antithesis of the UNESCO convention on cultural diversity of the same year and of the
anthropological vision of creative cultural continuity outlined above (Hardy, 2009; Semes, 2010). Article 21 of
the Vienna Memorandum reads: contemporary architecture and preservation of the historic urban landscape
should avoid all forms of pseudo-historical design, as they constitute a denial of both the historical and the con-
71
temporary alike. This anticipates a complete break with the past, not continuity, and has fuelled projects for
inharmonious iconic modern buildings in historic cities worldwide as being in accordance with the Vienna
Memorandum (Fig. 9).
Fig. 9: City of London, with the

11th century Tower of London
on the right. The 2005 Vienna
Memorandum has fuelled projects for inharmonious iconic
modern buildings in historic
cities worldwide
Secondly, the mechanics of practical dissemination to historic cities, generally, are unclear. For as long as the
initiative is attached to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre it will be associated solely with World Heritage
Sites. This was brought home to this author when seeking comments on Managing Historic Cities (UNESCO,
2010b) from a state partys central heritage agency: the document was passed to the official dealing with World
Heritage, not historic cities. The brand is perceived to be exclusive.
Thirdly, the initiative is not accompanied by informed guidance on principles for the sustainable management
of inhabited historic cities, be they for strategic city-region planning or detailed urban planning tools, or examples that demonstrate best practice. There may be geo-cultural as well as diplomatic reasons for such an omission, but without clear guidance state parties are left wondering what they are supposed to be doing (Fig. 10).
Formal Recommendations are too bland to be of practical use to city mayors and managers.
Fig. 10: Liverpool, England. Lack of coherent guidance has led to serious confusion concerning
the sustainable management of a number of World Heritage Cities
BEACON FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT?

The opportunity
In this authors view, the 1972 World Heritage Convention has the potential to make a significant contribution
to the global agenda of sustainable development and to certain of the Millennium Development Goals subject to
a number of significant conditions, of which two will suffice here:
Firstly, the concept of stakeholder needs to be clarified. It is interpreted by some including this author to
comprise all who have physical and intellectual access to a place: no more and no less. This inclusive definition
has been employed in the management of a number of historic cities with which this author is familiar. On the
other hand, more commonly used is a definition that excludes all who do not have a direct and significant finan-
72
cial interest in a place. Such exclusion marginalises communities which have a direct socio-cultural interest in
their place and all, without exception, do but not a significant financial one. It also serves to exclude members of such communities from the perception that they have a role to play in the future life of their place, including as economic participants in its regeneration and sanitation. If one re-calibrates the concept of stakeholder in
cities, builds capacity and empowers communities, the door becomes open to addressing core issues under the
Millennium Development Goals of poverty alleviation and related societal and health issues. In this, this author
commends the top-down meeting bottom-up urban revitalisation programme in the historic centre of Sibiu,
Romania, an aspiring World Heritage Site, for its exemplary engagement with the local community and focus on
capacity building for housing rehabilitation (Rodwell, 2010). That an ICOMOS newsletter used outstanding
and faultless to characterise the coherence of the integrated conservation efforts in the city and the resultant
strong sense of integrity, speaks for itself (ICOMOS, 2009).
Secondly, current emphasis on implementation of the 1994 Global Strategy for prospective sites to enter the
World Heritage List should be transformed into informing and activating a new Global Strategy for the implementation of Article 5 of the World Heritage Convention and the associated 1972 Recommendation (UNESCO,
1972b). This is the forgotten part of the World Heritage Convention: the obligation that all signatory state
parties enter into in relation to the cultural and natural heritage throughout their territories. Todays focus on
World Heritage Sites is often at the expense of national heritage, whether on the territories that already have
inscribed sites or those that aspire to have them. This would, in effect, constitute a new mission for UNESCO: to
implement the 1972 Convention in its entirety, not just selected parts. This refocus of the Convention would
open the door to addressing core issues under the Millennium Development Goals of environmental sustainability and global partnerships. It would also, as above, address the question of the continuing relevance of a highly
selective List and reposition conservation well away from the margins.
CONCLUSION
It is this authors contention that the World Heritage Convention has the potential to be at the vanguard of discovery and realisation of new solutions that would place culture centre stage in pursuit of the global agenda for
sustainable development and the achievement of Millennium Development Goals in cities, home as they are to
over half the worlds population. These objectives can only, however, be met through an inclusive approach to
the concept of stakeholders and a refocusing of the 1972 World Heritage Convention to embrace all of its provisions, not selected ones that perpetuate exclusive definitions of both culture and heritage. All peoples and
communities throughout the world have both a cultural and a natural heritage; all have a need and a desire for
continuity; and all are stakeholders in this future.
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Batisse, M. and Bolla, G. (2005) The Invention of World Heritage. Paris: Association of Former UNESCO
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74
CULTURAL ROUTES AND SERIAL AND TRANSNATIONAL WORLD

