World Heritage Cultural Landscapes

Abstract

The concept of cultural landscapes has a long and varied lineage, including antecedents in geography and ecomuseums, and can be applied at all scales. In the 1990s, the World Heritage Committee adopted cultural landscapes as an additional category of property as part of its strategy to broaden the scope of World Heritage listings. By July 2006, there were 53 properties inscribed on the World Heritage List and officially recognised as being cultural landscapes. Such recognition is an acknowledgement of the importance of human–environment interactions, especially those of a more traditional type. Not surprisingly, cultural landscapes have their own particular management issues, as well as sharing others with World Heritage properties in general. These properties, however, also present many opportunities to increase people’s understanding of both cultural and environmental values important to the future of humankind on a global level.