Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations launched a global partnership initiative for the conservation and adaptive management of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) in 2002. China is one of the first countries that responded to the GIAHS initiative, witnessed by the designation of Qingtian Rice-Fish Culture by FAO in June 2005. It is also the first country t...

The Built Heritage in Southeast Asia: Conservation Education and Training Initiative (SEAI) aims to respond to three significant, regional conservation needs identified as a result of an assessment conducted by the GCI between 2004 and 2006. This study, undertaken in cooperation with conservation practitioners and institutions in Southeast Asia, identified the following priorities for the regio...

CAHRISMA “Conservation of the Acoustical Heritage by the Revival and Identification of Sinan’s Mosque’s Acoustics”, research project carried on within the Fifth Framework INCO-MED Programme of the European Commission, is designed by the goal to innovate the acoustical heritage concept in the field of architectural conservation. The main objectives of this research are identification, revival an...

A UNESCO project, Support for the Preparation for the World Heritage Serial Nomination of the Silk Roads in South Asia, afforded the opportunity to research evidence for Silk Roads exchange in South Asia. The first part of the paper explores the challenges of archaeology in the Kingdom of Bhutan, located on the southern slopes of the eastern Himalayas. GIS-based approaches to model earlier sett...

Physical and intellectual access to heritage is shaped by conservation through a longterm, cyclic and symbiotic relationship of representation and intervention (or lack of it). This informs future use and representation. Value (which may be assigned for different reasons) makes heritage. All heritage is valued for varied reasons. Some argue that heritage has inherent value; this is not covered ...

Over recent decades, urban conservation has become an important strategy to improve urban competitiveness in the global economy. Insufficient attention has been paid to how urban conservation is governed and funded. Drawing on Lijiang Ancient Town, a Chinese World Heritage city, this study examines the power structure and funding systems of urban conservation, how social groups negotiate with t...

Cultural heritage buildings were typically built without considering seismic action and are therefore potentially susceptible to earthquake damage. The performance states and protection objectives developed for ordinary buildings are not directly applicable since they do not address the cultural importance of the heritage buildings. This paper proposes a seismic conservation strategy for cultur...

In recent years the cultural landscape has become an important issue for cultural heritages throughout the world. It represents the "combined works of nature and of man" designated in Article 1 of the World Heritage Convention. When a landscape has a cultural heritage value, important features should be marked and mapped through the delimitation of a conservation area, which may be essential fo...

Our cultural heritage derives from the development and diversifi cation of human cultures and abilities. Scientifi c investigation of cultural heritage has several important aims: (1) increasing our knowledge and understanding of the tangible heritage; (2) assembling information, including physical evidence, in order to add cultural value to the heritage, including the “intangible” values; and ...