HERITAGE PROPERTIES AS TOOLS FOR DEVELOPMENT:
EMERGING CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Celia Martnez
ICOMOS International Secretariat (Paris). France, Corporate Visual Responsibility and World Heritage Sites International
Project
ABSTRACT
The Global Strategy for a representative, balanced and credible World Heritage has encouraged several
changes in the criteria for inscription of properties on the World Heritage List. At such an instance, the well
represented State Parties have been requested to propose only properties falling into categories scarcely applied
and/or linking each of their nominations with a nomination presented by a State Party whose heritage is underrepresented.
The increasing number of Cultural Routes and Serial and transnational properties in the World Heritage and
States Parties Tentative Lists is a clear indicator of the importance that these categories are acquiring as a result,
but it also poses several challenges to the current international protection system that should be confronted in
order to fully appreciate their contribution to World Heritage enhancement.
In this paper we will focus in showing how Cultural Routes introduce new trends in the ethics of conservation,
considering their values as a common heritage that goes beyond national borders and requires joint efforts that
also illustrate the contemporary social conception of heritage as a resource for sustainable social and economic
development. To do so, we will specially deepen on the guidelines and strategies that should be implemented in
order to highlight the extraordinary potential of these properties to:
- Boost international cooperation between developing and developed countries through the joint protection and
valorization of cultural heritage.
- Promote heritage sustainable development through the wise use of Cultural Routes as resources for responsible and sensible tourist activities able to foster the cultural dialogue between diverse peoples and societies.
Based on several case studies, and on our previous professional experience and research on this issue, we will
also propose some principles able to improve the management and monitoring of these complex properties and
to reinforce their inscription on the World Heritage List, as a sine qua non condition to ensure their proper
international recognition and protection.
Keywords: cultural routes World Heritage List State Parties representation
1. THE CONCEPTUAL ORIGIN AND SCIENTIFIC CHARACTERIZATION OF CULTURAL
ROUTES
The concern for Cultural Routes as a new heritage category and subject of heritage studies has its origins in the
inscription of the Spanish segment of the Camino de Santiago on the World Heritage List in 1993. The nomination of such a large and culturally diverse heritage, unprecedented to date, highlighted the need to develop new
theoretical and practical approaches to inscribe these types of properties characterized by their breadth and dimensional and territorial complexity.
From a conceptual standpoint, the ground of Cultural Routes is the expert meeting on "Routes as part of our
Cultural Heritage", which due to the interest aroused by such nominations, was held in Madrid in November
1994, involving representatives of ICOMOS and UNESCO. Thereafter, the work carried out by the ICOMOS
International Scientific Committee on Cultural Routes (CIIC) has led to fruitful results, including the following:
-
The identification, promotion and systematic research on some Cultural Routes of great international
cultural significance;
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The statement of the conceptual and operational factors that determine the existence of this new type of
heritage category;
The adoption of Cultural Routes as a new heritage category in the 2005 Operational Guidelines for the
Implementation of the World Heritage Convention.
Against this backdrop, the scientific definition of Cultural Routes was stated by the CIIC in the ICOMOS Charter on Cultural Routes, which was ratified by the 16th General Assembly of ICOMOS held in Quebec on October 2008.
This Charter identifies and defines Cultural Routes as follows (CIIC, 2008):
Any route of communication, be it land, water, or some other type, which is physically delimited and is also
characterized by having its own specific dynamic and historic functionality to serve a specific and well determined purpose, which must fulfill the following conditions:
a) It must arise from and reflect interactive movements of people as well as multi-dimensional, continuous, and
reciprocal exchanges of goods, ideas, knowledge and values between peoples, countries, regions or continents
over significant periods of time;
b) It must have thereby promoted a cross-fertilization of the affected cultures in space and time, as reflected
both in their tangible and intangible heritage;
c) It must have integrated into a dynamic system the historic relations and cultural properties associated with
its existence.
According to this definition, the recognition of a Cultural Route from the scientific standpoint requires the existence of a road which can be physically determined and was expressly created to serve a specific purpose. It also
necessarily implies that the own dynamics and functionality of this road and its use have generated a cultural
heritage, both tangible and intangible, based on a back-and-forth cultural exchange of considerable historic duration.
Therefore, Cultural Routes are not simple ways of communication and transport which may include cultural
properties and connect different peoples, nor can they be created by applying ones imagination and will to the
establishment of a set of associated cultural assets that happen to possess features in common (ICOMOS CIIC,
2008; Surez Incln, 2005). On the contrary, they are special historic phenomena that should not be confused
with other heritage categories or with tourist routes.
In fact, the need to know, register, preserve and spread awareness about the mostly universal heritage value of
Cultural Routes is substantially different from the raison d'tre of other cultural and tourist routes, whose success
and wide dissemination are based either in their suitability for fostering social, cultural, political and economic
goals -such as those promoted by the Council of Europe with the creation and promotion of various routes with a
common European theme-, or in their ability to adapt heritage to the needs of its tourist use.
2. THE POTENTIAL OF CULTURAL ROUTES AS TOOLS FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND
UNDERSTANDING
Owing to their specific nature and meaning, the conceptual contribution brought by the inclusion of Cultural
Routes within the World Heritage Convention framework represents a qualitatively new approach to the theory
and practice of conservation.
This new approach is based in the overcoming of the strictly national approaches to heritage and the stressing
of heritages macrostructure and may provide conservation policy with a territorial breadth, cultural integrity and
harmonization of actions and contents that has seldom been accomplished up until now (Surez Incln, 2002).
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As a result, the strengthening of these categories not only prompts a cultural linking between peoples, cities,
regions and continents, but also the consideration of heritage in its live dimension, as a resource for revitalization
of society and therefore as a pillar of equitable and sustainable development.
Therefore, together with their heritage dimension, the following abilities of Cultural Routes should be emphasized:
1) Boost international cooperation. In this regard, it is worth stressing that most of the Cultural Routes
identified by CIIC cross both developing countries and regions under-represented in the World Heritage List as well as developing and well represented States Parties: Latin America and the Caribbean,
and Europe and North America, in the case of the Intercontinental Royal Road; Asia and the Pacific,
and Europe, in the case of the Silk Roads; Africa and Europe, and North America in the Slave Routes,
etc. The nomination of these properties thus represents a triple opportunity to:
Balance the World Heritage List from a typological and geographical perspective;
Promote the development of these countries through the wise use of their cultural properties;
Foster the joint research and promotion of Cultural Routes between developing and developed countries. This late question is especially important in this heritage category, given that the inscription of
Cultural Routes require the coordination of all concerned stakeholders for these nominations to succeed, providing an excellent framework for countries that have a wide experience in nominations
drafting to assist disadvantaged ones in this process.
2) Promote heritage sustainable development, given their ability to reinforce the coordination between
diverse categories of cultural properties management systems and to improve the social and economic
impact of emerging or underutilized heritages, which are nevertheless being increasingly demanded by
citizenship, and included in these properties framework. This is the case of agricultural and industrial
heritage in the Intercontinental Royal Road and the Silk Roads, of the so called negative heritages in
the Slave Routes, etc.
3) Foster new and more creative approaches to heritage management able to encompass its conservation and use as a tool for development, to improve the quality of life of the concerned communities
and to promote a culture of peace based on the sharing of heritage values.
o
o
o
These later issues were recognized in 2009 in the ICOMOS Ise Declaration on World Heritage for Peace
(ICOMOS CIIC, 2010), which stressed how cultural routes and serial nominations may contribute to the building
and maintaining of world peace, and suggested to:
o
o
Encourage cultural routes and serial nominations, which make a significant contribution to the establishment of world peace in a manner that reflects the outcomes of comprehensive scientific research.
Promote a responsible tourism in these properties able to benefit the local economy and reduce poverty, a cause of conflicts, as long as such uses do not contradict the principles of World Heritage.
3. GUIDELINES AND PRINCIPLES TO REINFORCE CULTURAL ROUTES POTENTIALS

