Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development

A view of cultural heritage as a form of capital considers the long term, dynamic, evolutionary, inter-temporal and inter-generational aspects of cultural heritage. The principles of sustainability provide a basis on the broader issue of culture in economic development. They might be capable of specifying a pattern of development that is “culturally sustainable” in the same way as somewhat similar set of criteria derived for the natural world, the criteria for defining ecologically and environmentally sustainable development. Thus we might accept the principles of material and non-material advancement, intergenerational and intra-generational equity, the maintenance of cultural diversity, the precautionary principle, and the recognition of system interdependence as benchmarks in assessing a cultural development process.