Needle in a Haystack? Cultural Heritage Resources in Designated Nature Environments of Southern Africa

Abstract

Wildlife and wilderness environments currently dominate conservation management models in southern Africa. Natural heritage management models are often directly adopted, rather than adapted, into the management and conservation of cultural heritage resources. This does not enable sustainable conservation of cultural heritage. In most parts of southern Africa, the adoption is influenced by the need for a diversified tourism product. However, this approach is a reaction to economic benefit, and as such poses a challenge for the sustainable development of African cultural heritage. This chapter highlights and discusses factors that lead to this scenario within a southern African context, and goes further to analyze how African cultural heritage resource managers can address this by pursuing strategies that are unique to cultural heritage resources. The chapter discusses in particular the nature-nurture divide in its historical and modern context, and its implications for contemporary cultural heritage conservation and management