To reinforce these potentials, the use of Cultural Routes should pursue the main goals of disseminating and
conserving their heritage values while promoting sustainable and equitable social and economic development.
To reach both objectives, and according to the Operational Guidelines principles, the preservation and promotion of Cultural Routes should be guided through the continuous monitoring of several objective indicators.
When dealing with Cultural Routes inscribed on the World Heritage List these indicators must be included in
their nomination files and revised in the Periodic Reporting framework (WHC & ICCROM, 2004; Stovel, 2004;
Stolton, 2007; VV.AA., 2005).
In any case, to monitor the correct use and management of Cultural Routes would be essential to:
o
o
Design specific indicators adapted to this categorys special values and specificities and to the principles stated in the ICOMOS Charter on Cultural Routes.
Evaluate the impact of tourism and other development activities on Cultural Routes.
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Ensure its integrated and comprehensive management and preservation through their inscription on
the World Heritage List.
3.1 Management and monitoring practices

Bearing in mind that cultural routes nature is tightly linked to human, cultural, scientific and commercial interchanges (which are often secular and a remote origin of the expansion of travels), tourism is probably one of
the most important activities to be evaluated in order to assess their proper use and management as resources for
development.
Efforts should be made in order to ensure equilibrium between the promotion of knowledge about Cultural
Routes and their sustainable use for tourism purposes, adopting appropriate measures aimed at eliminating risks.
According to the Charter on Cultural Routes (ICOMOS, CIIC 2008):
1) The protection and promotion of a Cultural Route should harmoniously integrate a supplementary infrastructure for tourist activities, access routes, information, interpretation and presentation with the essential
condition that it does not jeopardize the meaning, authenticity and integrity of the historic values of the Cultural
Route as key elements to be conveyed to visitors.
2) Tourist visits should also be managed on a rational basis in accordance with prior environmental impact
studies and with plans for public use and community participation, as well as control and monitoring measures
intended to prevent the negative impacts of tourism.
Pursuing the accomplishment of these requirements, some attempts to design indicators on the impact of tourism on Cultural Routes have been made by the World Tourism Organization (OMT, 2005). This markedly
pragmatic indicator system focuses mainly on assessing the state of conservation of cultural and natural properties, on the logistics and the needs and interests of tourists and local residents and on the economic benefits generated by the activities of management and enhancement of the routes. Among the issues monitored by specific
indicators, the following should be stressed:
o
Most important environmental policies. They are evaluated through indicators such as the density of
use, focusing on the number of tourists in the route in a given season and year (basic indicator); the
percentage of the route consolidated; the percentage of degraded path with respect to the desired degree or a previously established reference and the percentage of use with respect to the ecological
carrying capacity, i.e. the total number of visitors allowed.
Protection of built heritage and interpretation of historical and cultural heritage. Both issues are analyzed through the following indicators: number of properties and sites built along the route and percentage of those receiving care and maintenance work; number of expert in heritage interpretation;
use of signage or brochures for self-guided visits; existence of a code of conduct for tourists.
Sociocultural impact on the community. It focuses on the impact of tourism on the local use of the
routes; on the benefits to the communities located along its tracks, for example in terms of improvements in community infrastructure and services (education, health, transport, local businesses, etc.);
on the new employment opportunities; on the revival of traditional techniques generated by the valorization of routes, etc. The corresponding indicators are: percentage of change in the use by local
population, degree of satisfaction of residents, percentage of residents who are considered to benefit
from the routes promotion and number of training courses offered annually, as well as people involved in them.
Economic benefits. They are measured in terms of the following indicators: number of jobs related to
the cultural route, number of guides, number of companies offering trips, annual income from the
sale of local handicrafts and souvenirs, annual income from the expenditure in accommodation, increase / decrease of partners, funds and contributions in kind and percentage of labor and materials
contributed by the community.
Management of tourism and the cultural route. It considers revenue, fees, grants and public funds;
the type of access to the route, which can be guided or unguided; business rates; transport and park-
78
ing; strategies for setting prices for residents and visitors; support from the government, the industry,
the communities, volunteers and tourism associations and the maintaining of both the authenticity of
the cultural route and the quality of the experience. The most important indicators to evaluate these
issues are the following: increase or decrease and number of volunteers; value of the contribution of
volunteers; percentage of stakeholders and users who consider that the quality regarding the state of
conservation of natural and cultural heritage and their environment are fulfilled and percentage of
users who consider that the intensity of use is appropriate and the quality of experience fulfilled
(these percentages are obtained through an exit survey).
Although this system of indicators embraces most of tourisms impacts on Cultural Routes, it also shows many
weaknesses, which are mostly explained because it was launched before the adoption of the ICOMOS Charter on
Cultural Routes. Amongst the specific gaps and inconsistencies that should be amended the following may be
outlined:
o
o
o
The excessive generality of the proposed indicators and lack of a proper consideration of certain
complex features and characteristics of Cultural Routes, such as their international or even intercontinental dimension and the diversity of the tangible and intangible cultural properties that converge
on them and need, therefore, a more detailed and specific approach.
The absence of specific indicators on the knowledge, dissemination and transmission of the intangible heritage linked to Cultural Routes, despite this heritage being a key element for the whole identification and understanding of these properties.
The lack of indicators on the impact of tourism on the boundaries and buffer zones of Cultural
Routes.
The lack of a specific analysis and monitoring of the percentage of properties legally protected and
their different degrees of protection and management models.
Unfortunately, in practice, these gaps perpetuate the usual absence of a real coordination between tourism
planning and natural and cultural heritage preservation. Therefore, to ensure the effectiveness of this proposal is
necessary to update and adapt it to the mechanisms for the evaluation, protection, preservation, management and
conservation of Cultural Routes established by the CIIC in their specific Charter, and to the principles that guide
the management and monitoring of cultural property within the World Heritage Convention framework.
3.2 Inscription on the World Heritage List
As we have previously stressed, the transnational nature of Cultural Routes requires coordinated protection
mechanisms and supranational legal instruments, which, today, can only be promoted in the framework of the
World Heritage Convention.
In addition, the Convention also provides measures for monitoring the conservation status and management of
inscribed properties, which help to ensure that their use as resources for development is adequate to their preservation needs and their authenticity and integrity conditions.
Nevertheless, unfortunately, the process of monitoring of Cultural Routes must be started from scratch:
On the one hand, because the vast majority of them have not yet been inscribed on the World Heritage List; and
on the other hand, since the novelty and incipient formal assumption of this category has provoked that certain
segments of Cultural Routes are not recognized as such in the World Heritage List, nor evaluated according to
their specific values regarding their inscription and Periodic Reporting:
Among the aspects that most obviously have a bearing on the low presence of Cultural Routes in the World
Heritage List stand out the frequent assimilation of Cultural Routes and Cultural Landscapes concepts and the
inscription of segments belonging to Cultural Routes as serial properties and groups of buildings.
This is the case at the following properties:
79
o
o
o
The French section of the Camino de Santiago, listed in 1998 as a group of buildings and through an
approach similar to serial properties.
The Quebrada de Humahuaca (Argentina) inscribed as a cultural landscape in 2003, although belonging both to the Incan Empire Routes, or Qhapac an, and the Spanish Colonial Routes.
The Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev (Israel) and the Land of Frankincense (Oman), inscribed as cultural landscapes in 2005 and 2000, although both belong to the wider Trade and Caravans Routes in the Middle East.
Apart from the scarce presence of this category in the World Heritage List, the interpretations, or readings
that these Routes could offer have been stripped of their most revealing characteristics and significance, resulting
in the lack of recognition of their outstanding universal value and the impossibility of proposing their proper
promotion and joint management, which would mainly benefit the emerging countries involved.
The difficulties to inscribe Cultural Routes on the World Heritage List and to encourage their use as valuable
resources for sustainable development within this context are also tightly linked to the lack of guidelines for
adapting the criteria that all nominated properties must meet to the specific requirements of this category, especially concerning the following issues:
o
Its harmonious protection, conservation and management by all concerned States Parties. According
to paragraph 78 of the Operational Guidelines To be deemed of outstanding universal value, a property must also meet the conditions of integrity and/or authenticity and must have an adequate protection and management system to ensure its safeguarding. The International Charter on Cultural
Routes (ICOMOS CIIC, 2008) highlights that this requires the establishment of a system of coordinated legal measures and appropriate instruments that guarantee that the Route will be preserved and
its value and significance highlighted in a holistic fashion. However, achieving this uniform protection and management is extremely complex in transnational Cultural Routes, not only because of the
need to coordinate various administrative and legal systems, but also due to the absence of this concept in many national laws. A possible solution to overcome this problem (besides mentioned in art.
114 of the Operational Guidelines), that could be a model for future nominations, is the Protocol of
Intentions for the creation of a Coordinating Committee of the "The Mercury-Silver Binomial on the
Intercontinental Royal Road: Almaden, Idrija, and San Luis Potos. This Protocol was signed by
Spain, Slovenia and Mexico to ensure mutual cooperation in the protection, management and dissemination of this Cultural Route (Rodriguez 2009, pp. 149-165), whose nomination was unfortunately deferred, in our opinion precisely due to the absence of specific guidelines for assessing transnational candidatures.
The funding and evaluation of these candidatures, both as regards their drafting -obviously more
complex and expensive than in other categories-, and especially in regard to the on-site assessment to
be carried out by the Advisory Bodies to the World Heritage Committee in all sites proposed for inscription. In the case of transcontinental cultural routes the high cost of such missions logically increases, which binds to a deeper problem: the possible fracture of their unitary vision as a result of
the completion of the evaluation by different experts on each continent. This issue poses serious difficulties to assess the outstanding universal value of these properties, which lies in the Cultural
Routes as a whole and not necessarily in each of their parts.
4. FUTURE CHALLENGES, PROPOSALS AND CONCLUSIONS

