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Many historical urban cultural landscapes are suffering the effect of rapid urban economic development. This paper integrally relates historical sites in dispersed and point-shape distributions in cities and proposes strategies and methods for constructing urban linear cultural landscapes. As such, our work aims to form urban cultural landscape communities with an organic and linear distribution. The urban linear cultural landscape is not only an important means for integrally protecting and utilizing historical sites in historical cities but is also a special type of urban cultural landscape. The urban linear cultural landscape’s extensive application can enrich the theory of cultural landscape and protection methods of urban cultural heritage.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and discuss the application of buffer zones as an urban landscape heritage management tool, using Rio de Janeiro as the main case study, in order to inform urban regulation around the sites inscribed as World Heritage Cultural Landscape and disclose its relevance to link urban planning, cultural heritage management and sustainable development.

The methodological approach encompasses: conceptual framework – contextualization of heritage protection theory, focusing on landscape protection and buffer zones; discussion: cross-national comparative overview of buffer zones conceptual framework on the international heritage protection policy; historical background and spatial analysis, through GIS mapping, of local heritage protection policy, tracing its evolution through time; examination of prospects and challenges of this management tool, including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, based on previous international, local experiences on natural and cultural heritage protection; and gathering of strategies for the implementation of buffer zones in local landscape management.

Core heritage sites and their buffer zones are integrated elements and act together to protect landscape significance and dynamic integrity (DI). In Rio de Janeiro, beyond the function of a caution zone, other important functions of landscape heritage buffer zones are to guarantee spatial and social connections of the protected sites, as well as the visual relationship between them and other significant urban landscape features. Strategies for the implementation of buffer zones in local landscape management should address the articulation of landscape protection governance; the conservation of visual, functional and structural identity quality and legibility and the monitoring of DI.

The methodology approach adopted in this study may also benefit from and foster further investigations, which could include the elaboration of a landscape management plan and an impact assessment inventory, refining the scale of study to the level of local watersheds, and a deeper examination of the popular cultural imprints within the World Heritage property buffer zone.

Strategies to the implementation of the Carioca Landscapes buffer zone include a gradation of protection and control of impacts according to the distance of the core sites (in the form of rings or layers). The buffer zone should help to preserve the character, significance, and DI of the protected sites and guarantee their spatial and social connections, as well as the visual and functional relationship between them and between other significant landscape features of the city. All those management strategies should be founded on the elaboration of a broad urban landscape management plan with the local society involvement.

In Rio de Janeiro’s specific case, bridging the vision of culture and nature as opposite poles and, transcending the social segregation through community involvement should certainly be among the main guiding principles to the application of buffer zones for supporting landscape sustainability. Therefore, the establishment of regulation criteria and parameters within the limits of the buffer zone must acknowledge that the (urban) landscape should carefully articulate the different social agent visions and local urban contexts.

The main contribution of this paper is to gather different visions of the role of buffer zones and disclose possibilities of conciliation between theory and practice concerning landscape protection, arguing for gathering natural and cultural heritage policies into the urban planning processes. Harnessed together, the suggested buffer zone implementation strategies may provide a proactive approach to Rio’s urban landscape protection and contribute to foster landscape sustainability and resilience. Although based on a specific case study, the adopted methodological approach may be transferable, with some adjustments, to other World Heritage properties, especially those located in urban areas under development pressures.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the basis for a management agenda for the Tolima Coffee Cultural Landscape (CCLT) in Colombia. To this end, a delimitation model has been developed. However, the approach taken to institute the agenda of the CCLT, as a comprehensive academic and policy-based theme, is based on the formulation of a social agenda that supports its construction.

A theoretical framework is proposed that addresses the sociocultural complexities of the Tolima cultural landscape. This is based on an ethnohistorical approach that elucidates the development of this landscape as a collective construction of pre-Hispanic origin. Therefore, this investigation has been perceived through the theoretical and conceptual framework of the cultural landscape concept and the unique historical and cultural phenomenon that help to define all landscapes. More specifically, the authors have demonstrated the close links that exist between nature and culture, requiring increasingly accurate methods in order to adapt the landscape definition to the specific Latin American context, rather than adhering to the institutional framework proposed by UNESCO.

The assessment methods currently in use support the interpretation of a set of qualitative and quantitative attributes inherent to the Tolima region. However, additional methods still remain similar to those of the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia (CCLC) that has already been inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List. The CCLC is considered to be a representative landscape—or “type” landscape—that “mirrors” the CCLT. Taken as a whole, this theoretical construction combined with the official designation allows local communities to understand the spatial phenomena of the CCLT. This will have the effect of enabling communities at all levels, from local government to landholders and farmers, to authorize its existence and allow for its continuing development and governance. The additional approval for further academic research, combined with the totality of these elements, also has the added effect of empowering communities, their economic future and their cultural interests.

