Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The recognition of other approaches, attitudes and interests in heritage is not just
isolated to external stakeholders. One of the most important aspects of a stakeholder
approach to heritage management is that heritage managers also need to explicitly
recognise their own values and the way in which this affects the manner in which they
define, interpret and manage heritage.
Economic values are but one set of values surrounding the conservation of 'the things
we want to keep'. Historically, the attention of public sector heritage managers has been
focused on environmental and cultural values and have only a poorly developed
understanding of the significance of economic values. Possibly, this is a consequence of
their training and education in which physical conservation and concentration on heritage
itself has ignored the broader context within which heritage occurs. It is possibly also a
reflection of the organisation cultures within which heritage management occurs.
However, in recent years a substantial set of new pressures has begun to affect the
manner in which heritage management and conservation operates:
• demands for smaller government concentrating on 'core' activities
• the development of a user-pays philosophy
• recognition of the significance of the tourism dollar for business and regional
development
• the emergence of public-private partnership
• greater limitations on government expenditure.
From the new context within which heritage conservation occurs several significant
principles can be identified which McMillan (1997) has labelled somewhat provocatively
as the 'undeniable truths' regarding heritage conservation. Several principles can be
identified.
•
That t
h
e choice for heritage conservation has both a value and a cost.
While much heritage literature and the activities of heritage groups have focused
on the values of heritage, relatively little attention has been given to the costs. As
McMillan (1997:4) recognised, 'there is a financial cost in pursuing heritage
conservation. Someone has to pay that cost'.
The community exercises choices regarding the quality and nature of heritage
conservation. These decisions however, are not without cost. Heritage
regulations, rightly, provide the opportunity to introduce a range of controls over
public and private properties. These stem from 'freezing' a property, through
inclusion on the National estate, to permitting substantial alteration and change
while conserving identified important elements.
(McMillan 1997:3)
•
In the
longer term viability means commercial rates of return.
If capital cannot be applied to achieve a return on equivalent applications—the
opportunity cost of heritage conservation, then in the long term, support for
conservation of a particular site by the public and/or private sectors will dwindle