The experiences and difficulties stressed in this paper clearly show the need to improve the level of knowledge
and awareness about Cultural Routes. To do so, the World Heritage Centre and the drafting of the Operational
Guidelines should:
o
Adopt the scientific concept, indicators and methodology of identification of Cultural Routes more
rigorously, according to the International Charter on Cultural Routes.
80
o
o
Deep on the principles that should guide the presentation, evaluation and management of these candidatures.
Develop new mechanisms and concepts able to overcome the difficulty to list and classify Cultural
Routes according to the norms and definitions provided by the World Heritage Convention up to
now (Bandarin & Labaldi, 2007).
Guide the States Parties and the Advisory Bodies on procedures for submission and evaluation of
such properties, establishing specific mechanisms to attend their peculiarities.
The implementation of these initiatives is certainly challenging, not only by the increasing number of candidatures of this kind but also because a convention based on international cooperation must encourage overcoming
of localisms, the understanding of history and the identity of places beyond the narrow realm of its frontiers
(Rodrguez 2009, p. 164).
Given the breadth and complexity of Cultural Routes, a practical approach to reinforce their inscription on the
World Heritage List would to prepare serial nominations, gradually including their several national segments to
reach the wholeness of transnational and transcontinental Cultural Routes: Although not formalizing its complete
international dimension within a single nomination, such an approach could at least progress in the search for a
methodology to ensure their effective gradual listing, which would ultimately contribute to spread awareness
about this properties and to prepare new candidatures on the basis of contrasted nominations.
This recognition would also allow testing models of joint management and promotion of Cultural Routes based
on indicators systems able to assess the impact of enhancement and tourist activities on them.
Finally, to begin this work, a fundamental previous task would be to revise segments of Cultural Routes inscribed on the World Heritage List under other categories, adapting their protection, conservation, dissemination,
management and supervision to their values and heritage dimension in the context of a Cultural Route (Martnez,
2010).
Noting that many World Heritage properties do not contain yet the statement of relevance and Outstanding
Universal Value (Lemaistre, 2009), and that listed properties should review these issues - as well as questions
dealing with management plans, monitoring and indicators- during the Periodic Reporting process, whose second cycle is currently underway, it would be of great interest starting a line of work in this regard.
REFERENCES
Bandarin, F. and Labaldi, S. (eds.) (2007) World Heritage - Challenges for the Millenium. Paris: UNESCO
World Heritage Centre.
ICOMOS CIIC (ed.) (2002) El patrimonio intangible y otros aspectos relativos a los itinerarios culturales.
Pamplona: Departamento de Educacin y Cultura, Direccin General de Cultura-Institucin de Viana.
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82
90 SECONDS FOR A BETTER FUTURE

