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. Theprinciples of sustainability provide a basis on the broader issue of culture ineconomic development. They might be capable of specifying a pattern ofdevelopment that is “culturally sustainable” in the same way as somewhat similarset of criteria derived for the natural world, the criteria for defining ecologicallyand environmentally sustainable development. Thus we might accept the principlesof material and non-material advancement, intergenerational and intra-generationalequity, the maintenance of cultural diversity, the precautionary principle, and therecognition of system interdependence as benchmarks in assessing a culturaldevelopment process.