The management agenda that the authors are proposing may form the beginning of regional policy initiatives that reflect a positive strategy for highlighting the value of cultural heritage, thereby ensuring the protection of cultural properties and landscapes and allowing for a more sustainable environment and livelihood for its occupants.

A vital testimony of human presence landscape is recognised and protected by international, national and local documents as an identity resource and one of the factors that contribute to the identity building processes (UNESCO, 1994; European Landscape Convention, 2000). The validation of landscape as cultural heritage presents not only new challenges but also opportunities for the heritage sector. In fact, a landscape plays a dual role: as part of the cultural heritage, which has to be preserved for its values, and as a “living” site, where individuals and groups live and work. This implies that the acknowledgement of its cultural significance should not be exclusively determined on the basis of discipline-driven frameworks and benchmarks but should rather be the result of a shared awareness within local communities.

Through the analysis of the vineyard landscape of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato (Italy), the author discusses how the selection of a World Heritage site driven by “outstanding universal values” risks presenting a top-down approach to heritage processes.

In this article, the author explores how people living in this cultural landscape articulate their understandings of heritage values, and she addresses issues concerning their participation in decision-making processes, questioning whose values and meanings do the “outstanding universal value” legitimise or not.

What the author argues is that the World Heritage listing's focus on extraordinary values risks constructing heritage around a consensus that privileges only some actors, whose voices and stories enliven the prestige of the wine production of this cultural landscape, omitting other values, memories and practices from the identity and meaning making processes. Does the identification and representation processes validated through World Heritage status capture how a landscape is understood by individuals and groups living within it? If not, how do these differences affect people's engagement? A further point of discussion is whether individuals and groups want to be engaged in decision-making processes and on which terms.

To counteract processes of landscape deterioration, marginalisation and loss of cultural heritage due to rural restructuring of farming in late-modern Norwegian society, an agricultural landscape scheme started up in 2009. The purpose of this paper is to examine the way this recently introduced strategy of directing particular resources to a group of selected agricultural landscapes contributes in instigating integrated landscape management and to gain insight in the role cultural heritage play.

The authors ask how potential conflicts between local interpretations of cultural heritage and the assessments made by authoritative heritage managers are expressed in the initial planning documents.

While the reasoning and selection of the two areas are strongly influenced by the authoritative heritage discourse, the agricultural landscape scheme is nonetheless open to local adaptations and adjustments, and the two plans vary both in form and contents due to the major stress put on active involvement of farmers to render long-term management feasible.

Examination of the role cultural heritage plays is part of a larger research project where problems related to biodiversity, legal implication and public participation are dealt with separately.

The study will provide important results for future adjustments and potential enlargement and has transfer value to conservation schemes in other European countries.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest an approach to cultural heritage management as an inhabited cultural landscape in a context of urban planning.

The paper provides a review of academic literature on the topic of cultural heritage conservation.

This paper supports an approach to management of cultural heritage as a cultural landscape, defining it as a multivalent social phenomenon with tangible and intangible dimensions, spatial, and temporal scales. The cultural landscape approach continues the discourse on heritage values and emphasises the importance of recognition of social value and hence a wider stakeholder participation in the process of heritage management. This approach allows enhancing both intangible and tangible dimensions of cultural heritage and, therefore, encourages a more inclusive consideration of diverse cultural heritage values (encompassing social and environmental categories, e.g. well-being, health).

The proposed cultural landscape approach to heritage management, as a culturally significant, inhabited, and changing landscape, enables a more comprehensive view on the interrelations of cultural heritage with other social and environmental categories and enhances the understanding of different values of cultural heritage. This approach could be particularly useful for strategic development at city planning level and in large construction or infrastructural projects.

Natural resource extraction is perceived as a destructive aspect of human culture. This characterization is widespread, despite the activity having shaped relationships between communities and their environment to create entire sets of cultural values and expressions through settlement patterns, traditional skills and practices, innovation and technology, intangible cultural expressions, local economies and more. The cultural dimensions of natural resource extraction landscapes were discussed at the ICOMOS ADCOM Annual Symposium in La Plata, Argentina, in December 2018. The workshop included experts in cultural landscapes, sustainability, industrial archaeology and industrial heritage. This paper reports on these issues and deliberations focusing on World Heritage cultural landscapes of extraction.