AN EXAMPLE FOR EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT THROUGH ART
Konstantin Wenzel
Press and PR officer, Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, Germany
ABSTRACT
Almost 20 years have passed since the United Nations Conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. In this conference, 173 countries collectively adopted the Declaration on Environment and Development (the RioDeclaration) and the Agenda 21. By doing so, most governments of the world agreed to strive for sustainable
development a development, which meets the needs of the present without comprising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs. However, recent years have nevertheless not led to a global economy that
is more sustainable, with people living more sustainable lifestyles. Rather the opposite has happened and both
experts and governmental and other authorities have become increasingly aware of the immense challenge that
sustainable development poses to society. There has been a growing recognition of the fact that a prerequisite for
sustainable development is the involvement of society as a whole and that sustainable development needs to be a
bottom-up, rather than a top-down process.
This paper will argue that art projects, which are characterized by open participation and inter-subjective exchange can help to initiate and inspire for sustainable development by facilitating social communication processes, which are required for sustainable development and by doing so to contribute to an Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). An example will be given with the project 90 Seconds for a Better Future.
Keywords: sustainability, education, art projects
1. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
1.1. Communication Problems
The concept of sustainable development is, despite two decades of political efforts, not very popular in society.
For instance, in 2004 only 22 percent of the population in Germany was acquainted with the concept and this
awareness was mostly amongst those with a background in higher education (Michelsen 2005, p. 26). On the
other hand, the principles of sustainable development, such as fair trade, intergenerational equity or a careful use
of non-renewable resources, are being strongly supported by the majority of society. The general support of
these basic principles shows that there is a solid basis for a policy towards sustainable development in society,
but that there are also great communication problems (idem). Wehrspaun and Wehrspaun (2005, p. 51) argue
that this communication deficit is a major challenge for politics and public institutions and that so far only minor
achievements have been accomplished. The difficulties in communicating the principles of sustainable development have thus become the weak point of environmental politics.
Wehrspaun and Wehrspaun (ibid., p. 53) also maintain that an understanding of sustainability is needed that
sees it as a collective searching and learning process for cultural change. They hold that governments have failed
to inform the general public about the fundamental cultural changes that need to take place. To promote and
inspire for sustainable development, a complex social communication process is needed that encompasses the
entire society (Michelsen 2005, p. 26). Such a notion of sustainable development as a broad social communication process, which needs to be necessarily open from the beginning and that tries to incorporate divergent views
and opinions in an open search for a liveable future (Robinson 2004, pp. 380-381), is not only very attractive in
the context of this research paper, but makes also clear that participation is an essential prerequisite for sustainable development. But then, the following questions automatically arise: Where in societies are the spaces,
where debates and dialogues on sustainable development can take place? And how can the conditions be created
that allow people to come together and participate in a dialogue on sustainable and future-oriented development?
83
It is in this context that Wehrspaun and Schoembs (2002, p. 50) hold that modern societies might have become
too complex to allow for such a broad dialogue. They argue that, when dealing with modern societies, we are
dealing with complex socio-cultural situations. There is a tendency towards an increasing partition and specialization in different areas of work, as well as a growing secularization in society. Furthermore, a trend can be
identified that can be referred to as pluralization of all aspects of life, accompanied by the disappearance of old
class models and the division of society into a great variety of different social milieus. Furthermore, there is a
growing individualization of lifestyles and self-understandings that can be seen in the emergence of a great number of sub-cultures. These trends have contributed to an increased space for individual freedom and the importance of self-realization. On the other hand, modern societies lack a cultural centre that could function as a point
of reference for orientation of a highly pluralized society.
1.2. Jrgen Habermas Talking Cure
The issue of particular structural problems within society, which prevent the occurrence of a broad communication process is further elaborated on by German philosopher Jrgen Habermas. I would like to consider some of
his ideas in the context of communication for sustainable development, as this will help me to establish a connection between artistic activity and social communication processes.
In his 1962 book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (English translation, 1989), Habermas
describes the public sphere as being that sphere of social life where public opinion is formed (1989, p. 49). It is a
place where people can meet, have discussions and debate. For Habermas the ideal public sphere is one that is
open to all members and levels of society and treats all of them as equal. He criticises modern democracies for
lacking such genuine public spheres, as for him public spheres in modern democracies are public spheres in
appearance only, as they continue to be dominated by special interest associations, such as trade unions, companies or political parties. The result is that rational political debate by a public that shares common interests is
replaced by the non-transparent and state-regulated negotiation processes of groups that act only on behalf of
their factional interests. The emergence of mass media and advertisements, that are exploited by these pressure
groups, have helped to prevent broad rational debate, critical reflection and the establishment of a public sphere
that is genuinely inclusive (chapters V VI, pp. 141 235).
In his work On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction: Preliminary Studies in the Theory of Communicative Action (originally written in 1984 and translated to English in 2001), Jrgen Habermas strives to develop a theory
that aims to overcome the communication problems in modern society. Despite the communicative shortcomings that current society is obviously suffering from, Habermas shows himself very convinced of the importance of communicative rationality for the proper functioning of society. He asserts that human beings possess
certain communicative competences, which allow them to function as social actors within a society and sustain it
in a meaningful and ordered manner. He is convinced that society is constituted through inter-subjectivity (Edgar
2005, p. 139). Critical rationality can help members of society to recognize illegitimate forms of social organization (Edgar 2005, p. 153). That in many instances, inherent problems of a society are not recognized and communicated by its members, might be due to something that Habermas coins systematically distorted communication, which is to say that certain obstacles are in place in that society that prevent or disrupt communicative
competence (Edgar 2005, p. 156). It is thereby possible that many conflicts of a society are repressed, as their
articulation is systematically excluded from the official discourses.
It is in the context of systematically distorted communication that Habermas introduces his term ideal speech
situation to which members of a society can resort to solve their conflicts. For Habermas, in an ideal speech
situation all subjects have equal chances and are transparent to themselves and others as regards what they are
actually doing and saying. Such an idealized speech situation occurs in a sphere, where the material and social
factors of those partaking in communicative interaction are cast aside and only the superiority of good and logical argumentation matters (Edgar 154, p. 154). In such an ideal setting, where participants encounter each other
as equals, it is possible to create mutual understanding on the basis of the perceived universality of the process of
human communication.
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2. AESTHETICS AND INTER-SUBJECTIVITY

