The Protected Landscape Approach - Centre for Mediterranean ...

3. World Heritage Cultural Landscapes: a global
perspective
Mechtild Rössler
Introduction
Cultural landscapes are at the interface between nature and culture, tangible and intangible
heritage, biological and cultural diversity; they represent a tightly woven net of relationships
that are the essence of culture and people’s identity. Cultural landscapes are a centrepiece of
protected areas in a larger ecosystem context, and they are a symbol of the growing recognition
of the intrinsic links between communities and their past heritage, and between humankind and
its natural environment.
World Heritage cultural landscapes are sites that are recognised and protected under the
UNESCO World Heritage Convention for the outstanding value of the interaction between
people and their environment. This paper looks at these exceptional sites in a global context and
presents selected case studies from different regions of the world illustrating their value and the
important role they play in a larger context of landscape linkages. These linkages include other
protected areas and conservation programmes, including Biosphere Reserves, IUCN Category
V protected landscapes and seascapes (see Phillips in this volume), and Category VI sites (see
Maretti in this volume). Considering the rapid social and economic changes, degradation and
unregulated development that affect these areas, a number of challenges need to be addressed in
holistic and interdisciplinary conservation approaches.
The Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage
(generally referred to as the World Heritage Convention), adopted by the General Conference
of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1972,
establishes a unique international instrument that recognises and protects both the cultural and
natural heritage of outstanding universal value. The World Heritage Convention’s definition of
heritage provides an innovative and powerful opportunity for the protection of cultural
landscapes as “combined works of nature and man”. 1 The Convention not only embodies
tangible and intangible values for both natural and cultural heritage, it also acknowledges
traditional management systems, customary laws and long-established customary techniques
and knowledge as means for protecting heritage. Through these traditional protection systems,
World Heritage sites also contribute to and illustrate sustainable local and regional de -
velopment.
Today, there are 178 States Parties that are signatories to the Convention and 754 (582
cultural, 149 natural and 23 mixed) properties from a total of 129 countries included on the
World Heritage List. Thus the Convention is a key international instrument and catalyst for
heritage conservation and plays an important role in promoting the recognition and manage -
ment of heritage in many regions of the world. The landmark decision in 1992 to encompass
1
Article 1 of the Convention, which was used to introduce the cultural landscape concept into the
Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention.
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