Heritage and the Environment

Abstract This chapter focuses on the relationship between heritage and sustainable development, and more broadly the environment, particularly in the ways in which sustainable development can exclude communities from their own heritage. It shows how ‘natural’ heritage has a much more pervasive impact on how we think of heritage in international law, and the conservation paradigm more specifically. The chapter also discusses the implications of sustainability for heritage safeguarding; how environmental considerations, while in and of themselves positive and desirable, can also have the effect of excluding community stakeholders, ultimately compromising their ability to promote sustainable safeguarding of heritage, and, in more extreme cases, the very existence of the heritage they set out to protect. The chapter thus argues that sustainable development, in the heritage context, needs to take communities into account more seriously if it is to effectively pursue its goals.