The artistic forms, which are considered in this paper, are not conventional ones such painting or sculpture. The
art practices that we are dealing with here are rather characterized by open participation and a process of exchange and dialogue. Such practices have been coined quite differently by art critics and theorists in their attempts to describe and define them. For instance, American curator and art manager Tom Finkelpearl (2001)
refers to such art practices as dialogue-based public art and asserts that such art forms have a notion of dialogue, of sharing power and creating through a process of social interaction (2001, p. 272). Indian born poststructuralist Homi K. Bhabha (1998) uses the term conversational art, Canadian writer and artist Bruce Barber
(1996) uses the term littoral art. French art critic Nicolas Bourriaud (2002) refers to such practices as relational
art. In his book Conversation Pieces Community and Communication in Modern Art (2004), Grant H. Kester
has coined these practices as dialogical art practices.
Such art practices differ from conventional art works, which are very discrete and fixed objects and the artists
function as their producers. They presuppose a new understanding of art, which breaks with the idea of art as
being the production of material objects that are then viewed by the viewer (a subject-object based relationship).
It is clear, as Grant H. Kester (2004, p. 10) explains, that also the function of the artist in such inter-subjective art
practice is different:
They (the artists) replace the conventional, banking style of art - in which the artist deposits an expressive
content into a physical object, to be withdrawn later by the viewer with a process of dialogue and collaboration. The emphasis is on the character of this interaction, not the physical or formal integrity of a given artefact
or the artists experience in producing it. The object-based artwork (with some exceptions) is produced entirely
by the artist and only subsequently offered to the viewer. As a result, the viewers response has no immediate
reciprocal effect on the constitution of the work. Further, the physical object remains essentially static. Dialogical projects, in contrast, unfold through a process of performative interaction.
This is also underlined by Nicolas Bourriaud (2002, p. 28):
The artist sets his sights more and more clearly on the relations that his work will create among his public,
and on the invention of models of sociability. This specific production determines not only an ideological and
practical arena, but new formal fields as well. By this, I mean that over and above the relational character intrinsic to the artwork, the figures of reference of the sphere of human relations have now become fully-fledged
artistic forms. Meetings, encounters, events, various types of collaboration between people, games, festivals,
and places of conviviality, in a word all manner of encounter and relational invention thus represent, today,
aesthetic objects likely to be looked at as such.
Bourriaud leaves no doubt that the central aim of such art practices lies in the creation of an arena of exchange,
specific moments of encounter, which is to say that the very form of such art practices is that of inter-subjectivity
(2002, p. 15).
According to Kester and Bourriaud, the quintessence of certain artistic practices is dialogue, the inter-human
exchanges. In such practices, the artists are not producers of material objects, but function as the providers of the
context in which this dialogue occurs. An aesthetic dialogue will transform its subjects and make them more
open. Dialogical art practices are thus characterized by two functions. The first function is the provision of a
more or less open space within contemporary culture: a space in which certain questions can be asked, certain
analyses articulated, that would not be accepted or tolerated elsewhere. Secondly, art ideally creates an aesthetic
experience, whereby the viewer would start to take into account the cumulative effect of current decisions and
actions on future events and generations and to think outside, or beyond, immediate self-interest (Kester
2004, p. 68). Artists might not be able to create ideal speech situations in precisely the manner in which they are
envisioned and theorized by Jrgen Habermas, but they can create situations that point in that direction. We will
now investigate an art project, where at least in my opinion this is the case.
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3. THE PROJECT 90 SECONDS FOR A BETTER FUTURE

3.1. Concept
The project 90 Seconds for a Better Future took place in the context of a festival with the name FeldForschungsFestival_Kultur (FieldResearchFestival_Culture/FFF_K), which took place in Berlin on May 14 and 15,
2010. The festival, which has been organised by the Akademie der Knste (Academy of the Arts) in cooperation
with other institutions, was based on the idea of a 30-hour non-stop cultural program in Berlins Mitte district.
More than 20 projects and 120 artists were involved in the festival (FFF_K, 2010). 90 Seconds for a Better Future has been conceptualized by Urban Dialogues and Zukunftsbau GmbH. Urban Dialogues describe themselves as a metropolitan art organization (urban dialogues, 2009). In its art projects that are mostly public and
participative, the organization experiments with the urban spaces of the city of Berlin, via context-related, artistic
interventions. Zukunftsbau Gmbh on the other hand is a not-for-profit organization that was established in 1986
and works with the aim of providing perspectives for disadvantaged young people and long-term unemployed
people by helping them to re-integrate into the job market through holistic and vocational training (Zukunftsbau,
2010).
90 Seconds for a Better Future consisted of two parts. The first part was made up by a colourful sculpture in
form of a wrapped dwelling made of recyclable materials situated on the roof garden of the Academy of Arts.
The idea was that two people who had not met before could arrange to meet for a 10 minute conversation on the
inside of that dwelling on a topic relating to sustainable development or climate change. Visitors to the festival
had then the possibility to listen to the conversation that took place in the dwelling through four headphones that
were provided inside of the Academy of Arts. The second part of the project consisted of two other colourful
igloo-like dwellings that were also made of recyclable material. These two dwellings were first situated in front
of the Museum of Medical History and were then transferred to the Museum of Natural History. These dwellings
functioned inside as mobile video-studios. Visitors to the festival and pedestrians were asked to give their individual statements on topics relating to sustainability, such as climate change, education, health care, financial
crisis or transportation. The artists invited the participant into the dwelling. They were then shown a small video
clip on a particular and related topic. Afterwards, they had 90 seconds to give their immediate individual response or opinion. This statement was recorded with a video camera and afterwards published on a website.
Through this, a platform was provided that gave normal, ordinary citizens the chance to express their ideas on
sustainable development and their wishes for the future. The artists thereby hoped to create creative forms of
dialogue that provided a departure for discussions in all strata of society and thereby to create a social and
demographic mood picture of fears and wishes regarding the future. Around 50 young pupils, instructed by professional artists, developed and realized this project. In the preparatory phase, they dealt with essential themes
and topics on sustainable development and produced a questionnaire concerning the future and also the video
spots that were then shown in the mobile-video stations (Horn, 2010).
Fig. 1: The conversation dwelling on the roof of the

Academy of Arts
Fig 2: Festival visitors inside of the Academy,

listening to a conservation of the conversation
dwelling
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3.2. The Conservation Dwelling