The report considers a broad survey of the World Heritage List and sites on national Tentative Lists to identify those related to natural extraction sites and distinguishing between categories of relict vs. living, and between the types of natural resources being extracted.

The conclusion is that the World Heritage Committee has yet to address the living value of natural resource extraction. Furthermore, the workshop attendants concluded that there is a pressing need to do so in light of the type, nature and sustainability of these sites. As the source of materials for many outstanding sites on the World Heritage List and the decreasing availability of some resources, the question requires consideration to ensure the sustainable use and livelihood of communities.

The limitations are set by the general terms of the survey and the limited engagement of knowledgeable individuals.

The practical implications are related to guidance to review and analyse potential living cultural landscapes related to natural resource extraction.

There is no general discussion on this topic yet amongst professionals. The initiative of the workshop identified that gap and its related necessity to provide guidance.

Cultural landscapes are no more considered only as territories of cultural interest but also as integrated systems of cultural, social, and economic values. The adjustment of this consideration with the modern paradigms of collective governance and management necessitates investigations on challenges of management of cultural landscapes for valorizing their resources toward sustainable development. In this framework, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the state of participatory governance and management in cultural landscapes, focusing on the case of Takht-e Soleyman World Heritage Site (WHS) in Iran.

The paper presents the results of a study based on a theoretical analysis, accompanied by in-depth interviews with the key actors in the cultural heritage governance and management sectors, and large-scale surveys of the local population through the circulation of questionnaires.

This paper debates the reasons behind and the way forward to make governance and management approaches consistent with international theories and national policies. The analysis focuses on rural cultural landscapes and accordingly the Takht-e Soleyman WHS is deeply investigated.

The policies for participatory governance and management of rural cultural landscapes have been raised in the literature. However, more attention has to be paid to the strategies and mechanisms based on local features for their implementation. The study detailed in this paper makes a contribution to the debate on the design and implementation of participatory governance and management systems in this field by examining the actual extent of successful implementation of theoretical values and national policies in the case of Takht-e Soleyman WHS.

The paper introduces a lesser-known cultural landscape along the sacred Bhagirathi-Hooghly river in the Indian city of Kolkata, with particular reference to its built and natural heritage. The narratives cover the cultural and ecological qualities of the unique “ghat-scape” (riverfront pavilions with steps descending into the river) and their contemporary urban challenges. It also explores the suitability of the Historic Cultural Landscape (HCL) tools, or their adapted versions, in managing this exceptional landscape.

The paper is structured under six discrete sections covering the inventory and assessment, interpretation and evaluation and possible roadmap for the ecological restoration of the riverfront cultural landscape. Primary and secondary studies were conducted to understand the related challenges and opportunities. The authors then examined the application of the HCL tools based on a conceptual framework and identified the alternative approaches suitable for its restoration. Finally, a successfully restored ghat environ is taken as a model and reviewed against the most potent approach in addressing the eco-cultural criticalities.

The paper argues in favour of a paradigm shift from riverfront “development” to riverfront “restoration” with particular emphasis on the ghat-architecture. Three eco-cultural restoration alternatives were derived out of the HCL principles. A practical case study found that a community-led approach positively influences restorative actions, cultural heritage management and long-term sustainability.

The HCL tools comprising planning, regulatory systems, financial designs and community engagement have been explored for the first time in the context of the unique riverfront “ghatscape” of Kolkata. An under-discussed topic, it has been brought to the centre stage to gain new insights into the Indian cultural landscape heritage. An HCL-based new approach in their management came forth through a review of a successful case study.

In 2011, UNESCO recommended the application of a value-based landscape approach to cultural heritage conservation. In this framework, culture in its manifold expressions is considered as an embrace for the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable development. There is a need to unveil the different cultural values generated from the interaction between people and their environment since these values will help cities maintain their unique identity and integrity. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey method intended to assess the range of cultural values attributed by people to the historic urban landscape (HUL).

This paper is an experimental enquiry that combines a qualitative and a quantitative approach. It is designed to distinguish the different interpretations and outlooks of people to the HUL. It integrates landscape preference studies with investigation on representative images of the city and assesses these in relation to activities, feelings, and valued aspects of landscapes.

The main finding is that the most preferred scenes of the city are not the ones that best represent the city. Results exposed two sides of the HUL and related heritage values. The first is associated with the scenic beauty of the landscape and its aesthetic values, while the second is reflected in ordinary landscapes and everyday practices.

This paper provides an insight into the different interpretations and meanings of the HUL throughout the city. It provides an empirical evidence that ordinary landscapes are of great heritage value as they surpass all aspects of human environmental interaction to contribute to the image that societies make of themselves.