As mentioned earlier (see point 2.2), discourses in daily life are all too characterized by constraints and by particular power structures. In order to neutralize or minimize these constraints, Habermas argues for some discursive rules, which will allow for fair and open discourse:
Discourses take place in particular social contexts and are subject to limitations of time and space. Their participants are not Kant's intelligible characters, but real human beings driven by other motives in addition to the
one permitted motive of the search for truth. Topics and contributions have to be organized. The opening, adjournment, and resumption of discussions must be arranged. Because of all these factors, institutional measures
are needed to sufficiently neutralize empirical limitations and avoidable internal and external interference so
that the idealized conditions always already presupposed by participants in argumentation can at least be adequately approximated (1992, p. 92).
I would like to argue here that artistic and creative measures, rather than institutional ones, manage to bring
about some sort of neutralization that is required for the creation of an ideal speech situation. I am hereby very
1
much inspired by Kester (2004, p. 111), who remarks with reference to another art project : The artists were
able to create a physical and psychological frame around the boat talks, setting them apart from daily conversation and allowing the participants to view dialogue not as a tool but as a process of self transformation. Kester
claims that the participants of this project were enabled to take part in a dialogue without the constraints and
rules they are normally confined to:
The collaborators in this project were constantly called upon to speak in a definitive and contentious manner
in a public space (the courtroom, the editorial page, parliament) in which dialogue was viewed as a contest of
wills. But on the boat trips, they were able to speak, and listen, not as delegates and representatives charged
with defending a priori positions, but as individuals sharing a substantial collective knowledge of the subject at
hand; at the least, these external forces were considerably reduced by the demand for self reflexive attention
created by the ritual and isolation of the boat itself (Kester 2004, pp. 110 111).
2
According to Habermas' theory, discourses transform those that participate in them . According to Kester
(ibid., p. 110), this self-transformation can lead to 'reflexive distancing'. As our participation in discourse necessitates us to articulate our own views more systematically and clearly, we are enabled to see and understand
them better and therefore to be more self-aware and critical. Additionally, discourses will lead us towards internalizing the responses of others and to perceive us from their perspective. Or, as Warren (1995, p. 169) puts it,
when describing this transformation theory as the view that democratic experiences produce better people.
I am convinced that the honeycomb dwelling that was built by the artists of Urban Dialogues and Zukunftsbau
GmbH also functioned in that manner. By creating such an unusual surrounding for a discussion that was in the
same time an aesthetic experience, the artists were able to create a changed space that was situated outside of the
daily environment and therefore allowed the participants to leave their old roles and perspectives and to take part
in a conversation on sustainable development that was characterized by more openness and the willingness to
think more creatively about the future. Suzi Gablik (1991, p. 161) writes about another art project that completely matches the conversation dwelling of 90 Seconds for a Better Future:
The work provides a temporary community where people can commune with others about issues not freely
discussed in daily life. Telling these stories breaks the silence, breaks the spell-binding business of pretending
everythings normal, breaks the repression of what we know is happening to our world.
1 The art project boat trips took place in Switzerland. It involved the idea that politicians, journalists, sex workers and activists
were invited to attend a boat cruise on Lake Zurich to discuss the problem of female drug addicts in Zurich that had turned to prostitution (for further information see Kester 2004, pp. 1 3).
2 Mark E. Warren describes this thesis of self-transformation (1995). He writes on the effect on the participants: Democratic
discourse develops the autonomy of participants, that is, their capacities to engage in critical examination of self and others, engage
in reasoning processes, and arrive at judgments they can defend in argument (p. 172).
87
Another important aspect of this honeycomb dwelling also played the role of listening. As outlined above, it
was possible to overhear the discussions that took place in the dwelling, by using one of the headphones that
were provided inside the Academy. One could sit down and listen to the conversation and at the same time look
out of the window, where one was able to see the conversation dwelling, where the discussion was actually taking place. This created a creative tension, because one was forced to think about the two people that were sitting
in the dwelling. Through this process of imagining the 'other', one was brought to leave one's own position for
some time and to take up a different perspective. By involving the aspect of listening, the artists of Urban Dialogues and Zukunftsbau GmbH enhanced the public sphere of their honeycomb dwelling with an additional
dimension that highlights the importance of active listening a prerequisite for any successful dialogue on
sustainable development.
3.3. The Mobile-Video Stations
Fig. 3: The two Mobile Video Cottages in front of the

Museum of Medical History
Fig. 4: Two festival visitors watching a video on a

screen on one of the dwellings
As already outlined above, the two other dwellings that appeared during the duration of the festival in front of
the Museum for Medical History and the Museum for Natural History, functioned as mobile-video stations.
Every visitor to the festival was invited to come inside to record their statement on a topic relating to sustainable
development. The visitor was thereby shown a short video, on topics as diverse as climate change, health care,
alternative ways of transportation, the world financial crisis and so forth. Some parts of the videos consisted of
scenes that young people had enacted themselves to illustrate the issues. These video clips were produced by
youngsters with the help of professional artists and provided the viewer with some rough information about the
topic. At the end of the video clip, the viewer was invited to give their own statement for the duration of 90 seconds.
What matters in the context of this thesis is once again the participative character of this concept. The mobile
video stations were placed in public urban space and people were given the chance to articulate their wishes and
concerns about the future. What made this project interesting was not only its way of involving ordinary people,
but also the way it visualized their ideas in the aftermaths. As democracy is also always a question of visibility,
it is important to give a voice to citizens that are normally not heard and to provide a platform for ideas that are
normally not articulated. This is exactly what 90 Seconds for a Better Future did. All the recorded statements
were published on the website of the project (www.90sec.net). If one enters this website, one can watch all the
video statements that were recorded during the festival period. Also the festival visitors that participated in the
project can watch their own statements on that site and also what others had to say on the same topic. This can
provide them with the experience that there are others who might experience the issues in similar ways. This
experience of shared feelings can be helpful to overcome a feeling of cynicism and hopelessness and might be a
first step towards self-empowerment.
Also for people that have not been involved in the project directly, the watching of the video statements can be
an inspiring experience, as one gets to listen to a great variety of different concerns and ideas on sustainable
development and thereby to think about the future and also current problems from new and unusual perspectives.
88
The general notion that one gets by watching these statements is one that highlights a growing awareness of
individual responsibility and the impact that our own actions and behaviour have on the world. It is an insight
into the necessity that things cannot remain the way they are and that changes in society need to occur and that
people thereby need to learn to act less egoistically and to relate to one another in new and unconventional ways.
4. EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
In the end of 2002, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the UN Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development 2005-2014 (DESD) and designated UNESCO as the lead agency to promote
and implement the decade. The United Nations thereby emphasized once more the central importance of education for sustainable development. As Charles Hopkins and Rosalyn McKeown comment in their essay Education for Sustainable Development: an International Perspective (2002, p. 13) on the centrality of education:
Education is an essential tool for achieving sustainability. People around the world recognize that current
economic development trends are not sustainable and that public awareness, education and training are key to
moving society toward sustainability.
If one takes the goal of sustainable development seriously, which is to achieve a development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs and which
consists in the task to create ways and rules of society that are environmentally, economically and socially sustainable through their structure, production and consumption, then ESD has the goal to provide people with the
knowledge and also the set of skills that will enable them to address environment and development issues
(UNCED 1992a, p. 320), to develop environmental and ethical awareness, values and attitudes, skills and
behaviour consistent with sustainable development and for effective public participation in decision-making
(idem) and most importantly to contribute as members of society to the necessary changes of society.
Charles Hopkins and Rosalyn McKeown (2002, p. 19) state that:
To be successful, ESD, like all good education, must blend knowledge and skills. ESD must provide practical
skills that will enable people to continue learning after they leave school, secure sustainable livelihoods, and
live sustainable lives.
I am convinced that projects such as 90 Seconds for a Better Future can help to successfully enhance the ability
of humans to strive for sustainable development. If one is brought to formulate her/his opinion in the context of a
discussion or a dialogue, then one can practice not only her/his communication skills and ability to deliver ones
point of view more clearly, but also to become more self-reflexive and critical towards ones own opinion, as
one is also brought to listen to other opinions and arguments that might even contest ones own point of view
and hence one is brought to improve ones own argumentation. This becomes even more relevant in the context
of ESD when the topics that one is brought to discuss concern issues that are directly relevant for sustainable
development, as has been the case in 90 Seconds for a Better Future.
90 Seconds for a Better Future also brought people to think actively about the future. They were asked to formulate their wishes, fears and ideas about a sustainable development and to think why the current development
of society is not sustainable. Such an ability to think ahead is vital for members of a society that wishes to
change its direction, as it enables these citizens not only to reflect critically about their current patterns of production and behaviour, but also to consider alternatives for them. Once people become aware of these sustainability issues and begin to envision alternative choices, they have taken the first step towards action. In addition,
people that are brought to think about the reasons why current society is not sustainable and why a lot of cultural
and natural diversity on this planet is disappearing, easily begin to wonder and reflect upon the values that are
currently in place in society. They begin to ask themselves if there is not a set of alternative values that makes
their lives more liveable and valuable - namely values such as health, happiness and solidarity and possibly start
to wonder, this at least is the wish of the author, whether their quality of life is not more determined by aspects
such as living in a healthy environment, having enough leisure time and the prospect of a liveable planet to bequeath to their children. The ability to connect with other people, to feel empathy with them and to listen to their
89
point of view is also enhanced through participation in dialogical and inter-subjective art projects. Such a notion
of self-transparency that leads the participant to think, move and act beyond direct and immediate self-interest is
also a vital prerequisite for sustainable development, as it will help to consider more strongly equity within and
across generations and to act accordingly.
5. CONCLUSION
It is hoped that these argumentations have sufficiently shown that 90 Seconds for a Better Future is an innovative art project, whose conception might prove fruit-bearing in the context of curricula development for ESD.
This paper has argued that art projects that involve people in aesthetic dialogue can help to develop in participants the communicative competences that they require to engage in dialogue on sustainable development and to
contribute to social change in such a manner that society can thereby become more sustainable. Artists can
thereby function as the context providers that provide the spaces for sociability apart from daily routines where
people are more open to think about new ways of how to do things and to relate to other human beings and the
environment.
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Barber, B. (1996) The Art of Giving, FUSE Magazine, 19 (2), pp. 21 -28.
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Contemporary Art. Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Bourriaud, N. (2002) Relational Aesthetics. Paris: Les Presses du rel.
Edgar, A. (2005) The Philosophy of Habermas. Chesham: Acumen Publishing.
Feldforschungsfestival_Kultur/FFF_K
(2010)
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Gablik, S. (1991) The Reenchantment of Art. New York: Thames and Hudson.
Habermas, J. (1962) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (trans. Burger, T. and Lawrence, F.
1989). Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Habermas, J. (1992) Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (trans. Lenhardt, C. and Nicholson, S.
W.). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Habermas, J. (1996) Die Einbeziehung des Anderen Studien zur politischen Theorie. Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp Verlag.
Habermas, J. (2001) On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction: Preliminary Studies in the Theory of Communicative Action (trans. Pensky, M.). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Hopkins, C. and McKeown, R. (2002) Education for Sustainable Development: An International Perspective, in:
Tilbury, D. et al Education and Sustainability: Responding to the Global Challenge. Gland/Cambridge:
IUCN.
Horn, S. (2010) Statements about the project 90 seconds for a better future during press conference. 12 May.
Kester, G. H. (2004) Conversation Pieces Community and Communication in Modern Art. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Michelsen, G. and Godemann, J. (2005) Handbuch Nachhaltigkeitskommunikation Grundlagen und Praxis.
Mnchen: oekom.
Robinson, J. (2004) Squaring the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable development, Ecological
Economics, 48, pp. 369 384.
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UNCED (1992a) United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. Agenda 21.
UNCEP (1992b) United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. Rio Declaration on Environment and Development.
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Warren, M. E. (1995): The Self in Discursive Democracy, in: White, S. K. The Cambridge Companion to
Habermas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wehrspaun, M. and Schoemps, H. (2002) Schwierigkeiten bei der Kommunikation von Nachhaltigkeit, in: Kurt,
H. and Wagner, B. Kultur Kunst Nachhaltigkeit: Die Bedeutung von Kultur fr das Leitbild Nachhaltige Entwicklung. Essen: Klartext Verlag.
Wehrspaun, M. and Wehrspaun, C. (2005) Nachhaltigkeitskommunikation als politisches Instrument: Alte Defizite und neue Potentiale, in: Michelsen, G. and Godemann, J. Handbuch Nachhaltigkeitskommunikation
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Cottbus, Germany, April 2013

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Henry Crescini & Katharina Sandberg (eds.

WORLD HERITAGE AND SUSTAINABLE

Henry Crescini & Katharina Sandberg (eds.)

FOREWORD BY THE EDITORS

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SESSION 1 CONSERVATION AND

CONSERVATION OF HERITAGE AND SUSTAINABLE

Keywords: Integrated conservation, sustainable development, urban conservation, urban development

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THE INTERVENTION STRATEGY

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UNESCO Amman Office, Jordan

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MANAGING CHANGE OF TRADITIONAL CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

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THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE WITH HAYRACKS IN

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Figure 1: Typology of hayracks; Drawing: Ivan Stani

Fig. 2: Toplar (double single-roofed hayrack)

Figure 3: Sorica Cultural Landscape with hayracks

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LOSS OF FUNCTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY

Fig. 4: Use of the hayrack, source: Janez Vajkard Valvasor:

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Fig. 6: Studor Cultural Landscape

THE FUTURE OF CULTURAL LANDSCAPES WITH HAYRACKS

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Fig. 7: Cerknica Cultural Landscape

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o prostorski strategiji Slovenije (2004). [Online] Available from:

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Smernice za celostno ohranjanje dediinske kulturne krajine (2005). [Online] Available

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SESSION 2 CLIMATE CHANGE

WORLD HERITAGE NATURAL SITES IN ALBERTA, CANADA:

Chair, Asia Pacific Management and Institute of Asia Pacific Studies,

MacEwan School of Business, Grant MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

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SECTION 2: PARKS CANADA MANAGEMENT APPROACH, THEORY & PRACTICE

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The relevance of the UNESCO designation on National Park management

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Theme 2 Understanding of Climate Change and the role of the Park

Climate change has the potential for eco-system wide consequences.

Theme 3 Approach to managing in the context of climate change

Theme 4 Actions to confront climate change challenges

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THREATS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS TO CONSERVATION

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